Penfield's poster for The Last of the Knickerbockers, a literary work set against the shifting social order of New York City. The "Knickerbockers" were the old Dutch-descended families who had dominated New York society before the rise of new industrial wealth.

Historical context

The term "Knickerbocker" referred to the original Dutch settler families of New York (the Roosevelts, the Van Rensselaers, the Stuyvesants) and more broadly to the old-money Protestant establishment that had controlled the city's social and political life since colonial times. By the 1890s, this old guard was being displaced by new-money industrialists (the Vanderbilts, the Astors, the Carnegies), and the tension between old and new wealth was a recurring theme in American fiction.

Penfield's poster promotes a book that explores this social transition. The title's elegiac tone ("The Last of") suggests nostalgia for a disappearing social order, a sentiment that would have resonated with Harper's readership, many of whom identified with the established classes rather than the new-money arrivals.

About Edward Penfield (1866–1925)

Often called the father of the American poster, Penfield served as art director of Harper's Magazine from 1890 to 1901, producing over 100 cover designs during that period. His style drew on Japanese woodblock printing and the French affiche tradition: flat areas of colour, bold outlines, and minimal detail. He became one of the most recognised illustrators of the American Art Nouveau movement, and his wartime posters remain some of the most widely studied examples of early 20th-century graphic propaganda.

This fine art reproduction is printed on museum-grade stock, faithful to the original's bold colours and graphic simplicity.