5 10 101 https://mirrorofrace.bc.edu/files/original/dc937d8c877f2742ea4d7c1699db654d.jpg fd30d15095e4cdc8aa38f44853d30e63 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Mirror of Race Subject The topic of the resource Mirror of Race Main Collection Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data carte de visite: albumen print Physical Dimensions The actual physical size of the original image cdv standard Factual Commentary Factual Commentary Frances Clayton adopted the name Jack Williams and posed as a man so that she could join her husband, Elmer Clayton, when he enlisted in the Union army. They fought together in several Missouri regiments, both cavalry and artillery. Elmer Clayton was killed in action, in front of Frances, at the battle of Mufreesboro on December 31, 1862, but she kept on fighting. She was wounded multiple times herself, but managed to keep her identity hidden even after the death of her husband. She fought at many engagements, including the decisive battle of Fort Donelson on February 12, 1862. Interpretive Commentary Interpretive Commentary Frances Clayton was not the only woman to adopt a male persona to fight in the war. Dozens if not hundreds did so, too. The Miror of Race is interested in exploring the issue of gender passing as it relates to race passing. How do the two forms of passing compare? Which was more of a transgression at the time? When and why did it become acceptable to pass, either by race or by gender? What kind of "performance" was required to carry it off? And what does passing tell about the reality, or non-reality, of race and gender as natural categories? Please go here for a sub-exhibition of portraits of women pushing the boundaries of gender roles in this period. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Figure020 Title A name given to the resource Frances Clalin Clayton, aka Jack Williams Subject The topic of the resource Frances Clalin Clayton, aka Jack Williams Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource S. Masury Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource circa 1865 Type The nature or genre of the resource studio portrait Rights Holder A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource. Greg French Collection https://mirrorofrace.bc.edu/files/original/59661da67004aab86e62461b5712b663.jpg 90e9ec9f1f6861e94ccc87d5f3079792 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Mirror of Race Subject The topic of the resource Mirror of Race Main Collection Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data carte de visite: albumen print Physical Dimensions The actual physical size of the original image cdv standard Factual Commentary Factual Commentary The makers’ imprint on the back of each of these two photographs reads: “Robinson and Murphy, Artists, No. 4 Bank Row, Huntsville, Ala” (click on the image to see an enlargement). There is also a handwritten note in period pen that reads as follows: “Photograph of uniforms etc taken by Lt. L. E. Campbell 38th NY on the night of the 31st of October, 1868 ― these were worn by Ku Klux on the night of the fight.” The “fight” mentioned here was a raid on Huntsville, Alabama on Oct. 31, 1868 by approximately 150 mounted men, all wearing Ku Klux Klan regalia and armed with pistols, shotguns, and other other weapons. The 1868 report of the Joint Committee on Outrages, compiled and published to record the increasing activities of the KKK, describes how the raiders came to town to break up a meeting of the Republican Party and to intimidate the now free Blacks of the region. Following is an excerpt from the testimony of A. J. Applegate, a witness to the raid: “About 10 o’clock, the excitement in the meeting and around the court house, became very great. I could hear from all quarters that the Ku Klux were com- ing. I walked down in front of the court house, and saw the head of the column coming up the street, on the east side of the square. They were riding three and four abreast. Their horses were covered with white sheets. The members wore gowns made of light colored material, with masks, hideously ornamented. Each horseman had from one to two pistols, one of which was carried in his right hand, cocked ; also, a carbine or double-barreled shot gun. The column consisted of about one hundred and fifty men. As they passed around the square, I passed through the hall of the court house, crossed the street ahead of the column. When I came out of the court house yard, I saw large crowds of the white citizens stand- ing in groups, or running to and fro, and a considerable number of negroes, who seemed worked up to a state of perfect phrenzy with fear.” The KKK raiders shot Judge Thurlow, who died of his wounds, as well as two African American men, also killed, and wounded several more. Citizens of Huntsville sent to a nearby Federal army camp for protection. That evening, Lieutenant Campbell’s patrol caught three mounted men with weapons and KKK robes in their saddle bags, arrested them, and confiscated the weapons and regalia. But the local authorities released them from prison the next morning; with the help of local citizens, they rearmed, took back their horses by force, and escaped. There seems to have been no other consequences for the attackers. The men in the two photographs are therefore not members of the Ku Klux Klan. They are Federal soldiers who have put on the confiscated robes to record them with a photographer as part of an effort to document the practices of the KKK. These are then very early examples of documentary or forensic photography. According to the Arlington National Cemetery Website, Lieutenant Lafayette E. Campbell (1845-1919) was a career soldier who entered the military as a private in 1862 and rose to the rank of first lieutenant by the end of the Civil War. In 1875, Campbell married Margaret Lynd Dent, the daughter of General Frederick Tracy Dent, who was the brother-in-law of President Ulysses Simpson Grant. In the late 1880’s, Captain Campbell served as quartermaster overseeing the construction of Fort Logan, Denver, Colorado. He retired at the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. Another on-line sourcefor Campbell is the Friends of Historic Fort Logan. Interpretive Commentary Interpretive Commentary These two photographs encapsulate one aspect of the tragedy of the period after the Civil War known as Reconstruction, which lasted from 1865 to 1876. During Reconstruction, Federal military forces occupied the former states of the Confederacy. Their role was to provide security and oversee the reintegration of the former rebellious states into the Union. During Reconstruction, the more radical of the Republicans hoped to orchestrate political and social change so that former slaves would have a fully participatory role in the economy and government of the southern states. African Americans identified almost universally with the Republicans and sought political office as members of that party, and many were elected to state and national positions. However, the forces of white supremacy could not tolerate change this profound, and within a few years of the end of the Civil War, groups such as the Ku Klux Klan had organized to employ terroristic violence against both Blacks and any whites who supported them. The raid on Huntsville is a good example of how such groups could operate almost without fear of the local authorities. The Federal troops stationed in the are could only act after the fact, and not effectively. They captured the KKK robes and weapons shown in the photographs, but could not stop the men who used them. Slowly but surely, the campaign of terror wore away at the national resolve to promote equality for the former slaves, and their leaders and supporters were either murdered, run out of town, or terrified into silence. By 1876, Reconstruction was effectively dead, and the the era of Jim Crow segregation and subjugation had begun. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Figure019 Title A name given to the resource Ku Klux Klan uniforms and gear Subject The topic of the resource Ku Klux Klan uniforms and gear Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1868 Type The nature or genre of the resource studio portrait Rights Holder A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource. Greg French Collection Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Robinson and Murphy (dates Unknown Photographer Photographer) https://mirrorofrace.bc.edu/files/original/a527d2de0b11747a9bc306b17709630f.jpg 644e447f73a3a0495f5f00ed01e1e804 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Mirror of Race Subject The topic of the resource Mirror of Race Main Collection Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data ambrotype Physical Dimensions The actual physical size of the original image Sixth Plate (2.75 x 3.25 inches) (pair) Factual Commentary Factual Commentary Van Meter has posed holding a copy of W. O. Blake’s History of Slavery and the Slave Trade, Ancient and Modern. The title on the book’s spine can be seen by magnifying and reversing the image:Blake’s History was first published in 1857 by J. & H. Miller of Columbus, Ohio and sold exclusively by subscription. Blake’s History is a vast overview of the historical forms of slavery, treating the subject up to the debates over Kansas in the US Congress. It strives to maintain “objectivity,” but is clearly abolitionist in its didactic intent. The Van Meters lived near Rock Island, Illinois, and Van Meter’s posing with this book seems a clear declaration of his views on the slavery question. Presented below are the title page, two page Preface, and an illustration of a slave ship, all from Blake’s History: Interpretive Commentary Interpretive Commentary For an exhibition of portraits of abolitionists, please see this link on the Mirror of Race website.http://mirrorofrace.org/abolitionits-page/ Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Figure018 Title A name given to the resource David James Van Meter and Martha Avery Van Meter Subject The topic of the resource David James Van Meter and Martha Avery Van Meter Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource David James Van Meter and Martha Avery Van Meter Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource circa 1859 Type The nature or genre of the resource studio portrait Rights Holder A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource. Gregory Fried Collection https://mirrorofrace.bc.edu/files/original/41c4897ee73c4220176ce0660b51a133.tif 7225cf3e11c1bf51cbf6c7cd8ecd9ba5 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Mirror of Race Subject The topic of the resource Mirror of Race Main Collection Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data daguerreotype Physical Dimensions The actual physical size of the original image Sixth Plate (2.75 x 3.25 inches) Factual Commentary Factual Commentary The African American man in this early (around 1845) daguerreotype holds a musical instrument known as a keyed bugle. He is almost certainly a free person, and we can tell this for several reasons. First, his clothing is well tailored and therefore would be expensive, not something given to a slave. Next, the keyed bugle itself is a valuable musical instrument, one played by highly trained musicians. Finally, he holds a sheet of music, a sign that he must have been literate, something nearly impossible, and generally illegal, for slaves. The keyed bugle was invented in 1810 in Ireland by a man named Joseph Halliday. First employed in the British military, the keyed bugle soon came into wider use by composers and orchestras. In the United States, perhaps the greatest keyed bugle player was an African American man named Francis Johnson (1792-1844), who both composed and performed, and who achieved wide fame for his virtuosity and tremendous success with both white and black audiences. Johnson lived in Philadelphia, where he instructed other free blacks in the keyed bugle, and some of them played with his traveling band. The man in this photography might have been one of Johnson’s students or a member of his circle of performers. To learn more about the keyed bugle, and to hear it played by the most accomplished modern scholar of this instrument, Ralph Dudgeon, go to this webpage. Dudgeon has also published the definitive study on the instrument, The Keyed Bugle. You can hear some of Francis Johnson’s compositions, scored for the piano, here. This brief biography, from University of Pennsylvania, provides an overview of Johnson’s life and accomplishments. Interpretive Commentary Interpretive Commentary Even though we do not know the identity of this man, we can see that he has made a very deliberate decision to pose with such evident pride with his keyed bugle and sheet music. In early photography, people would frequently pose with the tools of their trade or profession, so there is good reason to believe this man is a professional musician. The sheet music he holds is important for several reasons. Even if the man portrayed here was not a member of the circle of the African American composer, conductor, and band leader, Francis Johnson, he would have certainly known of him, as he was the most famous Black musician of his era and a great promoter of the virtues of the keyed bugle. Johnson was the first African American composer to publish his work as sheet music; this man poses with sheet music, perhaps in honor of Johnson, but certainly to convey that he is a literate reader of music, a skill symbolizing refinement and distinction. African American musicians faced racial prejudice and even violence in pursuing their careers. Accomplished musicians such as Johnson and the man portrayed here were subject to discrimination and insults by white bands, who resented competition from Black performers, and they sometimes had to dodge angry crowds of whites, who were threatened by the sheer fact that Black musicians could perform so well or even that they could read music. Despite these obstacles, Johnson was hailed as a great musician; he broke ground by performing to mixed race audiences, and he was much in demand for private and public occasions. If the man we see here played his bugle as part of that world, then he also played a part in laying the foundations for the enduring influence of Black music in the United States. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Figure017 Title A name given to the resource man with keyed bugle Subject The topic of the resource unknown Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource circa 1845 Type The nature or genre of the resource studio portrait, possibly occupational Rights Holder A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource. Greg French Collection Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Unknown Photographer https://mirrorofrace.bc.edu/files/original/c5c95df01d4c9968a492439e30b08177.jpg ddc85b1762ab9a7d523a7422538d4d32 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Mirror of Race Subject The topic of the resource Mirror of Race Main Collection Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data ambrotype Physical Dimensions The actual physical size of the original image Quarter Plate (3.25 x 4.25 inches) Factual Commentary Factual Commentary This ambrotype portrays a Union soldier armed with a musket and pistol. Black soldiers were able to enter the Federal army starting in 1863. Research into this image, comparing the studio setting to other known photographs, has shown that this is probably a soldier who enlisted in the 54th or 55th Massachusetts Infantry and posed for his portrait at Camp Meigs, the training base for these regiments in Readville, Massachusetts. The 54th became famous as the first Black regiment organized in the North, and it proved that soldiers of African descent could fight courageously when it made a valiant assault on Fort Wagner, South Carolina, on July 18, 1863. This led the way to nearly 200,000 Black soldiers being able to join the Union army. Interpretive Commentary Interpretive Commentary The story of Black soldiers making the Civil War a fight for their freedom is a decisive one in American history. Rarely does a people have the opportunity to make such a concerted decision to determine its fate. African Americans seized this one to prove their dedication to the cause of ending slavery, whatever other Americans thought the war was about, enlisting in military in their hundreds of thousands, despite unequal pay, discrimination, and mistreatment. The Mirror of Race has published one essay, by Erina Duganne, on "Black Civil War Portraiture in Context." We hope to publish more essays on this topic in the future. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Figure016 Title A name given to the resource Union infantryman Subject The topic of the resource unknown Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource circa 1863 Type The nature or genre of the resource studio portrait, military occupational Rights Holder A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource. Greg French Collection Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Unknown Photographer Photographer https://mirrorofrace.bc.edu/files/original/3fbf1af081c09e6f74a28ea310aa7ecb.tif 6ef93cdac9ea72d3ceef693784c75c36 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Mirror of Race Subject The topic of the resource Mirror of Race Main Collection Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data ambrotype Physical Dimensions The actual physical size of the original image Quarter Plate (3.25 x 4.25 inches) Factual Commentary Factual Commentary There is no identifying information on this Quarter Plate (3.25 x 4.25 inches) ambrotype, which dates to the late 1850s, but it depicts what is almost certainly a well-to-do white woman and both her African American attendant and her dog. We cannot know if the young woman is an enslaved person or a free servant employed by the elderly woman; the young woman holds a wicker basket in one hand and an unidentified object in the other. Interpretive Commentary Interpretive Commentary Although we cannot know if the young Black woman in this photograph is free or enslaved, one thing that is remarkable about this image is how she stares so directly at us, while the elderly woman is paying attention only to the dog ― who, by the way, is also looking into the camera. Photographs such as this were expensive: it is a large format and the elderly woman wears proper but clearly costly and fashionable clothes. So, the woman at the center probably commissioned it because both the young servant woman and the dog were important to her, part of her private, household life, and part of what she saw as her own identity as a mistress and a caretaker. And yet, she is not the one making contact so boldly with us through the camera’s lens. So, who truly commands the presence of this portrait? What does a photograph such as this tell about the relationship of employer ― or master, or mistress ― to servant? What were, and what still are, the social meanings of race that would explain the dynamics between the women here and how they feel comfortable presenting themselves to the camera? Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Figure015 Title A name given to the resource servant, woman, dog Subject The topic of the resource unknown Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource circa 1860 Type The nature or genre of the resource studio portrait Rights Holder A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource. Greg French Collection Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Unknown Photographer Photographer https://mirrorofrace.bc.edu/files/original/716adf174b9f9b4b52564564c10b5166.tif aad51263ebf04fde9c6bdd7eecc45991 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Mirror of Race Subject The topic of the resource Mirror of Race Main Collection Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Daguerreotype Physical Dimensions The actual physical size of the original image Quarter plate (3 1/8" x 4 1/8") Exhibition Name Name of the exhibition in which the item appears Main Exhibition Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Figure014 Title A name given to the resource Delia Subject The topic of the resource Delia Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Joseph T. Zealy Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1850 Type The nature or genre of the resource Studio Portrait Rights Holder A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource. Harvard Peabody Museum (T1869; 35-5-10/53039) https://mirrorofrace.bc.edu/files/original/64c59179e808335a8543769e12402e33.jpg 1ce6a2223a1162647d72dc3458e359f9 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Mirror of Race Subject The topic of the resource Mirror of Race Main Collection Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data daguerreotype Physical Dimensions The actual physical size of the original image Half Plate (4.25 x 5.5 inches) Factual Commentary Factual Commentary This street scene is by James Presley Ball (1825-1904), a successful African American photographer. Ball learned the daguerreian process in 1845, and then spent most of the next 25 years in Cincinnati, where his business was successful enough to allow him to travel to Europe in 1856. He was an abolitionist, and his large and elegant studios hosted both white and black clients. This scene depicts a street in Ball’s home city, Cincinnati, featuring the building of a candy manufacturer, Myers and Co., Confectioners, along with some of the employers, and perhaps the owner himself (we do not know if Mr. Myers is one of the men standing outside). If you click on the image to the left, you can zoom in to see the extraordinary detail of this daguerreotype, including the writing on the hand-painted signs and a youthful, well-dressed black man, leaning on a post. Barely visible behind him is another black youth in a white shirt, pushing a wheelbarrow with crates of goods on it. On the street is a wagon, where the crates are being loaded for delivery. They are marked “CANDY, Myers & Co., 50 lbs.” Interpretive Commentary Interpretive Commentary J. P. Ball was a remarkably skilled photographer, as this extraordinary daguerreotype demonstrates. In the bright light of full day, Ball produced an image with beautiful tones and contrasts that even captures a sense of movement without the tell-tale blurring of a long exposure time. The resolution and detail in the photograph is exceptional, and such effects required a practitioner who had both the talent to compose a shot and the technical mastery to bring it off, both in preparing the plate and in understanding all the conditions of light and subject matter. Ball’s mastery of the process explains why he was such a successful portrait photographer, too. We cannot know for certain, but it is likely that Myers and Company commissioned J. P. Ball to make this portrait of their business, probably from a sense of pride at is success ― hence the delivery under preparation and the sense of activity. While not exactly a documentary photograph, because it was probably made on commission and not to record historical facts, early images such as this of city life are rare, and J. P. Ball executed this one with great skill. The best scholarly work on James Presley Ball is by Deborah Willis: J. P. Ball: Daguerrean and Studio Photographer (Routledge, 1993). Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Figure013 Title A name given to the resource Cincinnati street scene Subject The topic of the resource Cincinnati street scene Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource James Presley Ball (American, dates uncertain) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource circa 1850 Type The nature or genre of the resource city scene, commercial Rights Holder A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource. Greg French Collection https://mirrorofrace.bc.edu/files/original/1e1f1927b0f25eccb8cee107698bab28.tif a2132deb7a8a07cd2b31a751200201d2 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Mirror of Race Subject The topic of the resource Mirror of Race Main Collection Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data daguerreotype Physical Dimensions The actual physical size of the original image Sixth Plate (2.75 x 3.25 inches) Factual Commentary Factual Commentary This is the earliest known portrait of Frederick Douglass (1818(?)-1895), the great American abolitionist, orator, and writer. We do not know the photographer, or where the portrait was taken, but judging from the style of the case the photograph comes in, it was probably taken around 1845, about the time of the publication of the autobiography that made him famous: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Douglass was a strong proponent of photography as a medium that could present people as they truly were, deserving equal respect as human beings, so he often sat for his portrait, using these images as publicity. He wrote and delivered several public lectures on the importance of photography. The autobiographical Narrative is the best place to go for the life of Douglass, and you can read a version of it online here, but the broad details are these: Douglass was born into slavery around 1818 in Maryland. He did not know his exact birth date or even birth year with certainty. His father may have been his own master. In his childhood, Douglass was lent out to a relation of his master, whose wife taught him the rudiments of reading, even though it was against the law to teach a slave to read. Douglass continued to teach himself by any means he could find, and learning to read fired his desire for freedom. When Douglass was 16, his master grew unhappy with him and hired him out in 1833 to a notorious slave-breaker, Thomas Covey, who beat Douglass regularly. Douglass finally fought back against Covey in an hours-long brawl, and Covey never tried to whip him again. After that, Douglass made several attempts to escape slavery, finally succeeding in 1838. He made his way to New York City, where he married Anna Murray, a free Black woman he had met in Maryland whose status as a free woman had inspired his own aspirations. He and Anna moved to New Bedford, Massachusetts, where Douglass became progressively more and more involved in the abolitionist movement. He started speaking publicly in 1841 and published his autobiography in 1845. The book rapidly became a bestseller, both in the United States and abroad, and Douglass traveled to Ireland and England, where gave speeches to crowded venues, earning financial support for his further ventures. Upon returning to the United States, Douglass started his career as a journalist and abolitionist newspaper publisher, founding The North Star, Frederick Douglass Weekly, and other papers. His thinking expanded to include civil equality for all, not just slaves and free BLacks, but woman and all peoples, including Native Americans. He continued his speaking tours to advance the abolitionist cause. During the Civil War, Douglass lobbied tirelessly with President Lincoln for the right of Blacks to serve in the army. After the war, Douglass continued in his work for civil rights through journalism, writing, politics, and speeches. He held several ambassadorial positions, including consul-general to the Republic of Haiti (1889-1891). When he died in 1895, thousands came to pay their respects. Interpretive Commentary Interpretive Commentary It is remarkable that we have a portrait record of Frederick Douglass in 1845, at the moment he entered into history as the author of his international bestseller, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. From the very beginning of his public career, Douglass saw photography as an important tool in the fight for freedom. The essay "True Pictures: Frederick Douglass on the Promise of Photography," available on the Mirror of Race website here, explores his faith in the power of photography to contribute to the fight for equality. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Figure012 Title A name given to the resource Frederick Douglass Subject The topic of the resource Frederick Douglass Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource circa 1845 Type The nature or genre of the resource studio portrait Rights Holder A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource. Greg French Collection Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Unknown Photographer https://mirrorofrace.bc.edu/files/original/79cd8141934c4bba809884a4d5f26b42.tif d1063990c5d0c41bae308f28f939d88e Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Mirror of Race Subject The topic of the resource Mirror of Race Main Collection Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data daguerreotype Physical Dimensions The actual physical size of the original image Sixth Plate (2.75 x 3.25 inches) Factual Commentary Factual Commentary We know little about this image; however, the man on the left is holding a bodhram, a traditional Irish drum. It is quite possible that these two are Irish immigrants. The style of the image case and the photograph, a daguerreotype, suggest a date of around 1850, and so they may also be refugees from the great Potato Famine that raged in Ireland from 1845 to 1852. Interpretive Commentary Interpretive Commentary The Mirror of Race is interested in exploring the question of what constitutes "Whiteness." Who counts as white, and how does this get articulated in law, in society, and visually in photographs? In the case of the Irish, there was considerable debate in the 19th century in the United States as to whether they could count as properly "white," and the Irish faced tremendous discrimination when here. We are hoping to publish essays on the issue of Whiteness and on the Irish experience and its broader meaning for race in general. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Figure010 Title A name given to the resource Drummer and Fiddler Subject The topic of the resource Unknown Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource circa 1850 Type The nature or genre of the resource studio portrait Rights Holder A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource. Greg French Collection Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Unknown Photographer