(RECONSTRUCTION) Composite photograph titled Louisiana Const

Sale 2615 - Lot 230

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Estimate: $ 3,000 - $ 4,000

(RECONSTRUCTION.) Composite photograph titled "Louisiana Constitutional Convention of 1867 and 68." Albumen photograph, 10 1/4 x 14 1/4 inches, captioned faintly in the negative, on later plain stiff paper mount; worn with several closed tears and loss of 3/4 inches of lower left corner, mount less worn but with puncture below image. No place, 1868

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With Louisiana under Federal control and Reconstruction in full swing, a new state constitution was ratified in March 1868 which created voting rights for freedmen and integrated public schools. It remained in place until the end of Reconstruction, when it was superseded by a "home rule" constitution in 1879 which restricted the voting rights of freedmen.

This composite shows 95 of the 98 men who drafted Louisiana's new constitution in 1867. Fully half of the delegates were African-American. Most prominent among the delegates would prove to be Pinckney B.S. Pinchback (1837-1921), who had served as a captain in the Civil War and in 1872 would become Louisiana's acting governor--the first Black governor in the nation's history. He is seen on the far right, four rows from the top, in a portrait which is not widely known and may be his earliest surviving image.

We trace no other examples of this photograph, although an engraving from the portraits of the Black delegates only was published as part of the pamphlet "Extract from the Reconstructed Constitution of the state of Louisiana."