Cotton in May. Stereoview on yellow cardstock mount. New Orleans, Louisiana: S.T. Blessing, n.d. Publisher's imprint and series title, "Louisiana Scenery," printed to mount recto. Title by period ink inscription to verso. 

An outdoor view showing four Black individuals and an emaciated mule tending cotton plants. Two women and one man stand with hoes among the spring plants. Another man tends a plow pulled by a skeletal mule. 

Samuel T. Blessing (1830-1897) was a dealer in photographic goods who maintained a store on Canal Street. In 1856, he opened his first studios in partnership with Samuel Anderson in both New Orleans and Galveston, Texas. He worked as both a studio portraitist and a dealer in stock images, photographic supplies, and equipment. After his partnership with Anderson dissolved in 1863, he operated under his own name and shifted his business focus to publishing and selling stock images, especially of views of New Orleans and Louisiana, such as this image here. 

[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, Stereographs] [African Americana, African American History, Black History, Slavery, Enslavement, Abolition, Emancipation]