About This Image

Albumen print on standard CDV mount, depicting early staged black face minstrel scene. Backmarked J. G. Vallade, Portrait Painter and Photographer, One door above the Post Office, Altoona, PA, indicating production within Vallade's Altoona studio.

The related photographs (Inv. Nos.16851-53) present three related theatrical tableaux. One image shows a black face performer operating a large studio camera while photographing another costumed figure, a deliberately self-referential and comic inversion of the photographic process. A second view depicts a white man offering a coat to a black face character in a staged interaction, while the third presents two black face performers posed together in exaggerated costume and gesture, with selective tinting used to heighten visual effect. Taken together, the images document how minstrel performance was staged, costumed, and photographed for circulation through commercial studios, particularly in smaller industrial towns.

George A. Potts, identified by name on the verso of one of the images in the group of three, is a figure associated in local records with early municipal leadership in Altoona and is frequently cited as the city’s first mayor following incorporation. While definitive identification of the performer beyond the period inscription cannot be established from the photographs alone, the possibility that a locally prominent civic figure participated in minstrel performance adds a further layer of historical significance. The images underscore the extent to which black face entertainment permeated multiple levels of 19th-century American society, crossing boundaries between popular performance, commercial photography and respectable public life.

The versos retain Vallade's full printed advertisement, listing his combined practice as portrait painter and photographer. As a group, these photographs offer a direct and unfiltered visual record of minstrel culture, regional photographic practice, and the normalization of racial caricature in pre- and post-Civil War America.

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