A costume party or drama performance at the Portland School of Art (now Maine College of Art) in 1928. One or possibly both of the people photographed are wearing blackface.

White people using makeup to portray Black people in stereotypical burlesque "minstrel" shows became popular in the 1920s, Minstrelsy includes comedic performances of "blackness" by Whites in exaggerated costumes.

Also rising in popularity in Maine in the 1920s was the Ku Klux Klan. These racist caricatures and stereotypes of Black people perpetuated the fallacy that Black people were inferior.