Spirit of Play

I was absolutely taken with this albumen image as I reviewed the “From Atlanta [,] Georgia to Mammoth Cave [,] Kentucky, November 1895” photograph album prior to my cataloging it. The children are laughing and making faces, perhaps interrupted in a game of “cops and robbers,” since many of the boys are holding guns or rifles. Their sense of fun is infectious and it reminded me of the neighborhood games groups of us played during my childhood. Yet I was surprised that such a large interracial group would have been playing together at this time. Is this a late-nineteenth-century South I never dared imagine?

Post contributed by Alice Poffinberger, Original Cataloger in the Technical Services Department.