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Your absentee bid for Lot 124 - Antique Cabinet Card Photograph Of Lime Kiln Club Minstrel Parade Float, White Performers In Blackface, July 4, 1887 [100% Of Proceeds To Be Donated To The Jim Crow Museum Of Racist Imagery] was successfully submitted—thank you for bidding with us!
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Lot 124 - Antique Cabinet Card Photograph Of Lime Kiln Club Minstrel Parade Float, White Performers In Blackface, July 4, 1887 [100% Of Proceeds To Be Donated To The Jim Crow Museum Of Racist Imagery]
Lot 124 - Antique Cabinet Card Photograph Of Lime Kiln Club Minstrel Parade Float, White Performers In Blackface, July 4, 1887 [100% Of Proceeds To Be Donated To The Jim Crow Museum Of Racist Imagery]
Note: This photograph depicts minstrel blackface performance. It is offered as a primary historical document of racist imagery. 100% of the hammer price from this sale will be donated to the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Imagery at Ferris State University, Big Rapids, Michigan, an institution dedicated to the serious scholarly study and contextual preservation of material of this kind.
This antique cabinet card photograph documents a July 4, 1887 parade float presentation of the Lime Kiln Club, the fictional African American fraternal organization popularized in the widely-read minstrel humor columns of Charles B. Lewis ("M. Quad") in the Detroit Free Press and subsequently staged in theatrical productions across the country. The float carries a group of white performers in blackface costume: several in formal suits and top hats, one dressed as a Native American in an elaborate feathered and ornamented theatrical costume at the left foreground, and one standing figure at far left with visibly exaggerated blackface makeup. Chairs are arranged across the flat-bed wagon beneath a canopy frame. A small sign attached to the float reads "G. Green" with partially legible text below, and a banner along the float's side bears a partially legible inscription. The verso is inscribed in period hand "Lime Kiln Club / July 4/87." No photographer imprint is present on the mount. The cream mount shows edge wear and corner damage.