Columbia '09 students as Zulus – Historic Reproduction
(Originally scanned by the Library of Congress. Each image is professionally and digitally cleaned of artifacts such as color bars and extra borders prior to printing.)
Description
Few images capture their era like this historic photograph of Columbia '09 students as Zulus. The original is held by the Library of Congress, so what you hang is a true record of its time.
The framed print arrives ready to hang; the unframed option suits custom framing. A conversation-starting piece for home, office, or as a meaningful gift. Free shipping in the lower 48 states. Snapshots of the Past, founded in 2001, has served tens of thousands of customers worldwide.
Columbia '09 students as Zulus
Order a print
Thank you. Your order went through, and a receipt is on its way by email.
Secure checkout · SSL encryptedPowered by Stripe and PayPal
Free shipping in the lower 48 states. The checkout page shows the picture, size and price before you pay.
The title places these students in the Columbia class of 1909, though the record notes that it comes from unverified caption data, and the photograph itself is undated. The costume belongs to a long tradition of college skits and student stunts in which men in blackface or "Zulu" dress caricatured Africans for laughs. Bain News Service, the New York agency that made the negative, photographed a wide range of city life and events in the early 1900s, so pictures like this one document how such performances were staged and recorded. Today the image is most useful as evidence of the racist stage conventions that were once considered ordinary entertainment.
| Created / published | n/a |
|---|---|
| Medium | 1 negative : glass ; 5 x 7 in. or smaller. |
| Genre | Glass negatives. |
| Notes | Title from unverified data provided by the Bain News Service on the negatives or caption cards. Forms part of: George Grantham Bain Collection (Library of Congress). Temp. note: Batch three loaded. |
| Source | Library of Congress, George Grantham Bain Collection |
| Original scan | 5,729 × 4,210 px · prints to 19 × 14 in at 300 dpi |
| Reference | AMZ-SOTP-BNN-12963 |
More from the Bain News Service collection
Snapshots of the Past helps heritage brands, museums, historians and storytellers tell stories with history: historic prints, image licensing and historical storytelling drawn from more than 25 years of research and curation.
