Zulu Woman and Her Baby

When it was published in 1908, this picture of a woman carrying a baby on her back conveyed a reassuring message to a primarily white and English-speaking audience. The photographer appealed to patriarchal beliefs about the universality of the maternal instinct, while at the same time marking the unnamed Zulu woman for her exotic difference (the photograph was printed along with three other of Keene’s photographs as "Clever Studies of Cape Town Native Types"). Keene, a German-born photographer who was one of only a few women to operate a studio in Cape Town, was perhaps an unwitting victim of this same misogynistic mindset—she was known professionally not by her own name, but by that of her husband, i.e. Mrs. Caleb Keene. Before moving to Canada in 1913, she showed interest in women’s enfranchisement in South Africa; it is tempting to think that the direct and confident gaze of the proud woman pictured here sparked Keene’s political awakening.