Races, Negroes: United States. Virginia. Hampton. Hampton Normal and Industrial School: Agencies Promoting As[similation of the Negro]. Training for Commercial an[d Industrial Employment]. Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, Hampton, Va. 1899 - 1900

Curator: What strikes me immediately are the twin images, the diptych form, presenting scenes of labor and learning. Editor: This is a photographic study by Frances Benjamin Johnston, focusing on the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute. It captures, as the inscription says, "Agencies Promoting Assimilation of the Negro," specifically training for commercial and industrial employment. The dual photographs display "Primary School Garden" and "Class Studying Soils". Curator: The very concept of 'assimilation' is charged. The images, though seemingly benign, carry the weight of a specific agenda, a vision of progress defined by the dominant culture. I look at those children in the garden. Are they tending to plants that connect them to their ancestral past, or are they being taught a new, prescribed relationship with the land? Editor: Absolutely. The Hampton Institute itself was founded on contested ground, a site of both opportunity and control. It is crucial to consider the power dynamics at play here, the institutional forces shaping the lives and identities of these students. Curator: Exactly, Johnston's photographs become artifacts of a particular historical moment, where education was intertwined with complex questions of race, labor, and cultural transformation. Editor: It's a stark reminder that images, even seemingly straightforward documentary photographs, are always enmeshed in broader socio-political landscapes.