In 1876, Congress Had Eight Black Members. It Took Nearly 100 Years to Do It Again.
The milestone sat unnoticed in a time capsule for a century until the dull photo was read again.
99% Invisible · 100 Objects #1: The Century SafeIn 1876, eight Black members served in Congress, a record America would not match for nearly 100 years.
That milestone survives in a group portrait of the 44th Congress, seated in 1876. The photo showing eight Black members sat for a century inside the Century Safe, sealed at the Philadelphia World's Fair and opened by President Gerald Ford in 1976. The safe also held photographs of Abraham Lincoln and a temperance pamphlet.
The timing gives the photo weight: it was taken only 11 years after a Civil War that killed "three-quarters of a million Americans," as Reconstruction, "the plan for a fully multiracial democracy," was just about to be abandoned, says Harvard historian Jill Lepore.
At the opening, Lepore called the photographs coming out "a dud" as Ford fumbled to identify them and reporters laughed. Roman Mars later asked whether people in 1876 could already feel Reconstruction's failure coming, a question the story leaves open.
Questions people ask
Why did the 1976 opening feel like a dud?
President Ford pulled items out one by one and struggled to identify them, including a Tiffany ink stand and photographs of unnamed statesmen. The reporters laughed as nothing of obvious value appeared, and historian Jill Lepore called the photographs a dud.