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Figure 7

Citation

Unknown Photographer Photographer photographer. “Two women with Statue of Liberty backdrop.” Date: circa late 1880s to 1890s. Greg French Collection. Mirror of Race, 22 Jan. 2021, mirrorofrace.bc.edu/items/show/106. Accessed 21 Nov. 2024.

Title

Two women with Statue of Liberty backdrop

Subject

Two women with Statue of Liberty backdro

Creator

Unknown Photographer Photographer photographer

Date

Date: circa late 1880s to 1890s

Type

Studio Portrait

Identifier

Figure 7

Rights Holder

Greg French Collection

Original Format

Tintype

Factual Commentary

The Statue of Liberty was erected in 1886 in New York’s harbor. With its place close by Ellis Island, a processing center for immigrant arrivals, it became a symbol of the the hope those immigrants brought with them to America. Here, two African American women pose before a photographer’s painted backdrop of the Statue. Blacks have been coming to America for centuries, but for most over that time, their coming was not a free choice — it was brutally coerced. Yet in this image, there is a glint of hope that there might be a new and freely chosen arrival, even for African Americans already long here, in an America more truly open to all comers.