This is a documentary photograph taken by photographer Henry P. Moore, who was following the Union Army during the Civil War. It was taken on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, in May 1862 and is currently held by the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division. (LC-DIG-ppmsca-04324) To access the high resolution full photograph, right click on the image. Click “View Image” or”Open image in new tab”).
If you have access to a Smart Board this photograph is an exciting object to explore. Zoom to examine details of dress and faces as well as the writing at the bottom. If you don’t have a Smart Board, a detail from the photograph that you can print and hand out to your students can be found below, as well as questions that correspond to that image.
Look to the Seven Strategies for help in generating questions for your classroom.
Possible questions include:
Strategy 1: What is this photograph showing and how do you know? Do you trust that information? Why or why not?
Strategy 2: What was the purpose and audience for this photograph?
Strategy 4: What is the difference between how the men are positioned and how the women are positioned. What are the women doing? What kind of information do the head wraps and jewelry tell you about the women? What questions do they raise?
Strategy 5: Where might you be able to get more information?
Strategy 6: What was your impression of the photograph and the people in it when you first looked at it? What was your impression when you zoomed in on their faces? Did anything change in how you thought about the photograph or the people in it?
Strategy 7: Where else could you look to find out more information about the people in the photograph and their lives?
Here is a detail from the photograph above that you can print out and hand out to your students.
To print the photograph, right click on the cropped image. Click “View Image” (or on a Mac “Open image in new tab”). Then click print. In the print preview, click “Page Setup.” Choose “Portrait” for the orientation. Set all headers and footers to “blank.” Set margins to “0.” Then print.
Again, look to the Seven Strategies for help in generating questions for your classroom. The strategies you use will probably be different than if you were examining the full image.
Possible questions include:
Strategy 1: Decide what you’re looking at. Is this the entire photograph? How do you know?
Strategy 2: What was the purpose and audience for this photograph?Strategy 4: What are the women doing? What kind of information do the head wraps and jewelry tell you about the women? What questions do they raise?
Strategy 5: Where might you be able to get more information about the photograph and about the people in the photograph and their lives?
Strategy 7: What are some different sources that could tell you more about enslaved people at this point in the Civil War?