karyn j blog #5; African American Portrait Collection

The African American Portrait Collection consists of 129 photographs of African Americans in Missouri from 1880-1920. For many of the people in the photographs, it may have been one of the first time posing for portraits. This was made possible by the introduction of the cabinet card, which made portrait photography affordable for African Americans.

Collection Principles

The images in the African American Portrait Collection were purchased by the Missouri State Museum in 1999. Several photo albums were located by museum curators and contained unidentified African Americans from areas throughout Missouri and Louisiana and were loaned to the Missouri State Archives to be copied and scanned. The 129 images were loaned to the Missouri State Archives specifically for the purpose of making them more widely accessible. The majority of the physical collection is in the form of albumen print cabinet cards.

There are no restrictions to the access of this collection. Because some of the images are unidentified, it is suggested that the best way to access the images is to browse. However, there is also an option for a keyword search. There is also a section on the about page that gives you a list of additional resources.

Object Characteristics

Each thumbnail image has 3 pieces of information: a title, a date/time period, and “view details”. When you go to “view details,” you are given the metadata about the image and an option to enlarge the image. When you click to enlarge, a new window opens and with most images, you have the ability to zoom one time. Each image is a JPEG and depending on the image, stains, written words, and discolorations are visible.

Metadata

Each image has these descriptors for the metadata: record group, series title, title, collection title, date of image, description, subject, image size, color, box, folder, shelf, copyright. If the name of the person in the image has been identified that information can be found in the subject. Also, because each image was most likely taken before 1920, everything is in the public domain. The metadata is very helpful in that the user can pinpoint exactly where the item is if they want to see the physical piece.

Intended Audience

The intended audience for this collection is the researcher and casual browser. It may be beneficial to people doing genealogy research or interested in the lives of African Americans in Missouri before and after the turn of the century. Overall, the collection was okay. The one thing that really bothered about this collection was the generic titles for the images (African American Man, Woman, Boy, Girl). By giving each image a title, the collection would be easier to browse and each image would have an individual quality.