Snapshots of the Past

Negro hotel (Southern Hotel), Washington, D.C. – Historic Reproduction

Negro hotel (Southern Hotel), Washington, D.C., [1899?] — historic photograph
Negro hotel (Southern Hotel), Washington, D.C., [1899?]. Historic photograph from the Washington DC collection.

(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

Step back in time with Negro hotel (Southern Hotel), Washington, D.C., a historic photograph rich in period detail. The original is held by the Library of Congress, so what you hang is a true record of its time.

Choose the framed print, ready to hang the day it arrives, or the unframed print for a frame of your own. It brings character to any room and makes a memorable gift. Free shipping in the lower 48 states. Snapshots of the Past has been bringing history to the wall since 2001, for tens of thousands of customers worldwide.

Negro hotel (Southern Hotel), Washington, D.C.

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Few hotels in Washington were open to Black travelers in the late 1890s, which gives this view of the Southern Hotel more weight than its title alone suggests. The caption card notes that the print was shown in the American Negro exhibit at the Paris Exposition of 1900, a display meant to document the lives, schools, and businesses of Black Americans decades after emancipation. Establishments like this one, serving guests shut out of most white hotels under segregation, were part of that story of self-built community. The date is an estimate, marked with a question mark in the record, so the picture is best read as a view from around the end of the 1890s.

Created / published[1899?]
Medium1 photographic print.
GenrePhotographic prints 1890-1900.
SubjectsTitle and other information transcribed from caption card. Reportedly displayed as part of the American Negro exhibit at the Paris Exposition of 1900. Caption card tracings: DC, Wash. -- Hotels; Hotels -- DC, Wash.; African Americans -- Misc.; Shelf.
SourceLibrary of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
Original scan1,204 × 1,536 px · prints to 4 × 5 in at 300 dpi
ReferenceAMZ-SOTP-HPA-128203

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