19th-Century African American Cartes-de-Visites from the Civil War Era sponsored by  Charles Schwartz Ltd. 21 East 90th Street New York, New York   10128   USA Contact: Charles Schwartz Email: cms@cs-photo.com Phone: 212-534-4496 Exhibit Hours: By appointment Return to the Feature Exhibit Images   This is a fascinating group of CDVs from the Civil War period. Most of these are photographs of “slave children," which is an interesting subject on its own. In order to garner sympathy for the cause of emancipated slave children, it was not uncommon to circulate carte-de-visite images in the North of children who were the product of mixed-race unions or African-American. The idea was to show “slave children” who had very Caucasian features in the hope of encouraging Northern benefactors to contribute funds to help these often abandoned children. A few of the images included in this group are key examples of the slave children CDVs. Also in the group is a rare CDV portrait of the notorious slave Wilson Chinn, who had been branded on the side of his face. Return to the Feature Exhibit Images