ABSTRACT
In the 1950s the Carnation and Pet Milk Companies sponsored a long series of advertisements extolling the virtues of their ‘poor people’s’ product, canned evaporated milk. The ads featured black women and their children and were displayed prominently in supermarkets in black neighbourhoods nationally. But from the first known black photographer in the United States, Jules Lion, born in France about 1816, Afro-Americans have been consistently documenting and celebrating our lives. A great number of black photographers set up studios or trooped around the neighbourhoods, lugging great box cameras, dark cloths and tripods and many of them were women. The image of black women in advertising, news photos, even family snapshots became much more confrontational.
