(RELIGION) Carte de visite portrait of Bishop James Augustin

Sale 2562 - Lot 341

Price Realized: $ 344

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

Estimate: $ 400 - $ 600

(RELIGION.) Carte de visite portrait of Bishop James Augustine Healy. Albumen photograph, 3 1/2 x 2 inches, on original photographer's mount; minor wear, middle initial corrected in manuscript. Boston: N.M. Williams, circa 1870

Set Alert for Similar Items

Additional Details

James Augustine Healy (1830-1900) was born in Georgia to an Irish-born plantation owner and a mixed-race mother who he had acquired as a slave and then married extra-legally. James was sent north for his education, where he passed as white, and entered the priesthood in Boston in 1854. There he served a large and rapidly growing Irish-American population, and became Bishop of Portland, Maine in 1875. Though he did not generally identify as Black during his career, he is today recognized as both the first Black ordained Catholic priest and first Black bishop in the United States, and the Diocese of Boston presents an annual James Augustine Healy Award to "practicing Black Catholics who have shown effective leadership and service in their community." The publisher of this photograph, Nathaniel M. Williams, advertised in Sadlier's Catholic Directory for 1876 as a Catholic bookseller and stationer.