Figure017

Citation

Unknown Photographer. “man with keyed bugle.” circa 1845. Greg French Collection. Mirror of Race, 16 Sep. 2021, mirrorofrace.bc.edu/items/show/248. Accessed 2 Jan. 2025.

Title

man with keyed bugle

Subject

unknown

Creator

Unknown Photographer

Date

circa 1845

Type

studio portrait, possibly occupational

Identifier

Figure017

Rights Holder

Greg French Collection

Original Format

daguerreotype

Physical Dimensions

Sixth Plate (2.75 x 3.25 inches)

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

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.

Alternative Title

Collection

Mirror of Race