Why did Frederick Douglass think that photography was so important?

Frederick Douglass and the Power of Photography

Douglass knew that pictures allowed him to present himself as a person worthy of respect and dignity equal to any white man, and to challenge slavery.

Frederick Douglass invariably took a striking photograph, but that wasn't the foremost thing on his mind. Most of all, he wanted people of his ...

Why Abolitionist Frederick Douglass Loved the Photograph

Douglass considered photography the most democratic of arts, a crucial aid in the quest to end slavery and achieve civil rights.

Frederick Douglass and the Power of Pictures

... great father of our modern pictures is seldom … ... pictures is seldom mentioned, though as worthy as the foremost.

Frederick Douglass: Man of Pictures - University of Rochester

As photography studios began to open, Douglass traveled across the country delivering anti-slavery speeches, where he likely encountered this exciting new ...

Why There Are So Many Photographs of Frederick Douglass

What photography does is photography changes that notion. It flips that notion on its head because you see them as they are. All of Douglass' photographs-- he ...

The Photographic Performance Work of Frederick Douglass and ...

This 1893 photograph encourages a viewer to consider what is left uncaptured by visual images and grants Douglass a certain protective concealment. In this ...

Was Frederick Douglas the most photographed person of the 19th ...

There are many photographs of Frederick Douglass but most are prints taken from a handful of glass plate “negatives”. These were known as “contact prints”.

Why Frederick Douglass Was the Most Photographed 19th-Century ...

“The humblest servant girl may now possess a picture of herself such as the wealth of kings could not purchase 50 years ago,” Douglass once ...

Frederick Douglass Used Photographs To Force The Nation To ...

Douglass believed photography “highlighted the essential humanity of its subjects,” as the authors state in their book's introduction, which ...

How Frederick Douglass Found Power in Photography - Kara Hanson

Provided, however, that the photographers were not manipulating the scene. Douglass believed the photographer inevitably held the power to ...

Frederick Douglass and the Photograph - Harriet Tubman

The most photographed American man of the 19th century, Frederick Douglass fully utilized the daguerreotype and the recent invention of photography.

Picture This: Frederick Douglass Was The Most Photographed Man ...

And he believed in the camera's truth value - that even in the hands of a racist white, the camera will not lie. Thus, it was a wonderful ...

Douglass and the Photograph | Becoming Frederick Douglass

By portraying himself as majestic and dignified, he made it undeniable for 19th-century viewers that he, an African American man, was a human ...

Douglass Portraits - American Writers Museum Exhibits

Frederick Douglass was the most photographed man of the 19th century ... He also saw photography as a tool for creating an image of black manhood in ...

One Life: Frederick Douglass | National Portrait Gallery

As an art critic, he wrote extensively on portrait photography and understood its power. He explained how this “true art” (as opposed to ...

Why Do Selfies Matter? Ask Frederick Douglass - Freethink

In that era, this meant printing his photos and getting them seen by as many people as possible. Douglass would give away pictures of himself en ...

Portrait Photography Through the Lens of Fredrick Douglass

In Douglass's portraits, nothing distracts the audience from looking at him and engaging with him. In each photo, he appears well-appointed, in ...

Picturing Frederick Douglass - Literary Hub

For Douglass, Stauffer says, having his photograph taken was “not a personal memento, but very much about his public image. He recognized the ...

The Importance of Photography in Abolition

We are able to see photography function in this way time and time again. It started in the first abolition era, with Frederick Douglass, a former enslaved ...