It depicts two African Americans praying at a table, and shares common themes with Tanner's other paintings from the 1890s including The Banjo Lesson (1893) and The Young Sabot Maker (1895).

Following his return to the United States in 1893, Tanner became more racially aware and chose to use artwork including The Thankful Poor as a means of portraying African-American culture in a dignified manner.

The painting received praise from critics upon its exhibition in Philadelphia during the spring of 1894, but it is also Tanner's last African-American genre work as the artist began to focus on biblical scenes.

After remaining hidden for years, the painting was discovered in a storage closet of the Pennsylvania School for the Deaf in 1970, before being purchased by Camille and Bill Cosby in 1981 for their private collection.

[6] The composition possibly draws inspiration from American artist Elizabeth Nourse's 1891 painting Le Repas en Famille (The Family Meal),[7] which shares a similar setting.

[13] Tanner was further influenced by family friend and educator Booker T. Washington, with whom he shared the belief that skills that could support a living should be passed from one generation to another.

[16][17] Beginning in the summer of 1888, Tanner spent time in Highlands, North Carolina, in the Blue Ridge Mountains where he hoped to earn a living through photography and improve his health.

Particularly moved by the increasing number of lynchings of African Americans, Tanner became involved in the civil rights movement,[26] and scholars believe he grew more racially aware.

To his mind many of the artists who have represented Negro life have only seen the comic, the ludicrous side of it, and have lacked the sympathy with and appreciation for the warm big heart that dwells within such a rough exterior.

[32] For example, an art writer for the Philadelphia Daily Evening Telegraph, though praising Tanner's artistic technique, referred to the painting's elderly subject as "an old Uncle Ned".

[C] The art historian Naurice Frank Woods believes that such derogatory responses to The Banjo Lesson led Tanner to question whether his paintings could effect any change on the public's perception of African Americans.

Nevertheless, The Thankful Poor would see Tanner incorporate his beliefs on education and race in another attempt at placing African-American culture in a positive light.

Woods writes that "while [The Banjo Lesson] has remained the subject of intense scholarly scrutiny and public adoration, [The Thankful Poor] has lingered, undeservedly, in its iconic shadow.

"[21] Following the showing of The Banjo Lesson, many—including family friend and leading African-American scholar William Sanders Scarborough—expected Tanner to continue counteracting black stereotypes through his art.

[24][40] Woods hypothesizes that a lack of sales coupled with derogatory racial references from reviews such as the one in The Philadelphia Inquirer led Tanner to consider his two genre paintings as "a failed experiment."

[53][54][E] The study for The Thankful Poor was part of the June 25 to August 20, 1995 exhibition "Across Continents and Cultures" at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri.

[65] Contemporary representations usually mocked African-American religious practice as tribal and superstitious,[4] in contrast to a supposedly more advanced, introspective, and contemplative white religiosity.

[2] Therefore, The Thankful Poor's calm portrayal of everyday Christian devotions in a modest setting challenges contemporary perceptions of black religiosity as overly emotional and inferior.

[4][8] According to Woods, the tenets of the AME and the intrinsic messages in Bishop Tanner's writings and sermons coincide with the painting's intended purpose of dispelling negative visual stereotypes and racial divisions.

"[19] Likewise, Woods writes that both paintings "remain inextricably linked in creative motivation, technical execution, and attention to race matters ...", and the art historian Judith Wilson refers to the pair as "an interlocking set of arguments.