Albumen CDV portrait of Sojourner Truth. Michigan, 1864. Mount recto printed: "I Sell the Shadow to Support the Substance. / Sojourner Truth." Signed "S" to verso alongside copyright statement. 

SIGNED TO THE VERSO BY SOJOURNER TRUTH. 

Born into enslavement in 1797, Truth was able to attain emancipation in 1827 by running away and seeking aid from the abolitionist Van Wagener family. Moving to New York City in 1828, she worked for a minister and became involved in religious revivals by the 1830s. After meeting William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass, she used her considerable talents as a charismatic orator to speak on the evils of slavery, while also championing women's rights and the temperance movement.

She never learned to read or write, dictating her correspondence and autobiography, published in 1850. As a result, few instances of Truth's handwriting or autograph are extant. The shaky "S" inscribed to the verso of this portrait is remarkably distinct and bears notable hallmarks to other known examples.

An important Sojourner Truth signed carte de visite. 

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