[Young Woman Cradling "Positively NO TRUST" Sign]

James Van Der Zee

1926 · Gelatin silver print · Photographs

James Van Der Zee is known as the great chronicler of life in Harlem in the 1920s, but he also had a bustling commercial studio into the 1930s and 1940s in which he made advertising images for black owned businesses. This charming photograph is his version of a "No Trust" sign--a then common commercial sign (referred to by Herman Melville in his 1857 novel "The Confidence Man") reminding patrons that the establishment does keep tabs or credit.

Artist

James Van Der Zee

Date

1926

Medium

Gelatin silver print

Department

Photographs

Credit line

Gift of Arthur and Susan Fleischer, 2016