ID: P49023

"Monticello Gatehouse," eight photographs by Rufus W. Holsinger taken on February 13, 1913 (one of the eight is listed as date unknown but it is apparent looking at the group of people that this portrait was taken on the same date). The location is Jefferson's Monticello (PL8532). 

Of the eight photographs, the three below are those which include people. They appear to be a family group: a mother, an older girl (with dark stockings), a young boy, and the youngest, a girl. As can be seen in the photographs below, the family poses for one portrait but can be seen by chance in the other images.

Monticello Magazine notes that the Gatehouse (at that time known as the Entrance Lodge) was built around 1880, and had several African American familes that lived in and worked at the lodge itself (which had three small rooms total). 

The gatekeeper at the time of the portraits was Eliza Tolliver Coleman (P49023) (who was said to be "related to families formerly enslaved at Monticello"). After her death in 1932, her daughter (one of the girls pictured in the photos below) Lucy Coleman Barnaby Page became the final gatekeeper to live at Monticello. Her second husband, William Page, became one of the first tour guides at Monticello in 1923 (Monticello Magazine).

The available census information for 1870 and 1910 registers an Eliza Coleman, age 9, white, birth place Virginia (1870) and an Eliza Coleman, age 50, mulatto, birth place Virginia. Quite likely this is the same person (despite the difference in skin tone registered). It may or may not be about the Eliza Tollier Coleman pictured below.

The J. F. Bell Funeral Home Database also has information about an Eliza Coleman that may pertain to the woman photographed below: "Eliza Coleman, birthplace Petersburg Virginia; spouse Thomas Coleman; died June 10 1932 in Albemarle County Virginia; age 61; buried at Rose Hill Cemetery."

These photographs are included here in that, although not posed studio portraits of African Americans, they show actual interactions between white and black citizens at a time when segregation due to Jim Crow laws was in play or, in this instance, show African Americans in their own domain (whether before their home, in social groups, etc.). They are highly valuable in providing "visual evidence" of that lived environment.  

Additional information about the subjects will be added as it is researched. 

NOTE that the name with which the portrait is labelled (or, labelled "untitled") is not necessarily the name of the sitter(s) in the portrait, but rather the name of the person who paid for the portrait when it was taken (the date and name associated with each photograph is from the business ledgers of R. W. Holsinger).

Below: X01115B3 (young girl's head appears above the stone wall to the right)

Below: X01115B4 (two seated girls and, partially seen to the side, the boy)

Below: U00276B (woman, young boy, two young girls)

 
Interestingly, the Monticello Magazine contains a July 1912 photograph of the gatehouse that looks similar to the above Holsinger portraits; the image is stated to have been by the Public Roads Administration: 

Sources

- "Monticello Gatehouse," 1913-02-13 photograph in UVA Library Catalogue (X01115B3)

- "Monticello Gatehouse," 1913-02-13 photograph in UVA Library Catalogue (X01115B4)

- "Monticello Gatehouse," 1913-02-13 photograph in UVA Library Catalogue (U00276B)  

- "Gateway to the Past," Monticello Magazine Winter 2019, n. p. (accessed online, 17 June 2020). 

- 1870 & 1910 U. S. Census - Charlottesville & Esmont Communities

- J. F. Bell Funeral Home Records

SEE ALSO:

Holsinger Image Gallery of African Americans 

J. F. Bell Funeral Home Records

Charlottesville City Directory, 1914-15 [Hathi Trust]   

1870 & 1910 U. S. Census - Charlottesville & Esmont Communities