Stereograph of Composition of 224. Picking Cotton

<p>These photographs, taken after the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, were produced primarily for a white audience interested in the lives of liberated African Americans. Clearly staging his subjects, the anonymous photographer created images that imagine Black freedom through visual motifs similar to those used to depict enslaved people. These prints are chillingly reminiscent of life before emancipation, with <em>Family on porch, mother breastfeeding</em> and <em>Negro Cabin</em> both similar to photographs of plantation life, glossing over the raw reality of hardship etched in the subjects’ solemn faces and tattered clothing. Meanwhile, <em>Stereograph of Composition of 224</em> depicts African American sharecroppers picking cotton. Sharecropping kept Black families indebted for generations to white landowning families. It was a precarious economic<br>existence, exacerbated by high interest rates, unpredictable harvests, and harsh working conditions. Despite promises of change, in these photographs progress appears to be a distant dream.</p><p><strong><em>Natalie Bahrami, Class of 2021</em></strong><br></p>