Black Lives, Photographed
It is evident that the great cheapness and universality of pictures must exert a powerful, though silent, influence upon the ideas and sentiment of present and future generations.
Carte-de-visite of Frederick Douglass by J.P. Ball, circa 1867
This selection of 19th- and 20th-century images shows Black sitters and subjects photographed using a variety of processes, including salted paper, albumen, tintype, and gelatin silver. The images range from formal studio portraits to photographs taken in the field during the American Civil War. Many more materials that document Black history and culture can be found in the Graphic Arts Collection and elsewhere in PUL Special Collections. Some examples include "Documenting 19th-century African American Communities" and "John Lewis and the Selma to Montgomery Marches of 1965."
Graphic Arts Blog Posts
(by Julie Mellby unless otherwise noted)
- "African American Portraits, 1860s–1880s" (April 9, 2010)
- "The Civil Rights movement in America" (February 23, 2018)
- "Photographs of Caesar and unidentified young woman" (April 16, 2019)