God’s Image is Ebony: Photographs from the Black Archives

13 min readApr 23, 2020

St. Joseph Museums Virtual Lecture Series | Presented on April 24, 2020

Getting the apologetics out of the way — I am only a specialist when it comes to the topic of photography. I have limited academic abilities concerning the issues of race. When preparing materials for this lecture, I aimed to locate as many sources from black historians, artists, and authors as I could. It can go without saying that the majority of reported histories have frequently been from a white perspective, and the history of photography is no different. Updated versions of textbooks make an effort to focus on the social uses of art by diversifying their roster of contemporary artists to include more people of color. However, there are only a few examples provided in the discourse that include black inventors, scientists, or practitioners of the medium during photography’s beginnings. Using the images from the Black Archives located at the St. Joseph Museums, we will explore photography’s origins, discuss how the medium has been used to illustrate concepts of race, and its significance in forming an image of selfhood.

The search to make images long precedes the discovery of photography beginning with cave paintings in France and Spain well over 40,000 years ago. But, it was not until the invention of the Daguerreotype that there was a viable process to obtain an exact likeness without the use of drawing or painting methods. The term photography is derived from two Greek words that literally translate into writing with light. Using the aid of light-sensitive materials and the science of catching light inside of a darkened box, we were able to produce exact images by mechanical means. However, the struggle laid in ensuring those images to be permanent upon a surface. After the death of his partner Joseph Niepce, the French set designer, Jaques Louis Mande Daguerre, had a breakthrough and was able to make permanent the light from a camera obscura in 1839.

The Daguerreotype, frequently quoted as a mirror with a memory, was a photographic process that applied light-sensitive chemistry upon a highly polished copper plate. The process created a direct-positive image, indicating that there is no negative, and the resulting image is considered a one-of-a-kind object. Daguerreotypes were incredibly detailed and could appear holographic when their viewing perspective was changed. The observer could directly see a reflection of themselves on the surface, merging subject, and viewer together. This process made it possible that the ordinary person could have their likeness copied without the expense or the time dedicated to having their portrait painted. Because Daguerre made his process open for unrestricted use, he ushered the way for the first portrait studios and photography as a business in Europe and America.

Daguerreotypes of African Americans are considered uncommon, and even rarer is the citing of professional photography studios maintained and administered by an African American proprietors. One of the most renowned black photographers and daguerreotypists was James Presley Ball in Cincinnati, Ohio, during the 1840s, his customers were mostly white. In the 1850s, Ball went on to collaborate with other African American artists depicting views of the American slave trade. He also toured to Europe, where he had the opportunity to photograph Queen Victoria and Charles Dickens (Google Arts & Culture).

The Daguerreotype had restricted characteristics. Although landscapes and scientific images were being made, the Daguerreotype’s ability to render moving subjects was lacking. Exposure times were lengthy, and blurred movement could be recognized in the resulting images. Additionally, Daguerreotypes were fixed using harmful mercury vapors. In the 1850s, the English inventor Frederick Scott Archer began to use medical collodion to carry the light-sensitive silver salts on plates of glass, iron, and tin. The new process was less toxic, more light-sensitive, and just as detailed, if not more, than a Daguerreotype. The wet plate process could also provide positive and negative images, resulting in reproducibility. The process could also be developed within a portable darkroom. The catch — the exposure had to be conducted when the plate was still wet with chemistry and developed immediately.

The collodion process was the photographic technology that documented the American Civil war. Amos Stillman, pictured with wife Elizabeth, was an honorably discharged veteran. Stillman was assigned to Company D of the 70th Regiment of the United States Colored Infantry and found himself in the First Colored Infantry at Fort Scott, KS. I speculate that this image is an example of an ambrotype. Ambrotypes were collodion images made on glass with a black backing, resulting in an image that appears as a positive. Some were displayed in metal-framed cases comparable to Daguerreotypes. Without the black backing, the glass is transparent and reveals the picture as a negative. Lighter and less fragile substrates were substituted for glass; these included thin plates of blackened iron and tin. Many Civil War soldiers carried tintypes (ferrotypes) of their loved ones or sent them home to their families.

By the late 1800s, photography unfolds from a medium of professional practitioners towards growing into a genuine democratic art form. The 1880s and 1890s simplified the photographic system even further with the creation of the dry plate. The dry plate process allowed for pre-coated photographic plates that could be stored for later use. This technological advancement stabilized inconsistencies of the process, eliminated the requirement to travel with a darkroom, and made it unnecessary to expose and process photographs immediately. The Eastman Dry Plate Company began mass-producing this new technology, and it became the professional photographic choice into the early 20th century.

This image of St. Joseph inventor Charles Baker is likely an image printed from a dry plate negative for an article published in a 1904 issue of the News-Press and Daily Gazette announcing Baker’s advancements in radiant heating. Baker’s The Friction Heat & Boiler Co. employed unskilled laborers to manufacture his heaters. Additionally, Baker founded a home for ex-slaves in the city.

Shortly after the addition of the dry plate, Eastman produces the first Kodak Brownie №1, with the motto, “You press the shutter, we do the rest.” The Brownie was a small and portable box camera that could be hand-held. It came pre-loaded with a roll of flexible film allowing for multiple frames per roll. Once all the frames were exposed, the user mailed the camera back to the Eastman factory for processing, printing, and reloading. Before the Brownie, cameras were bulky and unwieldy. Only single plates of glass could be loaded into a camera, and tripods were required. From 1839 to 1888, these obstacles kept cameras out of the hands of the general public and amateur use. Once the Kodak Brownie was released, we witness the rise of vernacular photography and snapshots through the depictions of candid domestic life. The Kodak was primarily marketed to women, who became the storytellers of their families.

After the Brownie, photography’s technological improvements included compact and portable cameras, smaller films, faster lenses, reversing mirrors, instant films, and the advancement of stable color processes. Color being a topic, we will investigate further in a moment.

Since the discovery, photography has been used as a means for documentation. I believe it is naive to consider what is placed in front of the lens as an objective image. Susan Sontag writes that this naivete is dependent on how a photograph is identified or misidentified. In the next slides, I would like to address why we make pictures, what we use pictures for, and why it matters who is behind the lens and viewing the image.

The act of photography is innately voyeuristic. And though it is possible to obtain a candid moment, there are differing levels of construction, leaving the medium never genuinely unbiased. These levels of construction can be simply what the photographer chooses to include or omit from the composition to an elaborately staged performance for the camera.

When we document inside our social or cultural groups, the resulting image can be empowering. We photograph ourselves to be recognized. That is what the potential of our photographic legacies provide and why photography has become the primary vehicle towards self-representation. We want to be seen, to bear witness to our lives, giving evidence that we exist and that we matter. This is what makes the family photo album so mesmerizing. It is the story of our experiences that we are in control of. And we do, regulate our narratives.

Frederick Douglas and Sojourner Truth understood these implied characteristics of photography. Both commissioned photographic portraits of themselves to promote black accomplishments in America and Europe. By doing so, these historic figures eliminated the victimhood that was often depicted in the hands of white image-maker and publisher. By taking hold of their photographic likeness, they freed their own self-image. On a larger scale, releasing their cultural image from perpetuating demeaning commodity. In doing so, they became positive icons for future generations.

Contrasting against the colonial sideshow at the 1900 Paris International Exhibit, W.E.B. Du Bois exhibited celebratory depictions of blackness. He chose to display scenes of domesticity, work ethic, and piousness. Thus reshaping the understanding of black identity for the public.

The story of Aunt Jemima is essential to the history of St. Joseph. The pancake mix was invented in 1889, and it’s boxes marketed a post-civil war image of a smiling black woman wearing a kerchief and scarf offering up a plate of pancakes. The image was the stereotype of the mammy that white households often employed during this era in American history. This likeness became a cultural symbol and took on a different appearance as time went on.

Photographs have a way of living a life of their own, and there are many ways that a picture can be oppressive. Yet, the collective endorsement of what is considered appropriate changes with each generation. Today most people would find this 1927 image of Aunt Jemima with a group of white Co-Operative Club members unacceptable. In 1927, this was just an established and acceptable experience of the era.

Being in social isolation during this pandemic, like many others, led me to sort through some of my own family photographs. In doing so, I noticed an image of my great-great-grandmother on Halloween in 1953 dressed in blackface as Aunt Jemima. I asked my family about this image. The answer I received was one of indifferent dismissal for this behavior and brushing it off as a benign habit of the time. I agree that this was likely held as friendly behavior in Missouri of 1953. Yet, I do not believe that photographic spectacles, such as this, are entirely innocent or rid of racist associations. The reason I feel this way is because this image is dated at the precipice of racial tension as the Civil Rights Movement was about gain momentum. My family photograph, as I interpret it, through the lens of my 21st-century thinking, is that this is an example of an early microaggression. Microaggressions are insinuated or nonverbal statements of indignity (Merriam-Webster).

When photography was invented, the scientific community embraced its abilities of documentation by producing pictorial archives of African and Native races over the globe. These photographs posed subjects nude upon stark backgrounds for viewers to objectify. Psychoanalytical theory suggests this defines what is known as the gaze. The scientific pictures of the late 19th century used the concept of the gaze not only for scrutiny of ethnic differences but to categorize physical deformities, mental illness, and criminal characteristics. More often than not, these subjects were those existing on the fringes of society. We see a return of the gaze to portray images of property, such as slave ownership. However, the period between the American Civil War and the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement are some of the most violent and exploitative uses of the photographic gaze seen in the documentation of lynching spectacles. Like a violent crash that we come upon on the roadside, it’s hard to turn away. There is an instinctive urge to gawk at such horrors. Today I have chosen to exclude examples of lynching imagery. Not only because of it’s sensitive and painful content, but because these sorts of images can still be held as commodities by certain groups.

The interactive map presented by the Equal Justice Initiative cites Missouri as having the second most documented incidents of lynchings outside of the South. Those cases were sixty in total and one of note occurring in St. Joseph across from the Buchanan County Courthouse and Jail.

Another quote attributed to Susan Song is the that photographs of atrocity illustrate as well as corroborate. The University of Massachusetts at Amherst has an image in its collection from the 1933 lynching of Lloyd Warner. He was accused of attacking a white girl. Warner was taken from his cell, hung and set on fire. The photograph by Alton Blackington depicts a smoldering body surround by a crowd of white spectators. Images of lynchings were made into postcards and sent to family and friends. As if the mere photographing of the event wasn’t vulgar enough.

The last area of racial disregard I would like to address is one that pertains to the shortcomings of color photography. Striving for the rendering of color in images from the onset of photography was something that presented hurdles for scientists. There are many documented attempts, but the resulting product usually ended in color photographs that were not stable. The colors would shift or fade, and it wasn’t until the 20th century that we had reliable color film stocks. Color was the medium of advertising and generally considered garish. Color photography was shunned for artistic purposes until the 1970s when they were first exhibited as fine art in a museum. With that being said, the film was also produced to render white skin tones. It wasn’t until the need to depict chocolate food products or wooden furniture in advertising that color film was adjusted to represent darker shades. Light meters and autofocus, however, have not changed, and the technology still struggles to identify darker subjects.

The Kansas born photographer, Gordon Parks, knew the power of photography in the fight against poverty and prejudice. To produce one’s own image is vital for any group of people. We have examined what can happen in the wrong hands. Depicted on this slide are Lucille Potts Warner and a group enjoying a meal at Casa Loma, a popular black-owned restaurant in St. Joseph. These are the photographs that anyone could hope to be remembered for. If we contrast the photos on this slide to the previous of Aunt Jemima, we see images of people at ease and, in essence, free to be themselves. There is a self-assuredness. For the remaining slides, I would like to end with images of positivity from the era of desegregation in St. Joseph.

Missouri’s legislature banned slavery in 1865 and began giving free but segregated public education. In 1875, the local census reported 570 black children in the district, but a colored high school was not opened until 1885. It was named Bartlett High in 1904 and served as the high school for African Americans until 1954, the year that the St. Joseph School District desegregated. Bartlett High was equipped with all-black instructors and was praised by its reputation of students who went on to become doctors, lawyers, and other highly valued professions. Even after its use as a school, Bartlett High continued to serve the community as a resource and recreation center, renamed after Horace Mann.

As a community space, civic leaders such as the boxer Big John Lucas and the influence of heavyweight Joe Louis would organize outreach programming for disadvantaged youths. John Lucas went on to become St. Joseph’s first elected black City Council member in the late 1880s.

Photography, as we have seen, has a turbulent history as it pertains to race. Still, its silver lining is that is can educate us about our collective past. Photography also authorizes any group of people or individuals to forge their own narrative or control the representation of their likeness. Concluding, the title of this lecture is a slight modification referencing an 1854 abolitionist text titled God’s Image in Ebony. Making this modification was meant to convey that every group deserves to recognize goodness within their own likeness.