Beschreibung:

CDV featuring "Fannie Virginia Casseopia Lawrence, / A Redeemed Slave Child, 5 years of age," with backmark of Kellogg Brothers, Hartford, CT. Mount recto continues to describe the child's story: "Redeemed / in Virginia by Catherine S. Lawrence; baptized in Brooklyn, at / Plymouth Church, by Henry Ward Beecher, May, 1863." Copyrighted 1863 by C. S. Lawrence This CDV was marketed to raise funds for abolition, and it also suggests the Christian values held by many abolitionists. Fannie/Fanny was one of the most photographed of the slave children used for abolitionist propaganda. Clearly, she had more than one white grandparent, and was considered in the South as an "octoroon" - one with 1/8th black ancestry - but still considered "black" in the South. At her baptism, Reverend Beecher made clear what would have happened to her had she remained a slave: "The loveliness of this face...would only make her so much more valuable for lust." After emancipation and the end of the war, many of these former slaves "passed" as white in the larger community. Condition: CDV with light to moderate surface soil and discoloration.