Original carte de visite (CDV) studio portrait, captioned “Fannie Virginia Casseopia Lawrence. A Redeemed Slave Child, 5 years of age. Redeemed in Virginia, by Catherine S. Lawrence; baptized in Brooklyn, at Plymouth Church, by Henry Ward Beecher, May, 1863.”
[Imprint on verso:] Hartford, Conn. Kellogg Brothers, 1863. Image measures approx. 3.25 x 2.25 inches (on a 4 x 2.5 inch printed mount). A little wear to the corners; some light toning to the mount; a little spotting to the image; in very good condition, the image sharp and bright. Item #22621
An evocative image of a little girl who embodied all the tortuous complexities of American race, and who was for a time during the Civil War a key image in rallying support for the abolitionist movement. Lawrence was redeemed from slavery by abolitionist Catherine S. Lawrence and given her name at baptism; Fannie was to all appearances white—but who, because of the “one-drop” rule, was considered Black, and had been enslaved in Virginia. Henry Ward Beecher and the abolitionists played on Fannie’s apparent whiteness to arouse a sympathetic identification among white parents in the North and, whether consciously or no, to suggest the sexual misdeeds of slaveholders. What happened to Lawrence as she grew older seems not to have been documented, at least without the widespread public attention that greeted her childhood image, and the question as to how she navigated race in Gilded Age America seemingly goes unanswered.
Price: $650.00