February 9, 2023

If the eyes are the window to the soul, what happens when you can’t even make them out? When the vivid colors and expressions are lost to history, downsized and put away for safekeeping, the photos and their accompanying stories curling around the edges. Bringing these figures back to life is a challenge for historians, genealogists, and, sometimes, curious artists. In Seventeen Men, an exhibition opening at the Chester County History Center February 10^th and on view through July 1^st, 2023, illustrator Shayne Davidson invites viewers to truly see the people behind the history.

Davidson was indulging her love for amateur genealogy, working on a family tree for a friend, when she came across a miniature photo album which had belonged to William A. Prickitt, the friend’s great-grandfather. Prickitt, a white man who was captain of the 25th Infantry Regiment, U.S. Colored Troops (USCT), Company G, during the American Civil War, had 113 enlisted men under his command. The album, which would fit comfortably in the palm of your hand, held small photographs of seventeen men from the regiment.

“I found them fascinating, but I knew very little about the history,” says Davidson. “When I noticed that each man was identified by name on the mat around the photo, I decided to try to research them using genealogical records.” Most photographs are accompanied by the name of the soldier, and all were from the mid-Atlantic region, but no other identifying information was included. Davidson delved into history to find out more about their lives. “Though what I discovered varied from man to man, overall I found out quite a lot of information.”

“The photos in the album are about the size of a postage stamp,” Davidson explains. “Partly due to limitations in the way photos were made at that time, and partly due to deterioration over time, some of the photos are of poor quality.” Davidson turned to her artistic skills, creating color illustrations of each of the seventeen men. “By enlarging them to life size, my goal was to create a compelling portrait of each man that could be viewed in a gallery setting.”

The resulting exhibition has been traveling the country, and found a welcoming home at the Chester County History Center. “It is everyone’s historical society,” says Ellen Endslow, Director of Collections and Curator at the CCHC. This exhibition is a chance to explore not only the portraits of the Seventeen Men on display, but the collections of the CCHC themselves. An interactive display is included in the exhibition where visitors can search the archives of the CCHC for Chester County residents who fought in the Civil War, including in the USCT.

“It gives nuance to people who have a monolithic view of the past,” says Endslow, letting them “have their own ‘AHA!’ moments” as well as digging into their micro-community. There will also be a selection of curated objects from the extensive CCHC archives on display to give more context to the exhibition. Information from Davidson’s research accompanies each illustration, detailing the lives of the soldiers above.

By illustrating the images, rather than simply enlarging the original photographs, Davidson “wanted to help viewers visualize each man and appreciate the leap of faith he took for his country when he signed up to fight.” She notes, “It’s given me a much greater appreciation for the courage it took to sign up to serve and fight in a war in which the outcome was far from certain—A fact we tend to forget.” The danger these soldiers faced was beyond what most can imagine: “If they had been captured at any point, such as during the journey to Florida, where they served, they most likely would have been killed.”

Using art to illustrate history can create a sense of intimacy and understanding in the right context. “There is a sharp interconnection between art and history,” says Conor Hepp, President of the CCHC. Both, he notes, can “pinpoint a moment in time.” Viewing colorful, vivid images creates a different impression than when seen through the lens of history. “Now that I see them in person, it feels like we are staring at each other,” says Pachy Banks-Cabral, Director of Development at CCHC. It creates a “special and engaging” experience, she says, as we view the life-scale images arrayed around the room.

There is a “capacity to engage” with the soldiers shown in the exhibition “by the way the artist depicted their eyes,” Endslow notes. When it came to picking one image to use as the face of the exhibition at CCHC, almost unanimously those asked chose the image of Bayard Sorden, a soldier from Kent County, Delaware. The illustration, Endslow notes, conveys “the dignity of someone who had seen it all.”

The original miniature album is now on view at the National Museum of African American History & Culture as part of the Double Victory: The African American Military Experience exhibition. The album and the photographs can be viewed online in the Smithsonian’s digital gallery (NMAAHC.si.edu). In Seventeen Men, viewers are invited to consider the lives behind the photographs. As Davidson says, “I hope viewers will come away with a better understanding of the considerable hardships the men faced in their lives.”

Seventeen Men is on view at the Chester County History Center from February 10^th though July 1^st. An Artist’s Talk will be held in March, and there are other events at CCHC throughout the exhibition—see their Event Calendar for details. The Chester County History Center is located at 225 N. High Street, West Chester, PA. Find out more at MyCCHC.org.