Frederick Douglass Document

A black and white photograph of a worker taking notes about a document at the Frederick Douglass Memorial Home, the document is a letter from the Secretary of the Interior and also signed by Abraham Lincoln, the worker was employed on the project by the Works Progress Administration, the WPA was a New Deal agency that employed 8.5 million previously unemployed people over it's eight year existence, Frederick Douglass was an escaped slave who went on to become a prominent figure in the abolitionist movement, he was known as an excellent speaker and writer and held up as a proof against slave owners arguments that slaves lacked the intellectual capacity required to be a independent citizens, Washington D.C, 1917. (Photo by Afro American Newspapers/Gado/Getty Images)