Slow Fade to Black: Hattie McDaniel

Source catalog description

This description refers to material held by Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Visual details below describe the original material.

Color inkjet print (a) of Hattie McDaniel in a green frame (b). The photograph (a) is intentionally out of focus. The figure of Hattie McDaniel is dressed in the black and white house servant's uniform of her character "Mammy" from "Gone with the Wind." She is wearing a white apron and white scarf tied over her hair. McDaniel has a white undershirt visible at the wrists and collar under a black long-sleeve top. McDaniel is facing to the left of the camera with her hands in front of her body. There is a house interior visible in the background. The original image shows details of McDaniel's "Mammy" including a brooch on the white collar and a row of buttons down the middle of her black blouse. Fully visible in the original, Vivien Leigh's "Scarlett O'Hara" is mostly cropped out of this photograph.

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