The Sweet Potato Field was the second art supplement in the pagination issued as an original gelatin silver print on Velox paper for The Photographic Times in 1898. Similar to the subject matter of Eickemeyer’s freed slave portrait titled From Alabama appearing in the May issue, (variant: Uncle Essick) this photograph depicting freed slaves or the children of former slaves working in a field was taken in and around Mt. Meigs, Alabama in 1894 or before. (Eickemeyer had been traveling to the American South from New York since the 1880’s) This photograph was titled The Sweet Potato Patch when printed as a halftone in the 1900 volume Down South.

Engraving particulars overprinted in red ink on photographic support:

left lower margin: logo for Nepera Chemical Company: Printed and Developed by Full Gas-Light.

middle margin centered: title: The Sweet Potato Field.

right lower margin: Copyright, 1898, Rud. Eickemeyer, Jr.
                                 On “Special Rough” VELOX.

age toning to print