Question: Who are they? - Stereoviews A-Z

It's not clear where this photo was taken or its purpose. A watermelon is being stored in the cellar and three boys are salivating and hoping they can sneak a bite? I like that.....

But it's so close to the post-Civil War period. I can't help but wonder if they are sharecroppers. Slavery may not have been legal in the 1890s, but in the south especially, African Americans often went from slavery straight to sharecropping (along with poor whites), which was a form of forced labor. Most were too poor to do little more. According to historian W.E.B. Dubois, "The slave went free; stood a brief moment in the sun; then moved back again toward slavery."

"Dis Am de Pick of Dat Patch." (ca. 1890s)

(See Post A and Post B for history of Stereoviews/Stereoscope)

Copyright 2013 © Sharon Himsl; [Gravseth family archive; Cosmopolitan and New educational series 1890s]

source: http://www.americanhistoryusa.com/slavery-to-serfdom-black-people-new-south/

Sharon M. Himsl

Writer/Author. Blogging since 2011. 
Published with Evernight Teen: 
~~The Shells of Mersing