The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
The Institute For Teachers and Students For Historians The Collection Search:

The Collection: Slideshow

Wilberforce, Lincoln, and the Abolition of Slavery

See other online exhibitions

Five Generations of an African-American Family, Photograph, 1862. The Gilder Lehrman Collection.

  • Enlarge Image

This poignant Civil War-era photograph depicts a multigenerational black family in 1862. The Emancipation Proclamation (1863), together with the Thirteenth Amendment passed in 1865, meant that they and all African Americans would live "henceforth and forever free."

Collection Image
The Collection