Social Settlements: United States. Alabama. Calhoun. "Calhoun Colored School": Agencies Promoting Assimilation of the Negro. Development of Social Standards among the Negroes. Calhoun Colored School, Calhoun, Ala.: Class in Scoring Cows. 1901

Curator: Looking at this gelatin silver print, "Social Settlements: United States. Alabama. Calhoun. 'Calhoun Colored School': Agencies Promoting Assimilation of the Negro. Development of Social Standards among the Negroes. Calhoun Colored School, Calhoun, Ala.: Class in Scoring Cows." attributed to Frances Benjamin Johnston, I can't help but feel a peculiar sense of staged tranquility. Editor: Staged is right. It's dripping with the paternalistic gaze of the era, isn't it? This image, ostensibly about agricultural education, speaks volumes about the forced assimilation of Black communities post-Reconstruction. Curator: Indeed, the students observing the cows appear like figures arranged for a tableau. I feel a strange tension—an attempt at pastoral harmony clashing with the underlying agenda. Editor: That tension is the whole story. "Scoring cows" becomes a metaphor for a larger project of social engineering, judging and ranking Black lives against a white, agrarian ideal. The very title lays bare the intent: to assimilate. Curator: There's a haunting stillness to it all. Almost as if the air itself is heavy with unspoken expectations and power dynamics. Editor: Precisely. This image, while seemingly benign, is a potent reminder of how visual culture can be complicit in perpetuating oppressive ideologies. It's a chillingly beautiful document.