Early portraits of African American Activists in the late 19th century
December 26, 2019 9:11 PM   Subscribe

African American women and men assumed civic responsibilities in the decades after the Civil War. William Henry Richards (1856-1941) was active in several organizations that promoted civil rights and civil liberties for African Americans at the end of the nineteenth century, and he collected portraits of numerous fellow activists in the suffrage and temperance movements and in education, journalism and the arts. In honor of women’s history month (in 2017), the U.S. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division staff digitized selected photographs from the collection showing women who were identified by name. These photographs show the women at earlier ages than most portraits previously available of them online. [via Jessamyn on Mltshp]

In alphabetical order, the women are: Note: it appears that the Library of Congress had limited information on dates of births and deaths, so I've updated those years where Wikipiedia articles contain additional or contradictory dates, though I've retained the originally listed names, professions, and avocations.
posted by filthy light thief (3 comments total) 26 users marked this as a favorite
 
These are great photos, too - you get a very vivid and immediate sense of each of them. That photo strip of Brooks and Hackley is wonderful.
posted by LobsterMitten at 10:48 PM on December 26, 2019 [1 favorite]


Fantastic. I'll be sharing this.
posted by droplet at 1:31 PM on December 27, 2019


these are great!
posted by sepviva at 5:10 PM on December 27, 2019


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