# Carte-de-visite of Sojourner Truth > Sojourner Truth (born Isabella Baumfree) - 1863 > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/sojourner-truth/sojourner-truth-carte-de-visite-nmaahc/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-09-27 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** Sojourner Truth (born Isabella Baumfree) - **Date:** 1863 - **Medium:** Albumen print (with silver nitrate) on card mount, carte de visite format - **Dimensions:** Mount: 10.2 x 6.4 cm (4 x 2 1/2 in.) - **Object type:** Photograph - **Period:** American, Civil War era - **Current location:** National Museum of African American History and Culture, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. - **Attribution:** unknown ## Summary NMAAHC 2012.46.11 is an 1863 carte de visite of Sojourner Truth seated with a daguerreotype of her grandson, James Caldwell of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry, on her lap. It carries no caption on its front and no copyright notice on its back, which sets it apart from the far more famous captioned cartes de visite Truth began selling about a year later under the printed line "I Sell the Shadow to Support the Substance," registered in her own name with the federal courts on February 16, 1864, a legally unprecedented act for a formerly enslaved, illiterate woman and, per the scholarship consulted for this record, the only known instance of a SITTER of that era holding copyright in her own photographic image. It was not, however, the only instance of someone other than a studio doing so: cartes de visite of the child Fannie Virginia Casseopia Lawrence were copyrighted in 1863 in the name of the woman who had bought her freedom, Catherine S. Lawrence. Narrowed 2026-09-27.That later, celebrated story belongs to a different, related group of objects: a print at the Art Institute of Chicago credited to the photographer S. C. Wright, a recto-and-verso pair at the Metropolitan Museum of Art showing the caption and the printed copyright notice in full, a sibling copy in the Library of Congress's Gladstone Collection, and a Battle Creek studio print credited to Wright's New York Gallery. This record treats every one of them as a separate, clearly captioned object, and reserves its specific factual claims, including the print's own 1863 date, for the object actually held under 2012.46.11.What remains undocumented is nearly as telling as what is documented: no source located here names the photographer of this specific print, explains how or when it entered the Smithsonian's collection, or records any attempt by Truth to enforce her 1864 copyright against an infringer. The record states each of these as an open question rather than filling the gap with an inference borrowed from a better-documented, but different, object. ## Provenance Every link carries a grade. `documented` means a cited source supports it, `disputed` means the identification is argued but not established, `unknown` means we have no owner for that span and have not bridged it. - **1863** Sojourner Truth (sitter) and an unidentified photographic studio, Battle Creek, Michigan area `[documented]` (origin) The sitting is placed in 1863 by NMAAHC's own (revised) catalog date, tied to the 1863 organization of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment and grandson James Caldwell's 1863-65 captivity depicted via the daguerreotype in Truth's lap. A closely related print of the same pose is independently dated by the Library of Congress to "[Battle Creek, Michigan] ... [1863]," citing Grigsby, Enduring Truths, pages 52-53. The specific studio or photographer is not identified in either institution's published record. - **1863-by 2012** Unknown `[unknown]` (gap) No custodial chain for this specific print is published between the 1863 sitting and its appearance in the Smithsonian's collection under an accession number prefixed 2012. This is a genuine, unfilled gap rather than an inferred one; this record does not borrow the documented Liljenquist or Emily Howland Album acquisition histories described elsewhere in the literature, which belong to separate, different Truth photographs entirely. - **by 2012-present** National Museum of African American History and Culture, Smithsonian Institution `[documented]` (collection entry) The museum's own credit line, "Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture," documents institutional custody under accession number 2012.46.11. NMAAHC did not open to the public until September 2016; a 2012-prefixed accession number is consistent with the museum's pre-opening, founding-era collecting campaign, though no specific donor, purchase, dealer or prior owner is named in the catalog record or in the museum's press materials located for this record. ## Open questions - Who operated the camera for the NMAAHC 2012.46.11 sitting? NMAAHC's own catalog leaves the photographer unidentified, and no backmark or studio imprint is published. - How and when did this specific print enter the Smithsonian's collection? The accession number's 2012 prefix places it in the museum's pre-opening founding collection, but no donor, purchase, dealer or prior owner is published in the catalog record or in press materials located for this record. - Is the NMAAHC print and the Library of Congress's Liljenquist print of the same grandson pose (LC 2017648645) from the same negative, or two separate exposures from the same sitting? Not established in the sources consulted. - Did Sojourner Truth, or anyone acting on her behalf, ever pursue a legal or public case against unauthorized copying of her copyrighted photographic image? No such case was found in the sources consulted; the well-documented fact is the 1864 registration itself, not any subsequent enforcement of it. - What became of James Caldwell after his 1863-1865 captivity at James Island, South Carolina? The sources consulted for this record do not state whether he survived the war or what happened to him afterward. - Exactly when between September 2017 and September 2020 did NMAAHC revise its own catalog date for this print from "ca. 1866" to "1863"? Bracketed here only by two Internet Archive Wayback Machine captures three years apart; a finer date was not recoverable. - Do the two published sitting counts, at least eleven captioned and copyrighted cartes per the Library Company of Philadelphia, against at least eleven SITTINGS per the United States Copyright Office, which is a different count of the same number and at least twenty-eight portraits total per Grigsby, reconcile against a documented primary list anywhere in the scholarship? Not found in the sources consulted; they are reported here as two distinct, separately sourced figures rather than a single settled total. ## Sources - [1] National Museum of African American History and Culture, Smithsonian Institution, "Carte-de-visite of Sojourner Truth," object record, accession 2012.46.11. Direct access to nmaahc.si.edu returned HTTP 403 at the time of research; consulted via Internet Archive Wayback Machine capture of 2025-04-04 for current cataloging (medium, dimensions, description, credit line, date, classification), and via captures of 2016-09-01, 2017-09-23 and 2020-09-27 for the dating history discussed in this record. - [2] Internet Archive Wayback Machine capture of NMAAHC object record nmaahc_2012.46.11, September 1, 2016, showing catalog date "ca. 1866." - [3] Internet Archive Wayback Machine capture of NMAAHC object record nmaahc_2012.46.11, September 23, 2017, still showing catalog date "ca. 1866." - [4] Internet Archive Wayback Machine capture of NMAAHC object record nmaahc_2012.46.11, September 27, 2020, showing the revised catalog date "1863" and the full description naming James Caldwell and the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment. - [5] Marilyn Creswell, "Sojourner Truth and the Power of Copyright Registration," Library of Congress Copyright Office blog, December 8, 2020. Read in full on 27 September 2026 in an Internet Archive capture of 17 December 2025, loc.gov being behind a bot wall. Used for the February 16, 1864 registration deposit of the title of an engraving, the twenty-five to fifty cent in-person price, and the statement that "Truth sat for portraits at least eleven times". NOTE, corrected 2026-09-27: this post does NOT carry the "eleven captioned and copyrighted cartes" figure, which belongs to the Library Company of Philadelphia; the earlier flag for re-verification is now discharged. - [6] Julia Choucair Vizoso and Chris R. Byrnes, "Abolitionist Creativity, Care, and the Shadow of Intellectual Property," University of Pittsburgh Law Review, vol. 85 (Summer 2024), pp. 891-897 for the Sojourner Truth material, citing Darcy Grimaldo Grigsby, Enduring Truths: Sojourner's Shadows and Substance (University of Chicago Press, 2015) throughout. - [7] University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA), press release, "Sojourner Truth, Photography, and the Fight Against Slavery," July 18, 2016, for the exhibition organized by Darcy Grimaldo Grigsby, including the "went to court three times" note and mail-order pricing. - [8] Multiple tertiary biographical sources consulted for general life dates and the Michigan/Harmonia residence, consolidated here pending direct verification against Nell Irvin Painter, Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol (W. W. Norton, 1996): National Park Service, Britannica, and Women's History biographical entries on Sojourner Truth. Flagged for replacement with Painter's biography directly. - [9] New York Almanack, reporting on the documented 1828 Ulster County court case Sojourner Truth (as Isabella Van Wagenen) brought to recover her son Peter from illegal sale into Alabama slavery. - [10] American History Central, biographical entry on Sojourner Truth, consulted for the 1828 and 1865 lawsuits. Tertiary source; flagged for replacement with primary court records or Painter's biography. - [11] Sojourner Truth (dictated to Olive Gilbert), Narrative of Sojourner Truth (Boston, 1850), referenced here for the fact of its dictated authorship rather than quoted directly. - [12] News Center Maine, "Sojourner Truth did not say 'Ain't I a Woman?' in famous speech," VERIFY fact-check, summarizing Nell Irvin Painter's 1996 finding that Marius Robinson's 1851 transcript is more reliable than Frances Gage's 1863 rewritten version. - [13] The Sojourner Truth Project, built on Nell Irvin Painter's research comparing the Robinson and Gage versions of the 1851 Akron speech. - [14] Ossining History on the Run and related secondary accounts of the 1835 libel suit Truth (as Isabella Van Wagenen) brought against the Folgers over accusations connected to the death of Elijah Pierson and the collapse of the religious commune known as the Kingdom. Tertiary source; flagged for replacement with a primary trial record or Painter's biography. - [15] Visit the Capitol, U.S. Capitol Visitor Center, biographical entry on Sojourner Truth, consulted for the 1865 Washington, D.C. streetcar case. Tertiary source. - [16] Library of Congress, "[Sojourner Truth seated with photograph of her grandson, James Caldwell of Co. H, 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, on her lap]," catalog record, LC Control Number 2017648645 (digital IDs ppmsca.52069 front, ppmsca.52165 back), Liljenquist Family Collection of Civil War Photographs. Direct access to loc.gov returned HTTP 403 at the time of research; consulted via Internet Archive Wayback Machine capture of 2025-04-01, including the note dating the print to "[Battle Creek, Michigan] ... [1863]" citing Grigsby, Enduring Truths, pp. 52-53, and the note on its purchase from Swann Auction Galleries, March 2017, gift of Tom Liljenquist. - [17] Art Institute of Chicago, "Untitled ('I Sell the Shadow to Support the Substance')", object 238249, consulted via the museum's public API for date, medium, dimensions, credit line, and description naming S. C. Wright as collaborating photographer. - [18] Art Blart, exhibition documentation of "Sojourner Truth, Photography, and the Fight Against Slavery" (BAMPFA, 2016), quoting Darcy Grimaldo Grigsby on Truth's deliberate choice of lap props ("initially, the photograph of her heroic missing grandson and thereafter, her knitting") and on the meaning of the 1863 grandson portrait. - [19] Wikimedia Commons file metadata (via the Commons API) for File:Sojourner Truth CDV c1866.jpg, including upload date, extmetadata licensing (Public Domain Mark 1.0), and credit link to NMAAHC 2012.46.11. - [20] Wikimedia Commons file metadata for the Metropolitan Museum of Art recto/verso pair, File:Sojourner Truth, "I Sell the Shadow to Support the Substance" MET DP265089.jpg and MET DP265040.jpg, both CC0, dated 1864. - [21] Library Company of Philadelphia, Digital Collections, object record Islandora:3252, 'I sell the shadow to support the substance. Sojourner Truth. [graphic]', read on 27 September 2026 in an Internet Archive capture of 14 November 2024 because the live host refuses direct fetches. The source of the sentence that Truth captioned, marketed, copyrighted and sold at least eleven different carte-de-visite portraits of herself at her lectures and through the mail, which this record had previously attributed to the Library of Congress. --- Images on this record are public domain or CC0 and are hosted by us. No image on this site is generated or simulated. If you quote this record, quote the provenance grades with it.