13
●
(AFRICAN AMERICANS)
Group of 11 rare and remarkable photographs prominently featuring African Americans living in
the post-Reconstruction-era South. Includes a striking image of a chain gang in Charleston, a street
scene in Charleston with an African American man posing in front of a row of stately water-front
homes, a family with two oxen-drawn carts in Thomasville, Georgia subtitled “the happy family,”
and African Americans posing outside their homes; also with scenes in New Orleans, South Carolina,
and Virginia. Albumen prints, each 5
7
/
8
x8 inches (14.9x20.3 cm.), each with a caption, in ink, on
the two-toned mount recto, as well as with the location and date, also in ink, in the same hand, on
mount verso. 1886
[4,000/6,000]
Though her possible connection to this set of photographs is unknown, one of the photographic
mounts may bear the signature of Julia Handy, Mathew Brady's beloved wife.The captions and
dates on the remaining prints also appear to be in the same handwriting. Handy died in 1887.
