Races, Negroes: United States. Alabama. Tuskegee. Tuskegee Institute: Agencies Promoting Assimilation of the Negro. Tuskegee Institute, Tuskegee, Alabama: Military Department, Assembled in front of Porter Hall. 1902

Curator: This image captures the military department of the Tuskegee Institute assembled in front of Porter Hall in Alabama. It's part of a series called "Agencies Promoting Assimilation of the Negro." Editor: The rigid, almost oppressive symmetry… Rows of men, a stoic building—it all speaks to control and imposed order. What materials were used to create this image? Curator: It's a photographic print, a medium that, at the time, was still heavily associated with scientific objectivity, lending a sense of documentary truth to the idea of assimilation. Editor: The materiality emphasizes the image's intent: a constructed "truth" about progress, yet the very act of photographing and assembling them reveals a carefully constructed narrative. Curator: The uniforms, the architecture—they borrow heavily from European visual traditions. The image promotes a particular symbolic order, hinting at the psychological weight of adopting a new identity. Editor: Exactly. It reveals the labor—the physical and ideological work—required to conform, to produce a new version of self. Curator: The image, as a symbol, carries the complex weight of aspiration and cultural erasure. Editor: Indeed, an image of labor and the labor of image-making, all intertwined.