These albums provide a rare glimpse of the black community in Boston in the19th century.

Park Jung Su-Douglas Virginia L. Molyneaux posed quietly and firmly, with a slender hand rustling in the pleats of her exquisite silk dress. Although her portrait was easy to get when she was photographed in the 1960s, hand-painted photos are a luxury, full of emeralds and lilacs, highlighting Virginia's wealth and lofty social status as the wife of Frederick Douglass, the son of a famous abolitionist. Her name is Mrs. Frederick Douglass's name, written in gorgeous grass at the top of the portrait, and pasted into one of two recently discovered photo albums. These two albums may change a lot of our understanding of the African-American network centered on the steep north slope of Boston Beacon Hill in the 1960s and beyond. Last fall, Boston Library was one of the oldest independent libraries in the United States. It quietly acquired these two leather photo albums, which are believed to have been compiled by Harriet Bell Hayden in the 1960s. Hayden escaped from slavery in the south. As a respected member of the African-American community in the city, the brass buckle is a treasure in 87 portraits, and it is a veritable "celebrity" in Black Boston in the19th century, dressed in gorgeous Victorian costumes. These photos bring politicians, military officers, literary figures, financiers, abolitionists and children to life. They posed formally in the luxurious studio, staring at the camera and swaggering.

I bought these albums from an auctioneer. John Buchtel, curator of Athena Treasures, said that the two albums have been preserved by a New England family for generations. These photo albums provide an opportunity to piece together a very brave life detail, which is often simplified to just marrying an important person. "We don't know much about Harriet Hayden." Her name is always associated with [her husband Lewis], "admitted jocelyn Gould, a tour guide in Boston National Park, who teaches at the Africa Conference Hall, which is the social and political cornerstone of the Hayden community.

2065438+In April 2009, a group of people gathered in the printing and photo lab in Santorum, Boston to check the photo album. Caption: John and Mary Gill, current tenants of Bacon Thornton's house (Mary just came out); Theo Tai Sen and Polly Thiel Starr, American art researchers at Athena College of Art in Boston; And Rafe. Jeffrey Brown, Deputy Pastor of the 12th Baptist Church. As for Lewis, we know that it was his experience as a slave worker, including the sale of his first wife and son, that established a fiery driving force, not only to escape slavery, but also to get others out of slavery. 1844, the Hayden family and their son fled to Canada with the help of two abolitionists from Oberlin College. They finally settled in Boston at 1846, out of the moral impulse to promote the cause of abolitionism. "By the 65438+60s, a vibrant community appeared here. They were born in Boston, but many people have heard of this community and decided to move here, "Gould said. "Some people are free, some are escaped slaves, but because you have established religion, schools and community life, she also cited a census of 1860, in which Bijiashan has the largest black population, although it is difficult to get accurate figures, because this community is also inhabited by low-income white residents.

Lewis taught himself to read and write, then ran for public office on behalf of the American Anti-Slavery Association and joined the Boston Alert Committee. At last, he was elected as the representative of Massachusetts Parliament in 1873, and the Hayden couple became their Beacon Hill power that day, burning their home at 66 Phillips Street into a station of the underground railway. 1853, Harriet Beecher Stowe went home to study Uncle Tom's cabin and counted 13 escaped slaves.

Although Lewis is always mentioned in front of harriet, mainly because of his political achievements, she manages this family and receives runaway slaves and politicians, just like a white abolitionist financier. An obituary of 1894 (published in Cleveland Gazette one year after her death) named Harriet as "the favorite of young women in Boston", indicating that her social scope transcends race. For a woman who has never received a formal education, her last act surprised her, that is, providing Lewis and Harriet Terheyden Scholarship Fund for African-American doctoral education at Harvard Medical School.

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Most of the pictures in the album are made in the order of interviews, and black and white portraits of about three to four inches are mounted on strong cardboard. 1854 was patented in France for the first time, and 1860 was popular in the United States. This process can only print one photo at a time, and only those who have the means can copy it. The popularity of "visiting groups" gives Americans the opportunity to visit local photography studios and sit there and enjoy cheap business portraits, which can be distributed to family and friends by mail or as souvenirs before soldiers leave the battlefield. A free black man born in Salem, Massachusetts, 1847 was admitted to the law firm. The mountain is engraved with: "Mr. Robert. Morris "the first colored lawyer" (provided by Athena in Boston) Clayton and her husband joined the federal army under false names. This mountain is engraved with the inscription "Women in Men's Clothing in the Late War" (provided by Athena in Boston). Harriet Hayden collected her photos in two commercially produced photo albums with brown molded Moroccan covers and brass buttons. There are traces of wear on the album, but it effectively protects the photos inside. Emma Grim Robinson is the daughter of a priest. Leonard Grimm, an active pastor, was the founder of the Beacon Hill 12 Baptist Church in Boston, and Lewis Hayden of the Boston Vigilance Committee was one of them. The mountain is engraved with "Mrs Emma Grim Robinson". Her parents and husband both appeared in Hayden's album. These photo albums were officially carved as gifts for Harriet. One of them was given to robert morris at 1863. He was the first black lawyer to win a lawsuit in America, and he was also a brave abolitionist. He is a fugitive from Virginia and got a job in Boston. Chadelas Achmin, during the trial, Lewis Hayden led a group of abolitionists to rush into the court, forcibly pushed the marshal away, took Minkins away, and hid him in the attic of Bonfire Mountain until he arranged a safe trip to Canada.

Hayden, Morris and others involved were subsequently charged, tried and acquitted. Gould said: "As a pillar of the community, Morris has long known and approached (Hayden family), which makes sense." . Another album was written by S.Y.Birmingham M.D Although his wife and children appeared in the album, Athena still tried to find out information about this family and its relationship with Hayden family.

Other images include Francis Allen Watkins Harper, an anti-slavery speaker and writer; Francis Clayton, a white woman dressed in men's clothing, joined the United Army. Leonard Grimm, founder of the 12th Baptist Church. It also includes a bust of the abolitionist Calvin Fairbank, who helped the Hayden family escape from Kentucky and was later arrested, tried and imprisoned. Later, it was Lewis who released Fei Zhengqing. He needs money to release him. Calvin Fei Zhengqing is an abolitionist active in the underground railway. He and his fiance helped the Hayden family escape from freedom. When he met Lewis Hayden, he was a student at Oberlin College. In many media today, African-Americans are cruelly portrayed as inferior people (Boston Athena)

), the popularity of visiting rights may mark the first time that many people in Harry Teheden's album have the opportunity to show themselves completely in the way they want to be treated by society. Theo Tai Sen, a visiting scholar at the Athena Museum, said: "(Portrait) provides a kind of clothing resistance. There is a fashionable fairness in their speech. They are not like slaves, former slaves or even abolitionists. Neither Hayden nor her husband's photo album has any pictures of Hayden himself. Although a sketch portrait appeared in Harriet's obituary, it is easy to find a handsome photo of Lewis on the Internet. Strangely, Hayden's own photo did not appear in her photo album. There are two groups of symbols in the whole page, one of which is considered to be harriet's calligraphy. Many themes are identified by their names and occasional wisecracks. On the back cover of an album, one of the hands concluded briskly, "I like the three pictures in this book. Buchtel said that Athena would analyze the handwriting and compare it with the sample Hayden obtained from another source. The second hand is still a mystery, and Athena will have to find it.

Athena, built in 1807, moved to this lighthouse mountain in 1849. A few years later, Hayden moved from Detroit to Beacon Hill and joined the abolitionist movement in Boston (1846). The reading room on the second floor, as shown in the picture, is basically the same as the reading room in Hayden's time. The library (provided by the Athena Museum in Boston) plans to save the new binding first, and then the curator of the institution will conduct research to confirm the identity of as many portrait themes as possible, using watermarks printed on the back of the pictures, as well as public account books, records and clips of military liberators, and the account books of the Boston Alert Committee, an organization that funds the fugitive slave shelters.

Curators will also study the trends of clothes and hairstyles, such as corsets with high waist buttons and three-piece men's suits, and use gorgeous braids as clues to the date of photos. Lewis opened a successful tailor and shoe store in Beacon Hill from 65438 to 1950s, and some portraits may be the characteristics of his creation.

The acquisition and future planning of the album is part of the member libraries' greater efforts to shake off its reputation as an elite Brahmin club in Boston and move towards a more inclusive future. In the next few years, these albums will be digitized, provided on the Internet, and displayed in future exhibitions, which will be open to the public.