. @DailySuffragist tweeted about an amazing photo of an unnamed Black teen. Thanks to the 1870 US Census, we can likely ID her as Laura Tucker, age 14, from Virginia. (THREAD) https://twitter.com/DailySuffragist/status/1316936268584988673

The photo is held @librarycongress, and IDs the baby as Ada Peters Brown, age 7 mos less 3 days, from Philadelphia:

https://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/gld/item/2010647818/

From the mid 19th century on, the census named everyone living in a household—including domestic workers. So if we find the Browns, we find their “servants.”

We also see baby Ada—born in December 1869. And sadly, we find notice of baby Ada’s death on 19 July 1870, a few weeks after the census was taken.

Since the caption says Ada is a few days short of 7 mos old, in the photo, Ada was a few days from death. 19th c families often took postmortem photos of their children to preserve their memory. I wonder if the family knew Ada was about to pass and took this photo in preparation.

By the 1880 census, neither Laura Tucker nor Sallie DeCoursey was living in the Brown household. Tucker would have been 24 by then; we can imagine her making a life on her own.

(I haven't found more on Tucker yet, but someone with better genealogy skills probably can.)

The stories of Black teens and young women like Laura Tucker have been told well by many–like @TeraWHunter, here: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781403979162_5

And like Saidiya Hartman, here:

https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393357622

A photo that captures Laura Tucker’s pose, and touch, and look, and smile, can help us to start writing her story, too.