Washington Family

Inscriptions

Inscribed, on stone, within image, center: NOR / AMERICA [on map]; inscribed, on stone, within image, lower left: AMERICA / FRICA [on globe]; inscribed, on stone, lower left margin: Grandson. / Gen.l [l in superscript] Washington.; inscribed, on stone, lower right margin: Granddaughter. / Lady Washington.; inscribed, on stone, lower center: WASHINGTON FAMILY. / Lith: & Pub: by N. Currier 2 Spruce St N.Y.

Label

Based on a painting from 1789–96, this print shows George Washington, his wife, Martha, and their two grandchildren. The original painting also includes Christopher Sheels, an enslaved attendant to the president, on the right side. Sheels’s presence perhaps signified how critically important the labor of enslaved people was to the household and the economy of the young nation. Sheels has been notably left out of Currier’s print, and the location has been changed to a harbor rather than Mount Vernon, Washington’s Virginia plantation estate on which at least 577 enslaved people were held and forced to work during his lifetime. The Washington family was a popular subject for 19th-century prints.

How does Sheels’s presence or absence in this image impact our understanding of slavery’s role in the founding of the United States?

From the 2026 exhibition Inhabiting Historical Time: Slavery and Its Afterlives, curated by Amelia Kahl (Barbara C. & Harvey P. Hood 1918 Senior Curator of Academic Programming) and Alisa Swindell (Associate Curator of Photography)

This sampler, sewn with patience and precision, was made by a young African girl who was possibly captured to be sold into slavery in the United States. She was most likely from another part of West Africa but created this sampler in Sierra Leone. British navy ships often disrupted the slave trade in the early 19th century, but instead of returning people to their homes, the British resettled them in Sierra Leone, where they were known as “Recaptives.” Required to adopt European schooling and religion, Ann was probably renamed for the former superintendent of the mission schools in Gloucester, Henry During. Once completed, her sampler would have been sent to Europe to attract more funding from English and German donors for the schools.

From the 2026 exhibition Inhabiting Historical Time: Slavery and Its Afterlives, curated by Amelia Kahl (Barbara C. & Harvey P. Hood 1918 Senior Curator of Academic Programming) and Alisa Swindell (Associate Curator of Photography)

Course History

FREN 3, Intermediate French, Annabelle Cone, Winter 2013

HIST 16, AAAS 12, Black America to the Civil War, Rashauna Chenault, Winter 2013

HIST 27, WGST 23, Gender and Power in American History from the Colonial Period to the Civil War, Leslie Butler, Spring 2012

ITAL 3, Introductory Italian III, Scott Milspaugh, Spring 2013

FREN 3, Intermediate French, Annabelle Cone, Winter 2013

FREN 3, Intermediate French, Yasser Elhariry, Winter 2013

WRIT 5, America's Founding Fathers: Why They Still Matter, Marlene Heck, Winter 2015

HIST 7.32, Civil War Photography, Robert Bonner, Spring 2019

HIST 7.32, Civil War Photographs, Robert Bonner, Winter 2022

English 52.20/African and African American Studies 82.11, Reading Between the Color Lines in 19th Century American Literature, Michael Chaney, Winter 2024

Writing 5.20, Foundations at Dartmouth, Doug Moody, Fall 2024

Writing 5.23, Foundations of Dartmouth: Samson Occom, Edward Mitchell, and the History and Cultures of Native American, African American, and “Minority” Students at Dartmouth College, Doug Moody, Winter 2025

Exhibition History

American Intellectual and Cultural History Through the Civil War, Harrington Gallery Teaching Exhibition, History 30, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, July 10-September 6, 1992.

Inhabiting Historical Time: Slavery and Its Afterlives, Jaffe and Hall Galleries, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, December 20, 2025 - July 11, 2026.

Unlayering Stereotypes: Selections from the Permanent Collection For Teaching Cultural Anthropology, Harrington Gallery Teaching Exhibition, Anthropology 7, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, June 24-August 20, 1995.

Provenance

Source unknown.

Catalogue Raisonne

Conningham (1949): 6529 or 6532; Gale (1983): 7063

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