Hidden Mothers, Hidden Others Susan E. Cook (bio) The photograph discussed in this essay is a tintype portrait of a young child, their fair hair and skin fading into their white clothing (fig. 1). The child stares out of the frame toward the camera and us, unsmiling, somewhat awkwardly perched on what appears to be a cloth backdrop. But that backdrop has a human form. At the top of the image, a deliberate swipe in the emulsion obscures—incompletely—the head of the person propping up the child. Below the swipe we can see a chin, lips, and part of a nose—the skin of the person holding the child also fading into their clothing, which appears darker than that worn by the child. This photograph is described by its eBay seller as an "Antique American hidden 'mother' African American nanny mammy rare tintype photo," thereby situating the covered figure beneath at least two additional layers of obfuscation as it describes the individual as both mother and African American nanny. The photograph is a hidden mother photograph, an example of a popular Victorian vernacular photographic trend still in use today that features a child held or secured by an obscured adult. Hidden mothers may be covered beneath a shroud, concealed behind furniture or other materials, partially cut from the frame, or scratched or burned out of the image. The image shared here is an example of this last type, and it comes across as a violent erasure. There is no attempt to hide the scratch, except behind a mat that would likely have encircled the child: the edges of the scratch are rough and uneven, the result of a hasty swipe across the emulsion. The person is not just obscured or cropped out of the frame; they are removed from the image. This type of erasure comes across as much more violent and final—more of a rejection of the person holding the child, even though the child still relies on the support of that person—than other forms of concealment. This image accepts a form of care often coded as maternal while forcefully rejecting the individual performing the role of caretaker. The name "hidden mother" appears to be a modern construction emerging out of collectors' circles and the marketplace in the first decade of this century.1 As a modern term, "hidden mother" describes but also reinforces [End Page 24] Click for larger view View full resolution Fig 1. Tintype portrait of child with hidden mother, date unknown. Courtesy of the author. and constructs Victorian gender norms and domesticity. The term is an attempt to categorize and track a photographic trend, but it also obscures the diversity of relationships documented by these pictures and risks limiting critical engagement. Specifically, the term reinforces the idea that the Victorian mother is defined by her effacement2—thereby binding maternity to occlusion, contributing to what Andrea Kaston Tange describes as the "continuous history of pretending that mothering is fundamentally marginal." How we read these images is informed by what we call them, and the term "hidden mother portrait" supports a narrative of maternity that leaves no room for seeing things otherwise. What makes any of these hidden mother figures mothers? Clearly, some fulfilled a biological role: an essay for the Philadelphia Photographer in 1872 explains that mothers are necessary for keeping their children still for the camera (Petsch 68). In many instances, the mother would no doubt be well situated to help soothe frightened or uncomfortable child subjects. Yet some [End Page 25] of these portraits clearly or potentially depict individuals who are not the biological mothers of the children they support. For example, in some cases we see servants, marked as such by their clothing, or men, again marked by their clothing. Hidden mothers, in other words, were not all necessarily the biological mothers of the children they held: "Perhaps," as Kaston Tange suggests of another image, "the supporting lap is obscured because it does not belong to the child's actual mother?" "Mother" may denote less a familial relation than a social function: an individual who is defined through their concurrent effacement and intimate support of a child's...
Read full abstract
Nov 29, 2024
Matthew Kearney 
Open Access
Just Published
