There are some images so thoroughly American that it makes you feel good just to look at them. Such is the comfort level inspired by Currier & Ives prints. Their romanticized illustrations of Nineteenth Century life have so well branded America that they still show up on everything from waiting room walls to the label of a venerable old whiskey bottle.

Seemingly, that is the way Nathanial Currier – a tall, blue-eyed man with a tendency toward depression and a gift for lithography – and James Merritt Ives – a rotund and jovial businessman – planned it when they set out to become “printers to the people.”

Although their business spanned a half century, 1852 to 1904, during which time the firm produced and sold 7,500 iconic images in an unknown quantity of editions, there was, until recently, no museum with a permanent collection of Currier & Ives work.

That slight was made right when the Museum of Fine Arts unveiled “Currier & Ives: An Americana Panorama.” The show, which is currently on view through June 4, launches a series of rotating exhibitions designed to display the museum’s entire collection of more than 700 items, a gift of Sidney and Lenore Alpert of Silver Spring, Md.

Heather Haskell, director of the Springfield Museums, a group of four small interrelated museums, and Liz Sommer, curator, talked about the magic that keeps Currier & Ives alive, even in a world grown sophisticated.

“Their United States is a place where the farmland is bountiful, where families are happy, where the cities look beautiful, and where any challenges are faced head-on and are overcome. It’s an America that everyone wants to believe in,” Sommer said.

While soft colors imbue the prints with an ethereal quality, they also help articulate every aspect of life in the Nineteenth Century.

“Central Park. Winter. The Skating Carnival,” undated. Prosperous and protected by labor laws, the middle class engages in wintertime fun.

Historically, through their firm’s prints, Currier and Ivesrecounted the birth of a nation and recorded the events of thetumultuous decades during which the Civil War raged, the AmericanWest was populated and the industrial revolution flourished. Liketelevision news anchors today, they fed the news-hungry with imagesof disasters, shipwrecks at sea and conflagration in crowdedcities. As volunteer firefighters themselves, they were the firstto elevate the heroics of firefighters.

“The Leaders,” 1888, depicts Jay Eye See, Maud and St Julien in a nose-to-nose finish; one tenth of a second separated the victor.

They also praised family values, provided role models forwives and mothers and captured people’s aspirations and success. Inshort, Currier & Ives created a visual history of America’sjourney from fledgling nation to world power.

But before the pair begat a wholesome American self-image, Currier won fame documenting disaster. His first big break came in 1835 when he published “Ruins of the Planters Hotel, New Orleans which fell at two O’clock on the Morning of the 15th of May 1835, burying 50 persons, 40 of whom Escaped with their Lives.” The litho made it possible for people to “see” details of the catastrophe at a time when newspapers were print only. Currier’s financial success was assured in 1840 when the New York Sun published the first litho in newspaper history. It was the sinking of the Lexington. According to reports, the presses ran day and night to fill the demand.

By the time Ives joined the firm, the year was 1852. Ives, a self-taught artist, signed on as a bookkeeper, but took such keen interest in the business that Currier made him a full partner in 1857.

By 1869, Currier & Ives had so molded the American perspective that the Martha Stewarts of the day, Catherine Ester Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe, wrote in American Women’s Home, “the great value of pictures for the home would be, after all, in their sentiment. They should express the sincere ideas and tastes of the household and not the tyrannical dictates of some art critic or neighbor.”

In other words, buy what you like. And who could resist images that flattered the hardworking and rounded off life’s sharp edges? Images that were all this and cheap, to boot. A few pennies scraped from the household cookie jar could result in the acquisition of a print that, prior to Currier & Ives’ lithographic mass production techniques, was essentially the domain of the wealthy.

The partners not only leveled the playing field for art, they created an industry that supported numerous artists and craftspeople.

“What is so wonderful,” Haskell said, “is how the Currier & Ives story integrates into the story of Nineteenth Century American art.”

“Preparing for Market,” 1856. How easy it is to live off of the land appears to be the idealized message here.

According to Sommer, “Currier & Ives employed some of thefinest artists of the day. Eastman Johnson did a painting for theprint ‘Husking,’ which is very famous. And they often based printson paintings by well known artists,” (i.e., a stone artist wouldcopy the artwork in crayon onto a litho stone from which dozens ofprints were pulled). Among the name artists that worked for Currier& Ives were George Innes of the Hudson River School, GeorgeHenry Durrie, the New England winter scene painter, and ArthurFitzwilliam Tait, the Western and sports artist.

One of the firm’s most prolific artists was Frances Flora Palmer. Ironically, this wife, mother and passionate fisherwoman was responsible for a large number of the company’s landscapes, even though only a few bear her name. “She was one of the few women of the 1800s to support herself and her family with her art,” Sommer added.

The curator went on to describe the process by which the firm was able to print in quantity and maintain quality. “They developed a sort of assembly line process where the lithographs were printed and then each print was taken home to be hand colored, usually by German female immigrants with an art background. One person would color the sky and then bring it back in the morning. Another person would color the trees, and so forth down the line. And then, at the end there would be a sort of master artist who would color check these prints and make sure they were acceptable to go out to market.”

If lithography was Currier’s forte, Ives may arguably have been the first true marketing genius. Ives allowed door-to-door peddlers to pick up in the morning and return in the evening with the day’s take and any unsold prints. He sold uncolored lithos to dealers, complete with paint by number instructions. But his most visionary tactic was the mail-order catalog that made the Currier & Ives inventory available across the states. As a result, some prints bear catalog reference numbers.

“Husking,” 1861. This tour de force of detail was drawn by Eastman Johnson.

“The big sales push would have been in the 60s and 70s,”Sommer stated. “Currier & Ives depicted the Civil War in greatdetail.” Among these images is “General Andrew Jackson at NewOrleans,” undated, and “The Soldier’s Grave,” 1865. These severeimages were offset by poignant and lighthearted offerings like theportrait of a youngster in paper hat and uniform titled “LightArtillery,” 1863.

“They were very active in the 70s as well, documenting the postwar boom, Victorian culture and so forth,” Sommer added.

“Moving westward,” Haskell interjected, “Currier & Ives advocated a positive view of expansion, of the beauty of the land, of the bounty, the really positive aspects.” Exemplifying this theme are “The Trapper’s Defense,” 1862, and “Home in the Wilderness,” 1870.

“For the people living in crowded cities,” the director continued, “this was a way to live vicariously, thinking that these wide-open spaces didn’t have any challenges. And if there were challenges, certainly the white man and the frontiersmen were able to persevere.”

The 1880s and 1890s marked yet another shift in focus. Prints of this period tend to be more sociological in approach. They celebrate personal wealth, with images like “The Skating Carnival,” a picture that silently references the labor laws that made leisure time a reality.

The same decade saw a rise in yachting. Currier & Ives promoted it in a series of lithos of great ocean going racers, exemplified by “The Race for the Queen’s Cup,” undated. Horseracing, too, made its debut as a pastime, as was documented in “The Champion Trotting Stallion Nelson,” 1891. Hunting became a popular theme that featured gentlemen sportsmen out for the day, their status underscored by brand new country homes in the background.

It seems to be a universal theme that city-dwellers dream of a home in the country. Currier & Ives produced some 50 images of houses. Among them, “Home Sweet Home,” 1869, and “American Homestead, Winter,” 1868. Despite their locale, “most of the houses tend to mirror the New England aesthetic – white, two stories, set in a lovely landscape,” Sommer said.

In selecting images to produce, Currier & Ives generally did not print a piece unless they thought it would sell at least 100 copies. Stones that were top-sellers were numbered and saved for later printings. (Subsequent editions often incorporate a revision, or a date.) If a print proved to be extremely popular, Currier ordered several stones ground and printed.

“Midnight Race on the Mississippi,” 1875. Steamboats, elegant and fast, in face off on the river, showcase the rise of technology.

Conversely, if a print flopped, Currier recycled, using theverso of the image for another printing. Among these is a raretwo-sided image with “Clipper Ship Sweepstakes,” 1853, on one sideand the highly popular “Maple Sugaring,” 1856, on the other. Thedouble-sided print is on view at the Springfield exhibition.

Always ones to give Americans what they wanted, Currier & Ives changed content as needed. “For instance,” Haskell mused, “the print of George Washington holding a goblet of wine was not well received, especially by the temperance women, so Currier & Ives changed it. With the bottle of wine removed, the print sold much better.”

Such was the brilliance of Currier & Ives. It is a backstory that does not bleed through the pristine images that captured America’s fancy and gave it a sense of identity. Currier & Ives prints are a part of American heritage. They inspire and educate – and that is the goal of the exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts in Springfield.

The Museum of Fine Arts is at the Quadrangle on Edwards Street off Chestnut. For information, 413-263-6800 or www.springfieldmuseums.org.