Old Charlie, by Susan Peck, 1856, on loan to the Lombard Historical Society from Sandy Schroeder
This 1856 painting of an African American man, Charley, and a white teenage girl, Abigail Peck, may suggest the kinship possible between African Americans, even fugitive slaves and Underground Railroad conductors, and white allies in antebellum Illinois. But the painting, which inspired a research project about the man by the Lombard Historical Society, may also incorrectly identify Charley as a fugitive slave, or romanticize interracial relationships of the time and place.
