The Harriet Tubman Home in Auburn, New York, has launched its first crowdfunding campaign in attempt to acquire a rare, previously unrecorded photograph of Harriet Tubman. The black-and-white carte-de-visite, which depicts the abolitionist in her mid-40s, is set to hit the auction block on March 30 as part of the sale Printed & Manuscript African Americana hosted by Swann Auction Galleries. It is just one portrait in an album of 44 photographs, which has a pre-sale estimate of $20,000–30,000 and would represent the museum’s most significant acquisition, if successfully purchased. Its collection currently holds some 60,000 artifacts related to Tubman’s life and work.
A non-profit, the museum has received little outside financial funding in its 113 year-effort to preserve Tubman’s homestead and legacy, according to its President and CEO, Karen V. Hill. Donations arrive primarily from the descendants of slaves and from a handful of public and philanthropic contributions.“We want this photo at the Harriet Tubman Home because there are so few photographs of her,” Hill told Hyperallergic. “As a young woman, she was very careful not to have her photograph taken because she was bringing freedom seekers from the south to the north on successive campaigns, and then she was working as a spy and a scout for the Union Army. Not having her photograph taken was really in her DNA, so this is amazing that she would actually sit for this photograph.”
The #BringHarrietHome campaign, which has raised just over $2000 as of press time, concludes on March 29. In the accompanying promotional video, Hill describes the “notion of [Tubman] being auctioned as a huge emotional issue.” Tubman’s great-great-grandniece, Pauline Copes Johnson, too, shares her impressions of the portrait, saying, “It’s great to be able to have a picture of Aunt Harriet in her younger days. She looks like she’s a very determined person. She has that expression on her face.”
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