MS01.01.03 - Box 02 - Folder 10 - Cultural History Research Inc. - Papers, 1963

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they command at the smallest possible price or for nothing almost. There is hardly any trade or craft which has not been learned and is not carried on by Negroes."3

The emergence of the black craftsman as a force to be reconed with within the labor [crossed out : force] field came about in the mid-1720's when slaves, newly brought to the American market, were trained to participate in the manual aspect of those trades that allowed labor to be combined with artistic skills. [crossed out: In so doing] It was in this sense that a master and servant relationship of trust [crossed out: could] was maintained through labor which gave little or no credit to the slave who may have done most of the work involved in the making of certain objects. There appear very few written accounts of the leniency of slavemasters permitting their "property" to be identified by name, though the refined qualities of their work is often stressed in numerous press accounts. Even though the art of the ^[black] craftsman was accepted as a necessary tool for living, it [crossed out: in no ways] did not provided a format [crossed out: of] or forum for black participation in the mainstream of what was later to be defined as the fine arts. [crossed out: in America }

The presence of black skilled craftsmen in the American economy in the eighteenth century was welcomed relief to those persons of European origin who had lofty visions of imitating the life style of the wealthy class whom they had served back in Europe. Black presence in the trades of the ironsmither, the carpenter and the furnituremaker, to mention only a few, was widely respected and counted on by those European settlers who were able to amass small fortunes

3 Johann D. Schoepf, TRAVELS IN THE CONFEDERATION, 1783-1784, Morrison, A.J. editor {Philadelphia, 1911}, II, 221.

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in the founding years of this nation4. An import^{ant} example was ^{the craft of} ornamental ironwork which was introduced to Louisiana in the 18th century. Its preceding patterns are said to have come [ crossed out: to Louisiana] there from France. Black labor was used for the cast and ornamental ironwork which adorned the many private dwellings and public buildings in other cities such as Charleston and Mobile. The Louisiana Work Projects Administration Guide gives the following account of slave labor in the craft of the ironsmither in the eighteenth century:

" The metal work used in the construction of the first Ursuline Convent, ... was forged by slave labor; and through later years both slave and free forge workers made grills, guardrails, gates, and other wrought iron pieces that survive in Louisiana's time-worn buildings."5

Many slaves and "free people of color" proved their artistry to a waiting public who needed the fineries of ^{life supplying} tasteful furnishings for the home, couturiers ^ {services} for the ladies of high society, and the approved services of master craftsmen in every respect of daily living by creating, upon demand, the complete furnishings then found in Southern homes.

Less than one hundred years after the Declaration of Independence was signed, free people of color, both black and mulatto, dominated the artisan related crafts and labor force in the register of laborers in Louisiana. In

{line} 4Henry Castellanous, a well-known Louisiana hostorian wrote of these artisans: "...in our factories and blacksmith shops bosses or foremen would be white, while the operatives were either Blacks or mulattoes. And so with other trades, such as bricklayers or masons, carpenters, painters, tinsmiths, butchers, bakers, tailors, etc. In fact, had not the progress of the country, from the condition of unrest under which it had been laboring, developed itself into the proportions which it has since assumed, there cannot be the least doubt but that all the lower mechanical arts would have been monopolized in the course of time by the African race." He further implies that an influx of labor in the crafts wrestled from Blacks this form of labor in the crafts.

5Louisiana: A Guide To State: W.P.A. In the State of Louisians (Hastings House, 1941), p. 176.

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1854,2,668 persons of African ancestry, of which 470 were classified as black and 2,198 as mulatto, were registered as skilled laborers and craftsmen in the city of New Orleans. 6 However, there were certain craft related areas in which Blacks were scarcely represented. There were few printers using movable type and there were very few bakers and engravers. The threat of militant blacks learning to print inflammatory anti-slavery material always loomed heavily in the minds of fearful whites who also took seriously the talk of mass poisoning from eating goods that were baked by Blacks. The voodoo cult was religiously practiced by unlettered Blacks living in New Orleans. The cult called for the use of objects that [crossed out: imitate] serve as masks [crossed out: and] or implements of punition such as the socalled metal Slave Mask [underlined] illustrated in figure [crossed out: that was] to which cult attribution [crossed out: to the] has been given.

The urban communities of the South provided many opportunities for the skilled craftsman to extend his artistry beyong craftmanship into^[more leisurely] accepted forms of art expression such as sculpture, portrait painting and engraving. By the mid-nineteenth century, a host of well-to-do men and women of African ancestry, who counted among their numbers medical doctors, teachers, nurses, musicians, architects, engineers and inventors, lived in the city of New Orleans and patronized black craftsmen in the same manner as [crossed out: the] did wealthy whites. It should be noted that Eugene Warbourg obtained his skills as a sculptor at carving [left margin: 11?] tombstones for members of both races. Still remaining today are fine examples of his craftsmanship that may be seen at the St. Louis Cementry in the city of

6 Stahl, Annie L.W., LOUISIANA HISTORICAL QUARTERLY, "The Free Negro in Ante-Bellum Louisiana", Vol 25, No.2., April, 1942, PP 301-395.

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-7[crossed out: New Orleans. Jules Lion was listed in the New Orleans City Directory as early as 1836 with the duel profession of lithographer and deguerretypist. In 1839 he travelled tp Paris and became a devoted student of Deguerre whose newly developing art of photography had yet to be successfully received in America. Upon his return to New Orleans in 18 , he attempted to experiment with the techniques that he had learned with the camera in his lithographic studies at the City of New Orleans. (See figure ) ] The city of New Orleans provided the atmosphere for the developement of a sophisticated black society which imitated all of the refinements of living that had come to the famous city from Paris and other centers of world culture.

[crossed out: Many notations] Numerous accounts of the trust that was given the black artisan from colonial times to the later quarter of the 19th century have come to us by way of press announcements of sales of slaves^[and from] advertisements of the artisan services of free men of color. Many of these craftsmen are excellent furnituremakers. Others embellished the interiors of homes that were owned by wealthy city and rural dwellers. Still others worked under supervision of white architects whose plans for^[constructing] buildings such as the State Capitol in Montgomery, Alabama and the courthouse in Vicksburg, Mississippi were carried out entirely by slaves. Numerous [crossed out: churches] mansions were built by black carpenters along with [crossed out: mansions] churches for the white congregations of the South. *

Black furnituremakers were the master craftsmen among carpenters. Their shops could be found in every principal city along the East coast. Some were located in small inland towns. These men counted on the patronage of wealthy whites, including governers and professional men of means, to support their prosperous businesses. Most noteworthy among black furniture makers living

*

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along the Eastern Seaboard during the turn of the 18th century was a man by the name of Thomas Day. He was born in the late 18th century, educated in Boston and Washington and was recognized as an important cabinetmaker as early as the year 1818. In 1823 he moved to Milton, North Carolina where he purchased a building then referred to as the Old Yellow Brick Tavern and set up a very prosperous business manufacturing fine furniture of mahogany, walnut, rosewood and cherry [crossed out: and] teaching his craft to a select number of Blacks and whites in the area. He became a very wealthy man, by the standards of his day, becoming one of the three original stockholders in the Milton Branch of the North Carolina State bank.7 Day's work was collected by wealthy patrons throughout the Eastern and Southern regions of the United States. The finest examples of his work that remain are presently at the governor's home in Raleigh. The earliest dated piece reads "1820". One writer summarizes the excellence of his work and the ability he exhibited to complete as a craftsman in the following passage:

"... that Tom Day - an issue free Negro and owner of Negro slaves, at a time and in a country where Anglo-saxon supremacy precluded recognition of the Negro race save as laborers-yet mastered the difficulties of life and used the wonderful talent that was given him to design and build."8

It is of equal importance to note that Day, like many white Americans living in his own time, was a slave owner. Though one is at a loss to explain the rationale behind a black man being a party to such human degradation among his own kind, it becomes apparent that day used the cheapest form of labor available, that which he was able to obtain by using [line] 7 Jones, Stephen, Afro-American Architecture: The Spirit of Thomas day, Howard University, (unpublished manuscript, 1973) p.47.

8 Gunter, Caroline Pell., The Antiquarian, September,1929

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