A Black And White 1860s Fundraiser : The Picture Show : NPR: They look like any other 19th century vignettes and portraits of children kneeling in prayer or cloaked in the U.S. flag.
But these cartes de visite (a calling card with a portrait mounted on it that was all the rage during the 1860s) featured Charles, Rebecca and Rosa — former slave children who looked white.
I saw a couple of the cards on Tumblr and wanted to know more about them, so I called Mary Niall Mitchell, associate professor of history at the University of New Orleans. Mitchell had researched the group for her book, Raising Freedom's Child: Black Children and Visions of the Future After Slavery, and gave me some history and context for the images.
