Dem Was Good Ole Times

This elderly black man has lived through emancipation and notable gains in civil rights. Thomas Hovenden’s Dem Was Good Ole Times suggests that his subject feels nostalgia for the past despite the painful memories of slavery. Hovenden’s neighbor Samuel Jones served as his model for this sympathetic image of mirth and music. The white painter Hovenden frequently used art to promote equality, and his message remained important in the 1880s as the federal government began to endorse racial segregation and new forms of discrimination.

92.49.1