Thread by @marinamaral2

Original caption: “Nurse and Child”, 1850.

This daguerreotype was made about thirteen years prior to emancipation, so the woman holding the child was probably a slave.

'The black female domestic caretaker, commonly referred to as a "mammy," was frequently depicted in early photographic representations.'

Source: Getty Museum.

While many enslaved women worked as field hands, others engaged in domestic tasks such as washing, cooking, or caring for the plantation owner’s children.