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Description
Dog owners in early Philadelphia could restrain or identify their canine companions in many ways, but after 1800 hardware merchants steadily advertised imported brass dog collars. Winterthur’s collection also includes one engraved with the couplet: "Pray kind people let me jog, For I am Josiah Smith's good Dog." As explored in Katherine Grier’s book, Pets in America: A History (2007) Americans’ co-existence with animals is an under-explored social history. This dog collar illumines some of those relationships. It has an adjustable size, thus it may have been imported rather than made locally to fit a specific dog. In fact, a succession of large dogs could have worn it. The engraved script omits a dog’s name, but holds information about its human history: the owner’s name and an address to return an errant dog. Made in a generation before licenses were required, the dog wearing this collar was assured some protection and accountability for its actions by the owner. The collar was very likely engraved for Israel Wistar Morris, Sr. who owned several commercial properties in Philadelphia, including a shop on the East side of 2nd Street (with Jacob P. Jones) and five side-by-side brick dwelling houses on 16th Street by the 1840s. He was a successful international merchant, participating with other family members in the China trade as well as in real estate and stock investments. The collar’s address refers to a multi-story brick building at 65 South Second Street that may have belonged to Morris. While this building was not a steady residence for family members, it held businesses occupying the street level and leased rooms in upper stories. It is tempting to hypothesize that a dog wearing this brass collar in the early decades of the 1800s was an urban working animal, guarding the premises rather than having the status of family pet. As such, the collar seems a remarkable survival and a marker of the labor and service of dogs in urban spaces.