"The national struggle over the political meaning of race found expression in all arenas of antebellum visual culture."

True Pictures
Gregory Fried

Part I | II | III | IV | V
Early Photographic Techniques

Other portraits, such as this 1849 daguerrotype of a man in his work clothes and an apron (fig. 7) or the portrait of a fireman in his gear (fig. 8), illustrate that African American laborers and artisans could also afford to show themselves for who they were, with pride in their trade or their work in public service.

Fig. 7. Photographer unknown: subject unknown, sixth plate daguerreotype, c. 1849-55. Collection of Greg French.

Fig. 8. Photographer unknown: subject unknown, quarter plate tintype, c. 1860-65. Collection of Greg French.

When the Civil War broke out, Douglass lobbied President Lincoln passionately for the right of African Americans to bear arms and fight for the Union cause. "I have a right to ask when I . . . march to the battle field" for "a country or the hope of a country under me, a government that recognizes my manhood around me, and a flag of freedom waving over me!" By 1863, black regiments were forming and young African American men resolutely met the call to arms (fig. 9).

Fig. 9. Photographer unknown: subject unknown, quarter plate ambrotype, c. 1863-65. Collection of Greg French.

The national struggle over the political meaning of race found expression in all arenas of antebellum visual culture. In The Octoroon, a statue made by John Bell, a naked and apparently "white" woman, her arms in chains, her clothes on the pillar beside her, bows her head in a sorrowful yet dignified resignation to inspection before going to the auction block (fig. 10).

Fig. 10. Photographer unknown: The Octoroon (from a sculpture by John Bell), albumen print, one half of a stereograph, c. 1859-65. Collection of Gregory Fried.