Antebellum Portraits: Faces of Kentucky's Old South, 1820-1860
By Mark V. Wetherington, Ph.D.
Director
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About |
In the popular imagination, "Old South" conjures up
nostalgic images of belles, cotton fields, Greek Revival mansions, hoop skirts,
and mint juleps, to name a few. Many of these images come to us from
novels and movies, where a "southern" genre developed, with Margaret
Mitchell's Gone With the Wind standing head and shoulders above the rest.
Yet beneath this placid reflection of an era that today
seems timeless, lay currents that made the antebellum years one of dramatic
change. The portraits in this exhibit were painted primarily during those
years. The stories of these faces, confident and prosperous in appearance,
reveal deeper undercurrents: the code of honor, migration, plantation
agriculture, political conflict, prejudice, slavery, and violence.
Although we often think of the Old South in terms of established and enduring traditions,
the society that emerged during the early nineteenth century was actually new
in many respects. Only two generations had passed between the establishment of
the commonwealth and the presidential election of 1860. The individuals and
families in this exhibit are representative of Kentucky’s elite house holds
during this era. They lived in Columbia, Frankfort, Harrodsburg, Lexington,
Louisville and Paducah, reflecting the statewide nature of our collection.
Kentucky’s economy experienced a major transformation during this period. Transportation
improvements (including canals, railroads, steamboats, and turnpikes) made it
easier for farmers and planters to get crops to market. Hemp and tobacco became
major commercial crops. Foreign-born immigrants arrived to work on the canals
and in factories. Manufacturing enjoyed a period of growth because of the
availability of more workers and transportation improvements. By 1850,
Louisville alone reported eighty-two tobacco and cigar factories employing
1,000 workers.
But the production of crops like hemp and tobacco depended in part upon slave labor. In
1860, slaves made up twenty percent of the state’s population. Although most
white Kentuckians never owed a slave, twenty- eight percent of white families
were slaveholders by 1850, with the average master owning five slaves. Yeomen
farmers and their families, not planters and slaves, made up the vast majority
of Kentucky’s antebellum population. Compared to plantations, the agricultural
operations of farmers wee small. Of the almost 84,000 farmers in the
commonwealth in 1860, almost seventy percent had fewer than one hundred acres.
The vast majority of Kentucky’s antebellum citizens never had a portrait painted. Perhaps the most widely circulated visual image of African-Americans during the antebellum period was the rude woodcut of the runaway slave, appearing in newspapers in full stride with a stick over the shoulder and modest belongings tied to the end. Unable to afford portraits, most family members of yeoman households had to wait for the arrival of photography to have their images recorded for posterity, if they were ever recorded. The portraits in this exhibit are significant, then, both for what they reveal about their subjects and painters, as well as for what they tell us about the nature of antebellum society.
The Filson Historical Society
1310 South Third Street - Louisville, KY 40208
Phone: (502) 635-5083 Fax: (502) 635-5086
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