"Rare photo of slave children found in NC attic"

[OldKingCrow]

Re: "Rare photo of slave children found in NC attic"

Moderator Cromer and others typed my exact thoughts and questions. The banana tree question (though valid and speaks to an effort to place Brady) was a softball to see if there was a will to challenge the veracity of this here.

I wonder if I am the only one who might think a "history" is being laid down in real time to support this movie about "John" the article references ?

CJ Rideout
Tampa, Florida

[GAR]

Re: "Rare photo of slave children found in NC attic"

More impressive to me than the photo or the sales document is the detective work going on in this thread. Fascinating.
I wonder if there is a way to find out more about the scrapbook or if there was anything written on the back of the photo? Would this not have been listed for sale to all interested collectors? Does the high price paid indicate a bidding process? Who brokered the deal?

[Hank Trent]

Re: "Rare photo of slave children found in NC attic"

Have y'all seen this?

http://beforeitsnews.com/news/78/241...amed_John.html

I don't know anything about it, but apparently there was an Ebay sale of a similar photo? Anyone know about that? From the article linked above:

According to the eBay sale for the similar, uncropped version, the photo was taken in Georgia at an unknown date by J. N. Wilson.

Keep in mind that the eBay sale included a series of twelve stereo view photographs taken at the same plantation, named Bonaventure. That is a total of 24 pictures, as each stereo view contains two slightly different photos. The "Brady" photo acquired by Morgan is a single image.

For some reason, the link to the article about the eBay sale is down, but it's still cached by Google.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:v2HclzTVbwsJ:beforeitsnews.com/news/77/667/Rare_Slave_Photo_Not_So_Rare:_Same_Picture_sells_on_ebay.html+slave+photo+ebay+date:0-1865&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

From that article:

The photograph sold on eBay is part of a collection of twelve antique stereo view photographs attributed to J.N. Wilson, Photographer, 21 Bull Street, Savannah Georgia

The eBay sale included not only the double photograph (each is slightly different) of the boys, but others as well. There is a black family with an infant in front of a ramshackle single-room cottage. There are photographs of slaves, children included, working in the cotton fields. If anything, that particular set of photos together is vastly more heart-wrenching than the single photograph of the two boys, so vastly more disturbing because the photographs have hand-written captions.

The stereo view photograph sold on eBay of the two boys sitting on the barrel is titled "Plantation Scene: Happy Little Derogatory Term Struck Intentionally by the Author."

And here's the eBay auction:

http://cgi.ebay.com/12-Antique-Stereo-View-Cards-Savannah-Ga-/110541170341?cmd=ViewItem&pt=Art_Photo_Images&hash=item19bcc466a5

I would not swear that those pictures were taken in the 1860s. Anyone know more about that kind of card mount?

Now, the whole thing is blown wide open. Here's a description of what's got to be the same photo in another collection:

http://pacscl.exlibrisgroup.com:48992/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000145413

Note the date that that collection has placed on it: "c. 1890." That's probably not far off, based on the following.

Here's a bio of the photographer:

http://www.bonaventurehistorical.org/Documents/Sample_Publication.pdf

He didn't arrive in Savannah until 1865. The bio dates one of the same photos in the eBay collection as c. 1885.

Ouch. It's probably not a Brady CDV. The boys probably were never even slaves. Ouch ouch ouch. Glad it wasn't my $50,000

So... how did the photo get cropped down to CDV size (a somewhat obsolete size by the 1880s) and pasted on a Brady card?

Hank Trent
hanktrent@gmail.com

[OldKingCrow]

Re: "Rare photo of slave children found in NC attic"

Have y'all seen this?

The boys probably were never even slaves. Ouch ouch ouch.

So... how did the photo get cropped down to CDV size (a somewhat obsolete size by the 1880s) and pasted on a Brady card?


Hank Trent
hanktrent@gmail.com

HT.....where along the unfolding of all this are you thinking the image doctoring might have occurred ?

• By an unscrupulous Ebay seller who created a forgery and scammed an innocent party, a party which then perhaps intends to use said purchase to develop the expanded story of "John"......movies...books...lectures....political conflagrant....

OR

• was the Ebay sale by an insider (at what seems an incredibly high price to a layman in anticipated market terms) ...a fraudulent sale intended to legitimize and perpetuate the story whereby one could build a "historical record" of John and appreciate the profitability therefrom ? .....movies...books...lectures....political conflagrant....

OR

• the way things are today who knows, perhaps there is some other reason or upside to be gained in faking such things which falsely perpetuate an historical image, the American Story of oppression and the enslavement in this image of children but any person of their race for that matter. AP, Yahoo, Reuters and others...thus the worlds media outlets.... ran with the attention grabbing "Slave Children" as a headline teaser for the majority of last Friday and beyond. Will a full disclosure follow up receive the same prime exposure for clarity ? I would bet, it does not.

Me ? I am going to strike it up to and hope that in a changed Post-racial America (using the philosophical terminology of a well known, elected, bi-racial, national official) it is is just an unlikely series of innocent events which have no ulterior motives or intent in the perpetuation of false history.


CJ Rideout
Tampa, Florida

[Vuhginyuh]

Re: "Rare photo of slave children found in NC attic"

That went what some folks call "all pear shaped ". The sale document appears to be solid, or at least I hope it is. I'll be P-Oed if I wasted three hours my time sneezing on 19th century synod records.

This image was tossed around a few years ago. Does anybody remember it?

[Hank Trent]

Re: "Rare photo of slave children found in NC attic"

HT.....where along the unfolding of all this are you thinking the image doctoring might have occurred ?

Did Keya Morgan purchase the picture off of Ebay? I was under the impression it was some kind of private sale. The Ebay seller of the stereo seems completely innocent and unrelated to the whole thing.

It's possible someone named Brady (or the Brady studio) actually bought the rights to some of Wilson's pictures and was selling them at the time (late 19th century) and the picture was legitimately on the card. I have no idea what the Brady studio was doing that late in the century.

It's possible Keya Morgan did it. It's possible the seller did it. It's possible for anyone between the late 19th century and now to have done it, even innocently (damaged picture needs a new backing, so it's cut down and pasted on a card over or in place of another picture). I have absolutely no idea and no speculation.

As a deliberate scam, though, it's pretty clumsy. First, they should've used a tintype or an ambro or some one-of-a-kind picture that wouldn't have fully-identified duplicates, like a paper print. Second, implying that it's a Brady, when it's obviously an outdoor portrait in the deep south, means that there were limited and fairly documented times when Brady's men were that far out of the studio, and if it doesn't match with those times, it starts sending up red flags.

But obviously it worked for a little while, at least. If it was a deliberately scam, P.T. Barnum would be proud. But I wonder what the fall-out will be now?

All I know is that the big-time historians who vouched for the picture are going to have egg on their faces.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@gmail.com

[Hank Trent]

Re: "Rare photo of slave children found in NC attic"

That went what some folks call "all pear shaped ".

LOL! That about sums it up.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@gmail.com

[Marc]

Re: "Rare photo of slave children found in NC attic"

What an amzing story..just goes to show how anyone can be fooled. Great sleuthing people...

[ScottCross]

Re: "Rare photo of slave children found in NC attic"

Good research Hank. The steroview mounts could be Civil War period, but they used these afterwards also.
Clearly, the CDV was made after April 1865 and not by Brady. I'd have to see the original to see how it was tinkered with. Someone lifted the image off and then remounted it to a Brady cdv mount.
It is not uncommon for forgers to doctor up documents and photographs, and also not uncommon to mix in a perfectly genuine document and try to put provenance to the bogus image. This is what happened here.

[garyjd]

Re: "Rare photo of slave children found in NC attic"

Check this out. ~Gary

http://cedarposts.blogspot.com/2010/...o-is-fake.html

[Hank Trent]

Re: "Rare photo of slave children found in NC attic"

Check this out. ~Gary

http://cedarposts.blogspot.com/2010/...o-is-fake.html

This part of the article jumped out at me:

Ms. Norfeet's story quotes fictional "Art historians" and experts claiming that the photo shows a slave known only as John who was sold for $1,150.00.

Because that would remove the biggest embarrassment, the wrong experts, and put a smoking gun in her hand if the names in her story were made up.

The names in Norfeet's article were:

"Will Stapp, a photographic historian and founding curator of the National Portrait Gallery's photographs department at the Smithsonian Institution,"

"Harold Holzer, an author of several books about Lincoln. Holzer works as an administrator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art,"

"Ron Soodalter, an author and member of the board of directors at the Abraham Lincoln Institute in Washington, D.C."

Sadly, they're all embarrassingly real. Unless Norfeet used real names with made-up quotes (really, really dumb, because it would make real people mad at her), these genuine experts actually fell for the picture.

Will Stapp shows up here:

Martin & Stapp (appraisers of fine art and historical photographs, photographic archives, and photographica for fair market value, tax, and insurance purposes)

Will Stapp
611 E Street, SE
Washington, DC 20002
(202) 543-0964
will.stapp@verizon.net

Harold Holzer has his own web page: http://www.haroldholzer.com/

And so does Ron Soodholter: http://www.ronsoodalter.com/home/index.asp

Hank Trent
hanktrent@gmail.com

[plankholder]

Re: "Rare photo of slave children found in NC attic"

funny, my(generally niave') wife sent me the original article weeks ago-she immediatly thought it to be fake, and she knows nothing about photography, period or modern. I was busy and quickly dismissed it with the remark "Neat image, neat story". I guess I shouldnt be so quick to dismiss her instincts, sorry hun-next time I buy a car, maybe I'll send her to the dealership!