Eliza Middleton,

1847

This plate came from the studio of John Plumbe Jr., one of the earliest American daguerreotypists. The name Eliza Middleton, inscribed in pencil on the leather case, provides the name of the female sitter, who adopts a pose of contemplation and is finely attired, with multiple pieces of jewelry brought to life by hand-coloring. By the 1840s, Boston was home to a large African American community, whose roots date back to the Revolutionary era, and Eliza Middleton was likely one of the roughly two thousand free people of color in Boston. Because early photographs of African Americans are rare, and those that survive tend to depict enslaved people, this object serves as an important historical and cultural relic.<br>