Races, Negroes: United States. Virginia. Hampton. Hampton Normal and Industrial School: Agencies Promoting Assimilation of the Negro. Training for Commercial and Industrial Employment. Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, Hampton, Va.: Machine Shop. 1899 - 1900

Curator: This photograph by Frances Benjamin Johnston, titled "Races, Negroes: United States. Virginia. Hampton. Hampton Normal and Industrial School...", captures students at the Hampton Institute's machine shop. Editor: It's stark, almost industrial, but there's a focused energy. You can practically hear the whirring of the machines. Curator: Exactly. Johnston focused on documenting the vocational training provided at Hampton, emphasizing the process of assimilation through labor. The materiality of the machines themselves—the iron, the steel—speaks to a specific moment in industrial history. Editor: The composition, with the rows of students and the repetitive machinery, feels almost like a factory assembly line. It makes you wonder about the hopes and limitations of this kind of "training." Are they being empowered, or are they being molded for a specific purpose? Curator: That tension is precisely what makes this image so compelling. It reveals the complex interplay between education, labor, and social mobility at the turn of the century. Editor: It leaves you with more questions than answers, doesn’t it? A powerful image.