Elite colored women: the material culture of photography & Victorian era womanhood in reconstruction era Memphis
Abstract
This article focuses on a small community of elite ‘colored’ women in Memphis. The origins of this community began with a limited number of free people that established roots in the city during the1830s. Using photography as the main resource, this article examines the role of controlled image-making in three ‘families of color,’ headed by Jane Wright, Louisa Ayres, and Martha Ferguson. The article argues that following the Civil War, photography offered those of mixed-race the means to reveal and document a legacy they could not previously claim, strengthening their sense of shared identity and status in the urban South during Reconstruction.
Publication Title
Slavery and Abolition
Recommended Citation
Jenkins, E. (2020). Elite colored women: the material culture of photography & Victorian era womanhood in reconstruction era Memphis. Slavery and Abolition, 41 (1), 29-63. https://doi.org/10.1080/0144039X.2019.1685259
