Treasures acquired: rare Tubman photo.

• Position: Rediscovering Our Past - Harriet Tubman - Brief article

The Smithsonian's National Museum of African-American History and Culture and the Library of Congress announced the joint acquisition of an album of 44 rare photographs, including a previously unrecorded portrait of abolitionist and Underground Railroad conductor Harriet Tubman, as well as the only known photograph of John Willis Menard, the first African-American man elected to Congress.

The images are part of the photo album of Emily Howland (1827-1929), a Quaker school teacher who taught at Camp Todd, the Freedman's School in Arlington, Va. The album contains 44 images taken circa the 1860s, including the Tubman and Menard images, as well as a print of a more commonly known Tubman portrait taken later in life, and images of Charles Sumner, Lydia Maria Child, Samuel Ely, William Ellery Channing, Colonel C.W. Folsom, and Charles Dickens.

"It is a distinct honor to have these photographs that tell an important part...