18thVirginia
Major
- Joined
- Sep 8, 2012
In 1863, the Union military (specifically the Department of the Gulf under Maj. Gen. N.P. Banks) the American Missionary Association, and the National Freedmen’s Relief Association cooperated in a joint effort to provide funds for schools for freed slave children in Louisiana. To this end, they arranged for a series of photographs of slave children from New Orleans with 'white' features and tours with these children. A new photographic medium, cartes de visites, allowed images of the children to be sold both as a fundraising device and to buoy up support for the ongoing war.
To appeal to the white middle class in the North, the children were photographed as in typical middle class family portraits. Although several of the children were age 6 or 7, the one of whom most cdvs have survived is Rebecca Huger, a young New Orleanian of about age 11. Rebecca was photographed in numerous poses and clothes and most of the photographs with several children include Rebecca.
Harper's Weekly wrote about Rebecca “to all appearance, she is perfectly white. Her complexion, hair, and features show not the slightest trace of negro blood.”
To appeal to the white middle class in the North, the children were photographed as in typical middle class family portraits. Although several of the children were age 6 or 7, the one of whom most cdvs have survived is Rebecca Huger, a young New Orleanian of about age 11. Rebecca was photographed in numerous poses and clothes and most of the photographs with several children include Rebecca.
Harper's Weekly wrote about Rebecca “to all appearance, she is perfectly white. Her complexion, hair, and features show not the slightest trace of negro blood.”