1 10 101 https://mirrorofrace.bc.edu/files/original/7fd87d96282210db1e3f93ca0d0041af.pdf 6a00a2fef0ec7ed5fc3351822b98b965 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 Critical Analysis 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 Three Essays on Louis Agassiz in Brazil Subject The topic of the resource Three Essays on Louis Agassiz in Brazil https://mirrorofrace.bc.edu/files/original/c0da68ae8c2ada2e20eefea46dcfa9a2.tif 0d7e24d1234c41e98c501291bd0fd22c 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 Violence 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. Exhibition Name Name of the exhibition in which the item appears Violence Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Carte de visite (albumen print) Factual Commentary Factual Commentary Amateur theatricals, where family or friends would put on their own plays, were a popular form of entertainment in the latter part of the 19th century, and groups would often commemorate their performances with a photograph. In this one, the player act out a lynching, with the African American on the left being hanged by the neck with a rope while one of the party holds a gun to him; even the photographer, Otto Giers, sits in his own photograph at the far right — holding the rope. This seems all in fun, but one must remember the horrific context: in the world of Jim Crow after the end of Reconstruction, even minor infractions of the racial norms that enforced white supremacy could result in the public murder, usually without any legal consequences for the killers. 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 Figure 7 Title A name given to the resource Amateur theatrical scene, with mock lynching Subject The topic of the resource Amateur theatrical scene, with mock lynching Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource W.G. Thuss, Emil Kollein, and Otto Giers (Nashville, Tennessee) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource circa 1880 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/3b28e0ccd3976457631d88aa8541b0ba.tif 0d7e24d1234c41e98c501291bd0fd22c 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 Otto Giers, right, and his father Carl, a German immigrant, documented life in Nashville from 1855 through the early 20th century. Otto Giers became quite successful as a portraitist; compilations of his photographs of Nashville are still in print. This staged amateur theatrical includes a mock hanging of an African American. Note also the man holding a pistol on the man being hanged. Interpretive Commentary Interpretive Commentary Although the violence depicted here seems all in jest, it echoes the very real and widespread use of lynching in post-Civil War America. Lynching served as a form of terrorism to enforce white supremacy well into the 20th century. While such lynchings occurred outside the legal system, that system proved either unwilling or unable to stop them or to prosecute those guilty of murder by lynching. In large part, this was because the white communities involved often supported this activity and would not assist investigations and would not testify or convict the perpetrators in a jury trial. For a powerful photographic history of lynching in the late 19th and 20th centuries, see the book Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America, by James Allen. The Without Sanctuary project also has a website exhibition of its photographs. What this work demonstrates is that for several generations, the extraordinary brutality of lynching was openly embraced by much of society: by the late 19th century, when snapshot cameras became common, onlookers would take photographs that were turned into picture-postcards that they would send to friends and family. Lynchings were therefore a kind of terror as entertainment. For that reason, the image we see here, even although made "in fun," participates in the same discourse where the violent subjugation of Blacks could be seen as a form of amusement. When extraordinary injustice can be seen as funny, that assists in the perpetuation of the injustice, because it means that the community does not take it seriously as the outrage it is. A question worth asking here is, to what extent do fun and play contribute to systems of injustice? In the 19th century, and well into the 20th, when there was no radio or television, amateur theatricals ― in which student, family, and community groups would put on informal (and sometimes quite formal and elaborate) performances ― served as a form of popular entertainment. Such "plays" allowed participants to transgress traditional roles and ordinary behavior, such as we see here: the men playfully dress as woman, while at the same time they playfully hang a Black man. So, does such play undermine the norms, by allowing participants to imagine roles beyond the norm, or does it reinforce those norms by showing how ridiculous it is to imagine things being any other way than they are? 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 Figure073 Title A name given to the resource amateur theatrical group Subject The topic of the resource unknown Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource W.G. Thuss, Emil Kollein and Otto Giers (Nashville, Tennessee) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource circa 1880 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/cc0e2f7b65b35b0477888fa0e84de871.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 Violence 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. Exhibition Name Name of the exhibition in which the item appears Violence Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Ambrotype Factual Commentary Factual Commentary This young man is a new recruit in the famous 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. Starting in 1863, nearly 200,000 free African Americans, as well as those who escaped from slavery during the war, served in the Union Army and fought in the Civil War. Abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass argued for allowing them into the army: “Once let the black man get upon his person the brass letters US, let him get an eagle on his button, and a musket on his shoulder, and bullets in his pocket, and there is no power on earth or under the earth which can deny that he has earned the right of citizenship 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 Figure 4 Title A name given to the resource Union soldier Subject The topic of the resource Union soldier 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 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 photographer https://mirrorofrace.bc.edu/files/original/481344c5a17855aa215803b584328361.tif c052ff6369534e4bbb450236e3c66145 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 Coming to America 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. Exhibition Name Name of the exhibition in which the item appears Coming to America Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Tintype Factual Commentary Factual Commentary The Statue of Liberty was erected in 1886 in New York’s harbor. With its place close by Ellis Island, a processing center for immigrant arrivals, it became a symbol of the the hope those immigrants brought with them to America. Here, two African American women pose before a photographer’s painted backdrop of the Statue. Blacks have been coming to America for centuries, but for most over that time, their coming was not a free choice — it was brutally coerced. Yet in this image, there is a glint of hope that there might be a new and freely chosen arrival, even for African Americans already long here, in an America more truly open to all comers. 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 Figure 7 Title A name given to the resource Two women with Statue of Liberty backdrop Subject The topic of the resource Two women with Statue of Liberty backdro Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource Date: circa late 1880s to 1890s 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 photographer https://mirrorofrace.bc.edu/files/original/0dee9a904a10af7b7d9246638e29f2f4.tif 3c90651524b6b52013c6ca76a401ad7b 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 Ninth Plate (2 x 2.5 inches) Factual Commentary Factual Commentary This early daguerreotype, dating from the mid-1840s, may have been collected by the Harvard naturalist Louis Agassiz as part of his ethnographic collection. All that we know about the image is a caption written on a slip of paper from the period that identifies them as “two Hindoo men” ― with “Hindoo” being a spelling variant for “Hindu.” So, the two men, otherwise unidentified, were almost certainly visitors to the United States from India. The style of mat and case are American, and so the image was made here. Interpretive Commentary Interpretive Commentary One reason to believe that Louis Agassiz collected this image for his ethnographic studies is that they are only identified by ethnicity as “two Hindoo [Hindu] men.” This identification treats them more as specimens than as people. We would expect a proper identification to give us their actual names, for example, but whoever collected this image thought the only relevant thing about them was their type. Who were they? Travel from India to the United States would have been a very serious undertaking in the 1840s, requiring months, even years, and involving considerable risk from accident and illness. So why had they come so far? Such travel would have cost considerable money. Both hold themselves with a certain austere dignity; they are very well groomed and dressed in expensive and fashionable Western clothes, and so they were almost certainly wealthy, high-status individuals. Were they visiting dignitaries? Students? Indian nobility making a grand tour? We hope that further research may yield answers. 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 Figure084 Title A name given to the resource two men 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 Rights Holder A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource. Harvard Peabody Museum (T1889 35-5-10; 53059) Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Unknown Photographer Photographer https://mirrorofrace.bc.edu/files/original/8db2fafd6ad35f002ccb930f48b06d49.tif 27389b7e0bdd8560a88a31bbee62370b 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 daguerreotype comes from the collection of the Harvard Peabody Museum. I was probably collected by the Harvard naturalist Louis Agassiz as visual evidence for his work on what he believed to the the separate races of humanity. While we do not know who either of the men were, the image, which dates from the mid-1840s, is likely to have been made in the Boston area. The man on the left is clearly of European descent, and the man on the right is Chinese, to judge by his clothing. We hope that further research will identify one or both of them. Interpretive Commentary Interpretive Commentary There are many interesting details to this photograph, and while we can for now only speculate as to what those details might mean, they might also provide clues to identifying the two men. For example, the Chinese man wears well-tailored clothes, possibly silk, and he has very long fingernails, so clearly he was not a worker. So was he a Chinese government official, perhaps an ambassador? A student come to study at an American university? A wealthy merchant? The white man also wears an elegant and expensive suit. Why did he pose with the Chinese man? Was he the escort to the visitor? Did he bring his guest to have this daguerreotype made to commemorate an event? He seems relatively relaxed, and looks into the camera with an almost familiar gaze, as if he has done this often before. The Chinese man, by contrast, seems stiff and formal, and does not engage the viewer at all; perhaps this was his first time having a photograph taken . 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 Figure077 Title A name given to the resource two men 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 Rights Holder A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource. Harvard Peabody Museum (T1897 35-5-10; 53068) Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Unknown Photographer Photographer https://mirrorofrace.bc.edu/files/original/51f2b51c02ab8b983676c3f4a8b9e866.tif 1d463d119b5adc24e6bfca5c6804b4ab 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 cabinet card, albumen print Physical Dimensions The actual physical size of the original image cabinet card standard Factual Commentary Factual Commentary While we do not know anything about the identities of the people in this photograph from the latter part of the 19th century, there are some things we can say about it. To begin, this image is of a kind know as a spirit photograph. Such photographs were produced using double exposures and other manipulations of the photographic process to produce an image that seems to include the spirits of those not present or no longer living. There was a craze for spirit photographs in this period, in part because the aura of photography as a scientific process that supposedly captured reality could be used to give a sense of realism to a spirit world. In this particular photograph, the spirits are child and an older Native American man. At the center of the image is a young man in Western clothing, but it is possible that he is a Europeanized Native American himself. Interpretive Commentary Interpretive Commentary This photograph poses numerous puzzles. Who are each of these people? Why has the man in the middle, who seems to be the client of the photographic portrait, chosen to have this spirit photograph made, with an older Native American man and a child as his spirit companions? Is he a Native American himself? Do these represent generations in a family? For a discussion of this image, see the essay "A Spirit Photograph" by Shawn Michelle Smith, on the Mirror of Race website. 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 Figure074 Title A name given to the resource spirit photograph Subject The topic of the resource unknown Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1890s 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/f756c8f7d1cffbd3f6dbdbcddcbb743a.tif 6034d18bced7aa7905c750ba534b8738 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 In this double-exposure portrait, Moung Kyau (1841-1883) poses in traditional Burmese clothes on the left and European on the right. Kyau belonged to the Karen people of Burma (modern Myanmar). Moung Kyau converted to Christianity and came to the United States for education as a Baptist minister. Kyau seems to have lived in in Waterville, Maine, before returning with a large group of missionaries to preach in Burma. In Burma, he composed hymns as part of his missionary work, and he later became a schoolteacher. He died of consumption. A double exposure is a photograph produced by exposing the photographic plate or negative twice, so that two separate impressions from the light are made. In this case, the photographer probably covered half of the light-sensitive plate plate while exposing the other half so that Moung could appear twice in the same image. Interpretive Commentary Interpretive Commentary We do not know if it was the photographer’s or Moung Kyau’s idea to produce this unusual double-exposure portrait. What was its intended meaning? Did he seek to show his double identity both as a Burmese man and as a Christian who had understood the ways of the Europeans well enough to dress like a gentleman and earn an education as a missionary? Are we meant to read this image as a progression, from left to right, from “heathen” to Christian? Is this then an example of European colonialism and triumphalism, working through the respectable front of Christian evangelism? Is Kyau a victim of cultural imperialism? But if Kyau had completely rejected his origins, why would he keep his traditional clothes? Did he understand himself as having a double or multiple identity, rather than a divided one? Kyau studied in the eastern United States, after what must have been a very long voyage from Burma, probably supported by the Baptist missionaries who converted him and saw his potential as a preacher to his own people. Asian visitors were not common in the eastern part of the United States at this time (the 1860s), and especially if they were involved in education and religious work, they might well gain some acceptance in white society. Isolated individuals such as Kyau were not perceived as a racial threat and might even gain respect as exotic curiosities or as signs of the global triumph of white Christian civilization. In California, by contrast, where tens of thousands of Asians, mostly Chinese, immigrated for the Gold Rush, their sheer numbers and competition for jobs with whites exposed them to prejudice and abuse. 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 Figure060 Title A name given to the resource Moung Kyau Subject The topic of the resource Moung Kyau 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 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Unknown Photographer Photographer https://mirrorofrace.bc.edu/files/original/b2b81750a225e4eebf85943015ef6878.jpg 08470e64f146c9028ea990692613e96a 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 penned inscription on this photograph reads “Tonquaways of Texas,” and it dates from around 1865. The two men, at this point unidentified, each pose with a bow and a single arrow. They wear a combination of tribal and Western clothing. “Tonquaway” is a 19th spelling for the Tonkawa tribe, which once roamed the region that is now Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico. In 1884, the US government forcibly gathered and relocated the Tonkawas, finally settling them in Oakland, Oklahoma in 1885. That this image identifies the two men as “Tonquaways of Texas” is further evidence, apart from the photographic style of the print and mounting, that this image dates from a time before their expulsion from Texas. The Tonkawa have endured, despite their version of the Trail of Tears. According to the official website of the Tonkawa tribe, the Waco (Wichita) name for the Tonkawa is “Tonkaweya,” which means “They All Stay Together,” and the Tonkawa’s own name for themselves is “Tickanwa•tic,” which means “Real People.” Interpretive Commentary Interpretive Commentary In the case of photographs of Native Americans from the 19th century, it is always worth asking if they have full agency in the representation of themselves in any given image. So, for example, in this photograph of the two Tonkawa men, we can ask: For whom was this image made? It is a carte de visite, which means it was printed from a glass plate negatives, and so many copies could have been made by the photographer. The fact that it bears the title “Tonquaways of Texas” indicates that the images was indeed printed for a clientele other than these two men, who would not need this label. As such, it was probably sold to white patrons of the photographer as a quasi-ethnographic souvenir. But even if that were the case, photographic images such as this, especially quite early ones, provide important and rare evidence about the lives and cultures of Native peoples. 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 Figure057 Title A name given to the resource “Tonquaways of Texas” 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 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 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Unknown Photographer Photographer