black and white photograph; Group of African-American Women and children standing on a sidewalk in front of a gravel covered empty lot. One woman giving bottle to toddler, one woman with bag, and one woman holding swaddled baby(?)
A mounted black and white photograph; young African American girl wearing a vertically striped dress, gathered at waist with white bonnet on her head; young white boy wearing light colored top and pants with black hose and black leather boots seated on the arm of a wicker chair holding a rod across his lap, wearing a hat on his head.
From slavery to Jim Crow segregation, African American girls worked in fields and as maids. Girls found themselves serving families and becoming lifelong nursemaids and domestic workers.
Girls as young as three carried heavy babies, scrubbed dirty diapers, and stayed up late to mend clothing.
What would it be like to care for an infant that was also your boss?
Clearly they were workers. The photographs make their work invisible.
Press print; gelatin silver print with white border; image of two African American World War II (WWII) era female nurses' aides working at a table wrapping bandages; both women are wearing a nurses uniform with apron and hat; cabinet with glass front housing more supplies in background; woman on left is identified on verso as Mrs. Louis Lucas and woman on right is Miss Susie Freeman; photograph taken at Freedmen's Hospital in Washington, D.C. by Roger Smith working for the Office of War Information (OWI)