Social Settlements: United States. Alabama. Calhoun. "Calhoun Colored School": Agencies Promoting Assimilation of the Negro. Training Negro Girls in Domestic Science. Calhoun Colored School, Calhoun, Ala.: Laundry Class. 1901

Curator: This image, attributed to Frances Benjamin Johnston, is titled "Social Settlements: United States. Alabama. Calhoun. 'Calhoun Colored School': Agencies Promoting Assimilation of the Negro. Training Negro Girls in Domestic Science. Calhoun Colored School, Calhoun, Ala.: Laundry Class." Editor: The photograph presents a stark scene. There is a pervasive sense of constraint and confinement, the way the figures are positioned feels heavy. Curator: Yes, and it's worth considering how laundry, historically a feminine task, operates symbolically here. It speaks to ideas of purity, cleanliness, and societal expectations placed upon Black women at the time. Editor: Absolutely, but it's insidious. The title itself reveals the intention to assimilate, stripping away cultural identity in exchange for domestic servitude. It’s a painful reflection of power dynamics. Curator: Indeed. The photograph's composition, the wooden walls closing in, reinforces this feeling of being hemmed in. Yet there's a dignity in their work, a quiet strength. Editor: I agree. While the context is deeply troubling, the subjects assert a resilience. Their very presence, captured in this moment, resists erasure, even within a framework designed to diminish them. Curator: It leaves one with a profound sense of conflicting emotions. Editor: A somber, but important, reminder of history’s complexities.