(PHOTOGRAPHY) Photo postcard of a South Carolina convict lab

Sale 2503 - Lot 360

Price Realized: $ 281

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 400 - $ 600

(PHOTOGRAPHY.) Photo postcard of a South Carolina convict labor gang. Real Photo postcard, 3 1/2 x 5 1/2 inches, with manuscript caption in negative reading "Convict gang on st[reet] work"; minimal wear, unused, but captioned in manuscript on verso "1910 Chesnee So. Carolina." Chesnee, SC, 1910

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Additional Details

Approximately 10 convicts are seen on a road construction project, all of them apparently African-American. Several wear striped shirts; several are shown in action with picks or shovels. African-Americans were sent in large numbers to Southern prisons on trumped-up charges during this period as a means of providing cheap labor. Often the only real crime was their imprisonment. The Velox printing on verso accords with the 1910 date, as it was in use from 1907 to 1914.