Two (2) full length studio CDV portraits of Fannie Virginia Casseopia Lawrence. Hartford, Connecticut: Kellogg Brothers, n.d. Each with extensive titles and captions printed to mount recto margins and photographer's imprints to verso (one illustrated with patriotic device).

Fannie Virginia Casseopia Lawrence was a “redeemed slave child” who frequently appeared in Civil War-era images sold to support the abolitionist cause. Lawrence, born into slavery in Virginia to a mixed-race enslaved mother and her white master, was amongst the seemingly endless throng of escapees who took refuge behind Union lines in 1862. A well-connected Army nurse named Nancy Lawrence spotted Fannie and resolved to adopt her. She used her influence to arrange for the famous Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe, to baptize her at his Brooklyn church. Fannie’s nearly white skin shocked the audience, who soon began clamoring for likenesses of the “redeemed” child.

The variant featuring the young girl dressed as a drummer is particularly scarce and desirable.

[African American History, Black Americana, Frederick Douglass, Abolition, Emancipation, Slavery, Slave, Abolitionist, John Brown, Abraham Lincoln, Civil War, Union, Confederate]