Making Caps

A white woman sits in profile at a worktable, sewing what the caption identifies as caps—likely the soft cloth caps worn by freedwomen and domestic workers in Reconstruction-era households. Behind her, peering around a doorframe, is a Black figure with exaggerated features, head wrapped in a kerchief, body half-hidden. The figure watches the seamstress. Nast's wood engraving depicts the observer as intruder or servant. The political charge is domestic and pointed: in 1866, 'making caps' carried freight—who wore them, who made them, who watched. Signed lower right by Nast.