PHOTOGRAPHY AND RACE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY: ABOLITION, CIVIL WAR, AND RECONSTRUCTION

Photography served alternately as a tool of racial domination and resistance before and after the Civil War (1861-65). Sojourner Truth and Frederick Douglass effectively used images to promote abolitionist crusades. Photographs of dead Union and Confederate soldiers helped puncture the myth of the romance of war. Images also helped expose the possibilities and limitations of the Reconstruction period and its aftermath—particularly as seen in lynching photos in which white crowds posed with murdered black Americans. This fascinating slide lecture explores the evolution of photographic technology, new aesthetic conventions, and the circulation and consumption of these artifacts in the nineteenth century. Join us for Professor Hiatt’s original insights into this tremendously important period of history.