Figure034

Citation

Unknown Photographer Photographer. “child on table with woman.” circa 1865. Greg French Collection. Mirror of Race, 11 Feb. 2021, mirrorofrace.bc.edu/items/show/260. Accessed 30 Apr. 2024.

Title

child on table with woman

Subject

unknown

Creator

Unknown Photographer Photographer

Date

circa 1865

Type

studio portrait

Identifier

Figure034

Rights Holder

Greg French Collection

Original Format

carte de visite: albumen print

Physical Dimensions

cdv standard

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

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.

Alternative Title

Collection

Mirror of Race