Wooden trunk with hinged locking lid, 37 x 18 x 17 1/2 in. Lined with multiple copies of Democracy Triumphant! illustrated letterpress broadside. [Pennsylvania, ca. 1834].

A mid‑19th‑century trunk whose interior is lined with numerous c. 1834 broadsides celebrating “Democracy Triumphant” for the Jacksonian Michael W. Ash; the sheets proclaim his election to Congress and announce a meeting of the “Friends of Michael W. Ash…Held at the Democratic Headquarters.” The Jacksonian movement of the 1830s styled itself the voice of the “common man,” advancing popular democracy and opposition to entrenched elites and drawing support from farmers, artisans, and wage earners.

That these broadsides survive not as preserved souvenirs but as practical trunk lining is fitting: cheap political print circulated widely among ordinary households and was repurposed in everyday life. The object thus offers material proof of Jacksonian populism’s reach, with its rhetoric literally embedded in a common domestic item.

Michael Woolston Ash (1789–1858) was a Jacksonian Democrat who represented Pennsylvania’s 3rd congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1835 to 1837. A Philadelphia lawyer admitted to the bar in 1811, he partnered with future President James Buchanan before entering public life. Ash served as an officer in the First Pennsylvania Militia Volunteers, “Biddle’s Rifles," during the War of 1812, and later resumed his law practice following his single term in Congress. He subsequently held the post of United States Naval agent.

Note: This lot cannot be packaged and shipped in-house. Successful bidders winning items marked as being packaged and shipped by a third-party service are responsible for paying the third party directly. We are happy to offer complimentary drop-off service to local third-party packing/shipping companies in Columbus, Ohio.

[Politics] [Broadsides, Ephemera, Printing, Posters, Handbills, Documents, Newspapers]