A Barber’s Shop at Richmond, Virginia

This engraving, based on an oil painting by the English artist Eyre Crowe, is titled A Barber's Shop at Richmond, Virginia. This image of an African American barber in the American South was published on the cover of the March 9, 1861, edition of the Illustrated London News. By that date, seven Southern states had seceded from the Union, and in the following month the Civil War would commence.