This cabinet card portrait features a well dressed young African American man wearing wire rim glasses. He has a terrific mustache and sideburns. His name is written on the reverse of the photograph (“R. L. Woods”). The photographer is Devenport and the studio was located in Waxahachie, Texas. Perry F. Devenport is identified in the 1900 US census as being forty-three years old and living in Waxahachie with his wife Marie and their three children. He was working as a supervisor for the city water company. He is also cited in the 1920 census but by that time he was sixty-five years of age and married to a forty-four year old woman named Caudia (Candice). In the 1920 census, Perry and Caudia Devenport were both listed as photographers. Interestingly, Caudia is cited in a number of photography journals. She was on the necrology committee of the Professional Photographers Association of Texas according to the Bulletin of Photography (1917). The Photographic Journal of America (1917) announced that she had won some photography awards. To view other cabinet card photographs of African Americans, click on the category “African Americans”.
AFRICAN AMERICAN MAN IN WAXAHACHIE, TEXAS
THE CABINET CARD GALLERY 