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.: Rug Weaving. 1899 - 1900

Curator: This is a photograph titled "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.: Rug Weaving" by Frances Benjamin Johnston. Editor: It feels so staged, yet there's a quiet dignity in the women's faces. I wonder what stories those rugs could tell. Curator: It's part of a series documenting the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute. Notice how the image emphasizes the structured environment for vocational training. Editor: Right. The looms and spinning wheels seem almost like tools of assimilation. It's a fascinating, and maybe uncomfortable, look at education and labor. Curator: Indeed, it prompts us to consider the intersections of race, industry, and the very fabric of opportunity, or perhaps, limited opportunity. Editor: It's more complicated than just a pretty picture of rug weaving, that's for sure. It makes you think about the human hands and the system that guided them.