A Slave Girl From New Orleans. Full-length studio portrait of Rebecca with mirror. Albumen CDV. New York: Chas. Paxson, n.d. Titled and captioned to mount recto. Publisher’s imprint, copyright statement, and charity statement printed to mount verso.

A desirable carte de visite photograph issued in the aftermath of the Emancipation Proclamation in New Orleans. The city had been captured during 1863, and with the Proclamation, northern missionaries and educators descended on the city to immediately begin schools for the young "contraband." 

The verso reads: "The net proceeds from the sale of these Photographs will be devoted to the education of Colored People in the department of the Gulf, now under command of Maj. Gen'l Banks."

This portrait, and other similar images, were produced by abolitionists as a way to raise money for “the education of colored people in the Department of the Gulf," which was, for a time, under the command of Union General Nathaniel P. Banks during the war. The decision to photograph light-skinned children was a deliberate choice, meant to stir the passions of white Americans undecided on the question of slavery. The intentional erasure of Black features and staging them in well-to-do domestic scenes suggested to viewers that through education, freed slaves could integrate seamlessly into existing white American society and culture. 

An unusual and rarely seen view of Rebecca seated next to an ornate mirror with her profile visible to the viewer. 

[Civil War, Union, Confederate] [Photography, Early Photography, Historic Photography, Daguerreotypes, Ambrotypes, Tintypes, Cased Images, Union Cases, Albumen Photographs, CDVs, Carte de Visites, Cartes de Visite, Carte-de-visite, Cartes-de-visite, CDV, Cabinet Cards, Stereoviews, Stereocards]  [African Americana, African American History, Black History, Slavery, Enslavement, Abolition, Emancipation]