Frederick Douglass, Most Photographed American of the 19th Century
Author: Bobby Valentine | Filed under: American Empire, Black History, Frederick Douglass, Race Relations, Reading
Frederick Douglass (1817ish-1895) informed Americans know him as an escaped slave, orator, abolitionist, crusader for rights, unsilent conscience of Abraham Lincoln, and all around moral compass in America for half a century.
Douglass ought to be a household name and has more reason to be on a 20 dollar bill than Andrew Jackson ever did. His story is captivating and remains a challenge against injustice and racism in the USA. But what is not known (often) is that Douglass was the most photographed American of the Nineteenth Century! That’s right. Not Abraham Lincoln, not George Custer, not U. S. Grant. But Frederick Douglass, the former slave.
In fact, Douglass developed an entire philosophy of art, an aesthetic. By the end of the Civil War he had spoken on photography more than any other American. He did this in direct response to the prevailing depictions of black men, women and children in American society. Art had been hijacked by white supremacy and was used as a tool to reinforce the inhumanity of blacks. Cartoonish, barbaric, caricatures abounded in newspapers, magazines, advertising, society was awash in such horrid depictions. All aimed at denying the humanity of blacks and convincing the public they were animals. In 1870, he lamented,
“We colored men [and women] so often see ourselves described and painted as monkeys.” He would say on another occasion,
“Negroes can never have impartial portraits at the hands of white artists. It seems to us next to impossible for white men to take likenesses of black men, without most grossly exaggerating their distinctive features …”
The reason for this is artists project their racist views upon their subjects. The poltergeist of these depictions remain with us to this day in our collective psychology.
But Frederick Douglass believed that the new technology of photography could aid African Americans. The camera does not lie. The camera is egalitarian! The camera is a truth teller of the subject, for everyone. Black, white, male and female. Photographs highlight the common humanity of all those photographed. Unlike the white artist, the camera does not project white supremacy upon the subject.
Pictures, both paintings/drawings and photographs, have incredible power in Douglass’s aesthetic. Children when getting a new book will have all the pictures memorized before they read a sentence, he noted. Men and women both delight in pictures. Humans are picture creating and picture appreciating beings. Pictures tell us how to see the world and how the world sees us. Black self-consciousness bought into the negative stereotypes projected by the white culture. So black men and women saw themselves as the pictures said they were. Douglass detested this assault upon the human dignity of black men and women.
But photography had the potential to reshape the moral outlook of a culture. With a photograph truth can be projected into society as a counter to the projected value of white supremacy. The public’s caricature can be both exposed and the black subject’s humanity affirmed over against unbridled racism. The photo has a “soul-awakening power” he declared in a speech titled “Pictures and Progress.” He would go on and say,
“Poets, prophets, and reformers are all picture makers–and this ability is the secret of their power and of their achievements. They see what ought to be by the reflection of what is, and endeavor to remove the contradiction … Truth is the soul of art.”
So Frederick Douglass was often asked to have his photo made. He consented. Historians have identified over 160 separate photos by different poses (different than the same photo being copied and redistributed) of Douglass. Douglass believed this was crucial to truth telling. Black men and women needed to see themselves visually depicted as a real human being. White men and women equally needed to have their own racist subconsciousness exposed for what it is. He promoted the photography of black men and women living normal lives to create a counter narrative to what society claimed about them.
Pictures continue to shape our collective society. They reinforce our moral cancer or they can expose us to denied truths. Five years after Douglass died, W. E. B. Du Bois had learned the lessons from Douglass well. At The Paris Exposition of 1900, Du Bois organized “The New Negro Exhibit.” It consisted of 363 portraits of black women, children and men. These portraits were in stark (even glaring) contrast to caricatures that continued to swamp the world and America in particular for most of the 20th century.
So Douglass sat, not because he was vain but because the photograph becomes a missionary of sorts. Both African Americans (who needed to see themselves) and white Americans (who needed to see the truth). And that is how Frederick Douglass became, against all odds, the most photographed American of the Nineteenth Century.
In 2016, I read the book by Harvard Professors John Stauffer, Zoe Trodd and Celeste-Marie Bernier, Picturing Frederick Douglass: An Illustrated Biography of the Nineteenth Century’s Most Photographed American. This wonderful book has most of the known photos of Douglass. It has his speeches on photography. This is just a rich book.
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