Little Boy Holding Flag
Anonymous, ca. late nineteenth-early twentieth century
Photograph and Prints
MHS Collections
NS22066
Smiling sweetly, this very young African American child presents a compelling vision of liberty and freedom. While the anonymous photograph has no date or biographical information attached, his dress suggests that we should place it around the turn of the twentieth century. The child wears the short pants and the oversized lace collar typical of the “Little Lord Fauntleroy” outfit. This clothing style, named after a well known rags-to-riches child literary figure, was popular with doting middle-upper class mothers from the mid-late 1900s through WWI. (It is perhaps most recognizable as the outfit of the beloved cartoon character, Buster Brown —who was introduced at the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904).
The young man stands posed for his photograph in front of what may be an ornamental bridge railing in St. Louis’s Forest Park. He clutches a small American flag—typical of the kind handed out at rallies and parades. One imagines that he, in his best dress, and the photographer, in the act commemorating the day with an image, are celebrating the ideal of freedom with fellow American citizens.
What complicates this picture, however, is the harsh reality that this little boy lived in a highly-segregated city and nation. The social and political context of turn-of-the-century America would have surely limited the rights and liberties of this flag-waving child.
Organized by the Virginia Historical
Society with additional support from the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter
Foundation and the
Lettie Pate Whitehead Evans Changing Exhibitions Fund, American. Support
in St. Louis is provided by The Stanley and Lucy Lopata Foundation
This exhibition has been made possible in part
by the National Endowment for the Humanities: Great Ideas Brought to Life.
