2 10 43 https://mirrorofrace.bc.edu/files/original/51f2b51c02ab8b983676c3f4a8b9e866.tif 1d463d119b5adc24e6bfca5c6804b4ab Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Mirror of Race Subject The topic of the resource Mirror of Race Main Collection Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data cabinet card, albumen print Physical Dimensions The actual physical size of the original image cabinet card standard Factual Commentary Factual Commentary While we do not know anything about the identities of the people in this photograph from the latter part of the 19th century, there are some things we can say about it. To begin, this image is of a kind know as a spirit photograph. Such photographs were produced using double exposures and other manipulations of the photographic process to produce an image that seems to include the spirits of those not present or no longer living. There was a craze for spirit photographs in this period, in part because the aura of photography as a scientific process that supposedly captured reality could be used to give a sense of realism to a spirit world. In this particular photograph, the spirits are child and an older Native American man. At the center of the image is a young man in Western clothing, but it is possible that he is a Europeanized Native American himself. Interpretive Commentary Interpretive Commentary This photograph poses numerous puzzles. Who are each of these people? Why has the man in the middle, who seems to be the client of the photographic portrait, chosen to have this spirit photograph made, with an older Native American man and a child as his spirit companions? Is he a Native American himself? Do these represent generations in a family? For a discussion of this image, see the essay "A Spirit Photograph" by Shawn Michelle Smith, on the Mirror of Race website. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Figure074 Title A name given to the resource spirit photograph Subject The topic of the resource unknown Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1890s Type The nature or genre of the resource studio portrait Rights Holder A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource. Greg French Collection Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Unknown Photographer Photographer https://mirrorofrace.bc.edu/files/original/3b28e0ccd3976457631d88aa8541b0ba.tif 0d7e24d1234c41e98c501291bd0fd22c Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Mirror of Race Subject The topic of the resource Mirror of Race Main Collection Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data carte de visite: albumen print Physical Dimensions The actual physical size of the original image cdv standard Factual Commentary Factual Commentary Otto Giers, right, and his father Carl, a German immigrant, documented life in Nashville from 1855 through the early 20th century. Otto Giers became quite successful as a portraitist; compilations of his photographs of Nashville are still in print. This staged amateur theatrical includes a mock hanging of an African American. Note also the man holding a pistol on the man being hanged. Interpretive Commentary Interpretive Commentary Although the violence depicted here seems all in jest, it echoes the very real and widespread use of lynching in post-Civil War America. Lynching served as a form of terrorism to enforce white supremacy well into the 20th century. While such lynchings occurred outside the legal system, that system proved either unwilling or unable to stop them or to prosecute those guilty of murder by lynching. In large part, this was because the white communities involved often supported this activity and would not assist investigations and would not testify or convict the perpetrators in a jury trial. For a powerful photographic history of lynching in the late 19th and 20th centuries, see the book Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America, by James Allen. The Without Sanctuary project also has a website exhibition of its photographs. What this work demonstrates is that for several generations, the extraordinary brutality of lynching was openly embraced by much of society: by the late 19th century, when snapshot cameras became common, onlookers would take photographs that were turned into picture-postcards that they would send to friends and family. Lynchings were therefore a kind of terror as entertainment. For that reason, the image we see here, even although made "in fun," participates in the same discourse where the violent subjugation of Blacks could be seen as a form of amusement. When extraordinary injustice can be seen as funny, that assists in the perpetuation of the injustice, because it means that the community does not take it seriously as the outrage it is. A question worth asking here is, to what extent do fun and play contribute to systems of injustice? In the 19th century, and well into the 20th, when there was no radio or television, amateur theatricals ― in which student, family, and community groups would put on informal (and sometimes quite formal and elaborate) performances ― served as a form of popular entertainment. Such "plays" allowed participants to transgress traditional roles and ordinary behavior, such as we see here: the men playfully dress as woman, while at the same time they playfully hang a Black man. So, does such play undermine the norms, by allowing participants to imagine roles beyond the norm, or does it reinforce those norms by showing how ridiculous it is to imagine things being any other way than they are? Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Figure073 Title A name given to the resource amateur theatrical group Subject The topic of the resource unknown Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource W.G. Thuss, Emil Kollein and Otto Giers (Nashville, Tennessee) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource circa 1880 Type The nature or genre of the resource studio portrait Rights Holder A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource. Greg French Collection https://mirrorofrace.bc.edu/files/original/9aaa9b5e8882f980d4a8284965c458a2.jpg 03b0a0612bc95d8a55212349442a2438 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Mirror of Race Subject The topic of the resource Mirror of Race Main Collection Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data carte de visite: albumen print Physical Dimensions The actual physical size of the original image cdv standard Factual Commentary Factual Commentary Inscribed in period pencil at the top of the back of the card: “Zublia Aggolia, Circassian Lady”; and then along the right side: “H. M. Hill.” H. M. Hill was probably the collector who first bought the card. The printed stamp on reverse of card reads: “Moore Brothers, Opposite Court Square, Springfield, Mass.” This is probably the maker’s mark of Hiram Charles Moore and C. L. Moore. Hiram Moore began his career as an ambrotypist and daguerreotypist in Boston in 1858, moving to Springfield, MA in 1859. Although no further information about Zublia Aggolia in particular has been found, the “Circassian Lady” was a type of performer that became very popular in circuses and sideshows, starting in the 1860s and continuing until around the turn of the century. Based on the style of the carte de visite and the woman’s clothing, we can date this photograph to some time in the 1870s. For further discussion, see the Interpretive Commentary page. For a subsidiary exhibition of people whose bodies challeges the expectations of the period, please follow this link Interpretive Commentary Interpretive Commentary For an analysis of this and similar images, see the article on the Essays page entitled "A Freakish Whiteness: The Circassian Lady as Sideshow Spectacle." Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Figure071 Title A name given to the resource Zublia Aggolia Subject The topic of the resource Zublia Aggolia Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Moore Brothers (American) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1870s Type The nature or genre of the resource studio portrait, commercial/circus performer Rights Holder A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource. Gregory Fried Collection https://mirrorofrace.bc.edu/files/original/f756c8f7d1cffbd3f6dbdbcddcbb743a.tif 6034d18bced7aa7905c750ba534b8738 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Mirror of Race Subject The topic of the resource Mirror of Race Main Collection Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data carte de visite: albumen print Physical Dimensions The actual physical size of the original image cdv standard Factual Commentary Factual Commentary In this double-exposure portrait, Moung Kyau (1841-1883) poses in traditional Burmese clothes on the left and European on the right. Kyau belonged to the Karen people of Burma (modern Myanmar). Moung Kyau converted to Christianity and came to the United States for education as a Baptist minister. Kyau seems to have lived in in Waterville, Maine, before returning with a large group of missionaries to preach in Burma. In Burma, he composed hymns as part of his missionary work, and he later became a schoolteacher. He died of consumption. A double exposure is a photograph produced by exposing the photographic plate or negative twice, so that two separate impressions from the light are made. In this case, the photographer probably covered half of the light-sensitive plate plate while exposing the other half so that Moung could appear twice in the same image. Interpretive Commentary Interpretive Commentary We do not know if it was the photographer’s or Moung Kyau’s idea to produce this unusual double-exposure portrait. What was its intended meaning? Did he seek to show his double identity both as a Burmese man and as a Christian who had understood the ways of the Europeans well enough to dress like a gentleman and earn an education as a missionary? Are we meant to read this image as a progression, from left to right, from “heathen” to Christian? Is this then an example of European colonialism and triumphalism, working through the respectable front of Christian evangelism? Is Kyau a victim of cultural imperialism? But if Kyau had completely rejected his origins, why would he keep his traditional clothes? Did he understand himself as having a double or multiple identity, rather than a divided one? Kyau studied in the eastern United States, after what must have been a very long voyage from Burma, probably supported by the Baptist missionaries who converted him and saw his potential as a preacher to his own people. Asian visitors were not common in the eastern part of the United States at this time (the 1860s), and especially if they were involved in education and religious work, they might well gain some acceptance in white society. Isolated individuals such as Kyau were not perceived as a racial threat and might even gain respect as exotic curiosities or as signs of the global triumph of white Christian civilization. In California, by contrast, where tens of thousands of Asians, mostly Chinese, immigrated for the Gold Rush, their sheer numbers and competition for jobs with whites exposed them to prejudice and abuse. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Figure060 Title A name given to the resource Moung Kyau Subject The topic of the resource Moung Kyau Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource circa 1865 Type The nature or genre of the resource studio portrait Rights Holder A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource. Greg French Collection Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Unknown Photographer Photographer https://mirrorofrace.bc.edu/files/original/b2b81750a225e4eebf85943015ef6878.jpg 08470e64f146c9028ea990692613e96a Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Mirror of Race Subject The topic of the resource Mirror of Race Main Collection Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data carte de visite: albumen print Physical Dimensions The actual physical size of the original image cdv standard Factual Commentary Factual Commentary The penned inscription on this photograph reads “Tonquaways of Texas,” and it dates from around 1865. The two men, at this point unidentified, each pose with a bow and a single arrow. They wear a combination of tribal and Western clothing. “Tonquaway” is a 19th spelling for the Tonkawa tribe, which once roamed the region that is now Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico. In 1884, the US government forcibly gathered and relocated the Tonkawas, finally settling them in Oakland, Oklahoma in 1885. That this image identifies the two men as “Tonquaways of Texas” is further evidence, apart from the photographic style of the print and mounting, that this image dates from a time before their expulsion from Texas. The Tonkawa have endured, despite their version of the Trail of Tears. According to the official website of the Tonkawa tribe, the Waco (Wichita) name for the Tonkawa is “Tonkaweya,” which means “They All Stay Together,” and the Tonkawa’s own name for themselves is “Tickanwa•tic,” which means “Real People.” Interpretive Commentary Interpretive Commentary In the case of photographs of Native Americans from the 19th century, it is always worth asking if they have full agency in the representation of themselves in any given image. So, for example, in this photograph of the two Tonkawa men, we can ask: For whom was this image made? It is a carte de visite, which means it was printed from a glass plate negatives, and so many copies could have been made by the photographer. The fact that it bears the title “Tonquaways of Texas” indicates that the images was indeed printed for a clientele other than these two men, who would not need this label. As such, it was probably sold to white patrons of the photographer as a quasi-ethnographic souvenir. But even if that were the case, photographic images such as this, especially quite early ones, provide important and rare evidence about the lives and cultures of Native peoples. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Figure057 Title A name given to the resource “Tonquaways of Texas” Subject The topic of the resource unknown Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource circa 1865 Type The nature or genre of the resource studio portrait Rights Holder A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource. Greg French Collection Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Unknown Photographer Photographer https://mirrorofrace.bc.edu/files/original/7e12fbd5a90defef50d7299f709bd0f3.jpg 24d75037158eadbb8221263e87315ea8 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Mirror of Race Subject The topic of the resource Mirror of Race Main Collection Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data tintype Physical Dimensions The actual physical size of the original image Half Plate (4.25 x 5.5 inches) Factual Commentary Factual Commentary This tintype dates from around 1875. It shows three white women in elegant expensive clothes, posed in an oxcart, with a black man leaning up against the cart. The woman at the right holds the whip and reins. The scene is late fall, winter, or very early spring, in a semi-rural setting, with indistinct houses in the background. We know nothing more about who these people were or where this was. Interpretive Commentary Interpretive Commentary There is a bit of a puzzle to this image. If the woman on the right is holding the whip and reins, what is the role of the African American man in the photography? Only he faces our direction, but even he does not seem to meet our gaze. The whole composition seems a study in alienation. The three women do not interact at all, despite their proximity to one another: the one at the back looks down, the one in the middle looks off to the left, and the one with the whip and reins stares forward, as if ready to drive. Perhaps the whole composition was meant as a little joke: that this rich, elegant woman would herself drive the oxcart, the most humble form of transportation, one step above a child’s goat cart. If so, then the black man would have been the real driver, who has stepped off for a moment for the photograph to be taken, but who stays in place just to be sure there is no mishap. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Figure044 Title A name given to the resource ox cart Subject The topic of the resource unknown Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource circa 1875 Type The nature or genre of the resource outdoor scene Rights Holder A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource. Greg French Collection Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Unknown Photographer Photographer https://mirrorofrace.bc.edu/files/original/07bdcfb10554e5e8137cff2c2ef8f91e.tif 248a1fe60b2ebfb2a22f655abe3ccf02 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Mirror of Race Subject The topic of the resource Mirror of Race Main Collection Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data tintype Physical Dimensions The actual physical size of the original image Half Plate (4.25 x 5.5 inches) Factual Commentary Factual Commentary The African American man in the center of this photograph holds a large Remington revolver, probably of Civil War vintage, although this image is from later in the century. Unfortunately, we know nothing more about the identities of these men or the circumstances of the photograph. Interpretive Commentary Interpretive Commentary This enigmatic photograph raises many questions. What are these three white men doing with the one black man? Why is the African American man displaying a revolver, and why is he the only one armed, a reversal of the usual power dynamic between the races in the period? The white men seem to be friendly with the black one ― the man at the right with a cigar smiles broadly and has his arm over the the central figure’s shoulder, and he seems to be smiling, too. But there is also something menacing about the pose: the white men surround and hem in the black man, and the man at the right seems more to be leering than embracing him. Perhaps the joke is a cruel one: a sarcastic reversal of the power dynamic that is just that ― a joke. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Figure041 Title A name given to the resource four men and a revolver Subject The topic of the resource unknown Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource circa 1885 Type The nature or genre of the resource studio portrait Rights Holder A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource. Greg French Collection Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Unknown Photographer Photographer https://mirrorofrace.bc.edu/files/original/37155faf5d6d2a6fc7737f90a6f1aa7c.tif 589f4e0b92263015d46a1ad2aa430b39 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Mirror of Race Subject The topic of the resource Mirror of Race Main Collection Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data carte de visite: albumen print Physical Dimensions The actual physical size of the original image cdv standard Factual Commentary Factual Commentary We do not know who the child or the woman in this photograph were, or where it was taken; however, the woman wears traditional Chinese clothing. Tens of thousands of Chinese immigrated to the United States after the Gold Rush to California of the late 1840s. It is likely that a white family employed this woman as a minder for their child. Interpretive Commentary Interpretive Commentary One of the ways that the races of the 19th century mixed most closely was in the domestic world of child care. For rich white families, it was a mark of status and success to be able to employ a person of another race as a domestic servant, for this both declared their wealth and served as a way to distinguish whiteness from the supposedly inferior social groups. And yet the intimacy of child care must have compromised this sense of distinctness and separation in many ways. The woman in this photograph seems austere, but she carefully holds the tiny, fragile toddler in her pose perched on a table, and the child seems to lean in to the woman for protection and support in what might well have been a fighting experience of staying still for the camera. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Figure034 Title A name given to the resource child on table with woman Subject The topic of the resource unknown Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource circa 1865 Type The nature or genre of the resource studio portrait Rights Holder A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource. Greg French Collection Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Unknown Photographer Photographer https://mirrorofrace.bc.edu/files/original/0956da653820c814bd080630f691bec7.tif 6147d41bd1db0c600220a3fd43cb26b6 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Mirror of Race Subject The topic of the resource Mirror of Race Main Collection Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data carte de visite: albumen print Physical Dimensions The actual physical size of the original image cdv standard Factual Commentary Factual Commentary This photograph shows Wilson Chinn, a former enslaved person, displaying implements of bondage and punishment used against slaves such as he had been. The image is one of a series of photographs produced in 1863 to lend moral support to the Union cause in the Civil War and to raise funds for schools for African Americans in the occupied Confederate territories. Chinn and seven other former slaves, both adults and children, came north for a publicity tour, accompanied by an officer from one of the newly formed regiments of African American soldiers. Chinn had been enslaved to a man named Volsey B. Marmillion, who ran a sugar plantation near New Orleans. Marmillion had the habit of branding his slaves with his initials, VBM, and this can be seen on Chinn’s forehead here ― the brand is retouched on the photography’s negatives, as it must have been hard to see (click on the image to the left for a close-up). The spiked collar would prevent a person from lying down, the leg iron would prevent running, and the perforated paddle on the floor was for beatings. The caption of this photograph reads in part: “Wilson Chinn, a branded slave from Louisiana; also exhibiting instruments of torture used to punish slaves. Photographed by Kimball, 477 Broadway, N. Y. Ent’d accord’g to act of Congress in the year 1863...” Text printed on the reverse of the card reads: “The proceeds from the sale of these Photographs will be devoted exclusively to the education of colored people in the Department of the Gulf, now under the command of Major-General Banks.” The back is also stamped: “All Orders Must Be Addressed to H. N. Bent, 1 Mercer St., N. Y.” See the enlarged illustration below. Interpretive Commentary Interpretive Commentary The series of photographs of emancipated slaves to which this one of Wilson Chinn belongs (see here for more in the series) constitutes one of the first times that mass-produced photography was used as propaganda in a campaign for a political goal. Is it fair to ask if Chinn and the other former slaves, including five children, were once again being exploited by this posing of them for the camera? Or is it more likely that having endured and escaped slavery, they were perfectly willing to lend their visible forms to this publicity campaign? If so, these photographs would embody their agency as an expression of their new-found freedom. So then would it be right to call this photograph a portrait of Wilson Chinn, in the way it is hard to call portraits the daguerreotypes of Delia, forced into the photographer’s studio to serve as an illustration for a scientific theory, or the unnamed Richards family slave? They both had no agency in how they appeared for the camera, and a “portrait” usually implies the person portrayed has some choice in how she or he is to be portrayed. Yet we also speak of “taking” someone’s portrait, and so there is a sense that we might capture the essence of a person without their knowing or against their will, as often happens in photojournalism. Would Chinn or the other emancipated slaves from New Orleans freely choose to show themselves in this way, for example in chains, as we see Chinn, if they wanted to make a portrait of themselves? Or would Chinn, like Frederick Douglass telling the story of his slavery and freedom, understand this kind of portrayal as what would in fact best tell the story of who he was and hoped to be? Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Figure033 Title A name given to the resource Wilson Chinn Subject The topic of the resource Wilson Chinn Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1863 Type The nature or genre of the resource studio portrait, social-political Rights Holder A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource. Greg French Collection Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kimball (dates Unknown Photographer Photographer) https://mirrorofrace.bc.edu/files/original/31e2d28cac73c6b07c67abc43205a0cf.tif 1b4087648cf46ca4a6000b8e214733de Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Mirror of Race Subject The topic of the resource Mirror of Race Main Collection Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data carte de visite: albumen print Physical Dimensions The actual physical size of the original image cdv standard Factual Commentary Factual Commentary This photograph depicts two young African American men in rags. They are almost certainly “contrabands,” a name given to enslaved people who escaped from their masters once the Civil War broke out and sought refuge with the Union forces in Confederate territory. It is likely that they were photographed by an itinerant photographer at a Union army camp. Someone (almost certainly the person who purchased this image) has written on the mat in pencil: “All men are created equal” ― quoting in part perhaps the most famous line from the Declaration of Independence, namely that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” On the back of card (see an enlarged illustration below), the same person goes on to write: “This is not exagerated [sic] in the least - : not one out of ten of the niggers here, who have run away from their masters (and there are thousands of them) can boast of such good clothes. Shove them into the army, I say, and let them do the fighting in this hot Department.” Given the mention “this hot Department,” which means an occupied territory of the Confederacy where considerable combat was still taking place, it was probably a solder who bought this photograph from a camp sutler (a merchant who would travel with an army to sell goods to the soldiers). He seems to have then sent it by mail, with the message inscribed on the photograph, to a friend or family member. Interpretive Commentary Interpretive Commentary This image captures two faces of white America’s relationship to race. Literally on the face, the front, of the image the writer has given the photograph his own caption: “All men are created equal.” This seems to be an expression of America’s highest ideals of equality and justice: even these to young men ― forced to live in slavery, reduced to wearing rags ― deserve to share in the equality owed by right to “all men.” The expression seem to validate the Union cause in the Civil War as a fight for those ideals: to uphold universal equality and to end the injustice of slavery. And yet, on the hidden face of the image, its back, its underside, the writer seems to speak his mind more freely. He call the escaped slaves “niggers” and seems to despise them for their condition, almost as if he were contaminated by how many of them (“thousands”) were flooding the area of Union army control. Still, despite the evident contempt, there is perhaps a ray of hope. Many whites resisted giving black men the right to fight in the war. To allow them to fight as soldiers would be to grant them an equal status to the white men as men who were up to the responsibility of facing death to preserve their liberty. Despite the coarse, even crude language this writer uses, and despite his willingness to see African Americans put in harm’s way, at least he accepts that they should have the opportunity to fight, to exchange the rags for a soldier’s uniform, and thereby to share in a common cause. Perhaps without fully realizing it, he was accepting the position of abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass that African Americans must be given the opportunity to prove themselves ready to face death to live free and to fight for the freedom of others. For a discussion of African American soldiers in the Civil War, see Erina Duganne’s essay on this site, “Black Civil War Portraiture in Context.” For portraits of black men who did get that chance to serve as soldiers in the Civil War, see this one of an anonymous private in the famed 54th Massachusetts and this one of James Trotter, a former slave who rose to officer rank and went went on to become a civil servant and author. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Figure032 Title A name given to the resource "All men are created equal" Subject The topic of the resource unknown Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource circa 1863 Type The nature or genre of the resource studio portrait (probably itinerant setting), commercial Rights Holder A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource. Greg French Collection Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Unknown Photographer Photographer