Re-coloring History: Black Victorians

mxu111 (58)in #history • 9 years ago

Our views of history are distorted. When we imagine life in the Victorian ear, we conjure up images of buttoned-up white folks in fancy hats, corsets, monocles and beards. We see this.

This selective history ignores the diversity of industrialized countries in the Victorian age. People of color existed and they loved hats too! God bless Thom Dunn for compiling his favorite pics of blacks living during the Gilded Age.

What a hottie! [Image via Alvan S. Harper Collection/State Archives of Florida.]

They've got their church hats on! [Image via Daniel Murray Collection/Library of Congress]

Here, the photographer identified the subject as Sarah Forbes Bonetta, an orphaned Yoruban Princess raised as Queen Victoria's goddaughter. [Image via Camille Silvey/National Portrait Gallery, London.]