In 1926, Chansonetta Stanley Emmons and her daughter Dorothy visited South Carolina. In an earlier trip in 1897, Chansonetta took 4 x 5 inch informal snapshots which she compiled into a scrapbook.

In 1926, Chansonetta sought out people to sit for portraits. She photographed the Felder family, tenant farmers on the Hermitage rice plantation in Charleston. Two images of Mr. Felder exist, with and without his hat. This portrait of his entire face shows the dignity of a man who may have been born into slavery, which ended just 60 years prior to this photograph.

The Carolina Art Association exhibited Chansonetta’s work in 1926 to show these images of South Carolina. She also exhibited them at Dorothy’s alma mater, Wellesley College, in Massachusetts, in 1927.