Rose, Ruth Starr
(1887-1965)
Born in Wisconsin, she later moved to the Washington, DC
area. She specialized in African-American images and their appearance in biblical stories. In an essay by LeFleur Paysour the following explanation is provided:
Rose was a white woman of great wealth and superior education. Both she and her mother, Ida May Hill, studied at Vassar. Rose graduated from the college in 1910, but her mother, who attended in the 1870s, left early and headed for Germany, where she studied piano with noted composer and performer Clara Schumann.
Among Maryland’s “high society,” Rose’s choice of subjects elicited shock and confusion. But Rose had a plan: She was determined to document the work life, family life, and spirituality of the people closest to her—her African American friends and neighbors—and to show that blacks and whites could and did get along.