Swann Lecture on Tuesday at Library of Congress

Visual Culture and the Black Experience in

Nineteenth-Century New York City

Tuesday, March 7, 2023

12:00-1:00 pm

Jessica Larson, a Ph.D. candidate in Art History at the City University of New York's Graduate Center, examines images pertaining to Black life in New York City between the Civil War and World War I. Thousands of formerly enslaved people and their descendants migrated north in hopes of escaping racial violence and discrimination. As reflected in print media and artistic representations, these migrants often met with bitter disappointment from the realities of life in the North. Cartoons and caricatures, almost always produced by white artists, demonstrate the stereotypes that beleaguered Black newcomers. This talk will analyze these images as expressions of post-slavery racial anxieties and consider what these works tell us about the Black built environment in 19th-century New York City. This event will be recorded.