Figure031

Citation

Kimball (dates Unknown Photographer Photographer). “Isaac and Rosa.” 1863. Greg French Collection. Mirror of Race, 11 Feb. 2021, mirrorofrace.bc.edu/items/show/257. Accessed 6 Feb. 2025.

Title

Isaac and Rosa

Subject

Isaac and Rosa

Creator

Kimball (dates Unknown Photographer Photographer)

Date

1863

Type

studio portrait, social-political

Identifier

Figure031

Rights Holder

Greg French Collection

Original Format

carte de visite: albumen print

Physical Dimensions

cdv standard

Factual Commentary

The caption on this photograph reads in part: “ISAAC and ROSA, Emancipated slave Children, from the Free Schools of Louisiana. Photographed by Kimball, 477 Broadway, N. Y. Ent’d accord’g to act of Congress in the year 1863...”Printed text on the back 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.”

This portrait forms part of a series of portraits of a group of former slaves who toured in the North during the Civil War. They were photographed and featured in newspaper articles to bolster support for the war and to raise funds for schools and other support for emancipated slaves.

Interpretive Commentary

This image, as well as the others in the series of photographs of emancipated slaves who toured the North during the Civil War, raise questions about the use of photography as a means of persuasion. These images are a very early example of photography employed as propaganda. As prints from glass plate negatives, they could be reproduced and distributed widely. But what role did the subjects of these portraits play in this process? Did they choose freely to engage in it, or was this a new form of exploitation? What about the use of children? Did they participate willingly in the long studio sessions? Were they paid? Furthermore, the photographs often employ children who look very white, some of whom could certainly pass for white. Several of the captions explicitly refer to this. Were the makers trying to shock the Northern audience and get them to see the arbitrariness of the color line, or was this a further form of exploitation, using the viewers' identification with their own whiteness to sympathize with the subjects of the photographs?

For essays that address these and related themes on the Mirror of Race website, see "'As White as their Masters': Visualizing the Color Line", by Carol Goodman and "A White Slave Girl: "Mulatto Raised by Charles Sumner'", by Joan Gage.

Alternative Title

Collection

Mirror of Race