HoB_ABCs

Title The Farmyard Alphabet

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Brief description Alphabet book with chromolithographic illustrations depicting different aspects of farm life and work.

Full description The Farm Yard Alphabet juxtaposes the alphabet and simple vocabulary words limited to the realm of farm work with hand colored illustrations of people engaged in labor. Children are almost entirely absent from the illustrations as are images of family life and social interaction. Only the alphabet and accompanying vocabulary words are provided, syllables, parts of speech and sentence structures are not a part of the book. Produced as a part of a larger series of inexpensive, illustrated books for children that also included fairy tales and other children's stories, the quality expresses the developments in both printing technologies and publishing infrastructures.

Literacy The alphabet is presented here with upper and lowercase letters accompanied by a word which is then illustrated. The letters and the illustration are separated, forcing the child to make the identification between image and text themselves and sometimes requiring them to turn the page in order to find the correct illustration.

Childhood Each person depicted in these illustrations is at work; their demeanor is solemn and they are focused on the task at hand. Very few of the illustrations show children, in fact only twice do children appear. Once in the illustration for "E Egg" in which a determined girl gathers eggs into a bowl and in "M Maying" in which a girl helps her mother gather flowers. In this sense, the notion of childhood is defined by its absence. During this time period, education is in the process of becoming both standardized and universal, the children are not all toiling away at hard labor.

Iconography The majority of the illustrations are focused on people in a state of work. They are shown as extremely serious, exhausted and determined: the farmyard is not a joyous place. The hand coloring in the illustrations inserts an ethereal, wispy quality to the scenes, idealizing the countryside itself if not the work at hand. In contrast to these depictions, there is one panel "Qq quoits" which shows a group of men engaged in play. The word and illustration accompanying X is of note, "Xx ale," the illustration shows a man painting Xs, here recognized as the symbol of poison onto barrels of ale. The temperance movement was active throughout Victorian England, often identifying social ills with the drinking habits of working class men. Directly after X we have "Yy yeoman," which is our only representation of someone of a higher economic and social status in this alphabet book. The yeoman is well dressed, in a top hat and confidently astride a white horse. His stance is observational rather than of a person preparing to work. While children are relatively absent from both text and illustrations, the world being constructed is directed at them. These illustrations provide a roadmap for understanding the realities of farm work as well as class divisions and social commentary.

Production This book was published in 1865 by George Routledge and Co. Founded in 1851 by George Routledge with the help of his brother, this publishing company still exists today and has undergone a number of transformations during its tenure. Through the latter half of the 19th century it capitalized on a wide variety of popular illustrated fiction as well as some travel books and reference titles. This particular book is a part of their Threepenny Toy Books series. These included other such popular titles as Mother Goose, Tom Thumb, Three Bears and The Cats' Tea Party. These particular books were printed by Kronheim and Co. famous for their use of the baxter process in printing. The baxter process used zinc instead of wood which greatly reduced the time it took to create prints, but the product had a less refined finish.