Rare collection of photos by black photographers acquired by theSmithsonian

[FfFfFfFF 58,120]

The Smithsonian is one of the world’s largest and most well-known museum complexes. With 19 museums and a zoo, it houses an extremely wide collection of over 150 million scientific, historic, and art objects—and that number continues to grow.

Recently, the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM) gained a large acquisition of rare photos and objects that completely transformed its holdings, significantly enhancing the diversity of its collection of early American photography.

The new addition comprises 286 objects from the 1840s to the mid-1920s that are split into three primary groupings.

The first consists of works produced by early African American daguerreotypists James P. Ball, Glenalvin Goodridge, and Augustus Washington. Between them, they have only about 166 daguerreotypes known to have survived to the present.

SAAM has announced plans to use selected artworks from the West collection as the centerpiece of an upcoming early American photography gallery, which will be part of an ongoing re-installation of the museum’s permanent collection galleries.

The theme will be centered around the democratization of portraiture, which relies on diverse collections such as West’s in order to accurately tell the history of non-white and women photographers and display portrait subjects from a range of racial and class backgrounds.

Source - https://mymodernmet.com/smithsonian-daguerreotype-photography-collection/

[Hyperobject 66,771]

this is so cool! i love to see what people looked like a century ago, so interesting. plus, an opportunity to learn more about poc artists is great. 

[Guest]

I hate reading things like "by black photographers" idk, it's almost like it's a distinguished part of our human race that is separated or something from all of us, but at the same time I understand all the history and treatment of people from african roots, but it sucks to always read things like "black [activity/job]" and then people sometimes treat them like a child who needs pity, sorry so irrelevant to this topic but just needed to talk about it bcs sometimes it makes me sad, but such is life.

Also these photos are so interesting to see, it reminds me of this old countryside house that my uncle had and id go as a kid and there was a huge family portrait similar to these ones, and it always fascinated me but it's also very eery and creepy looking tbh. Worst era ever thank god i wasnt born then lol

[FfFfFfFF 58,120]

4 hours ago, AnnaNicoleSmith said:

I hate reading things like "by black photographers" idk, it's almost like it's a distinguished part of our human race that is separated or something from all of us, but at the same time I understand all the history and treatment of people from african roots, but it sucks to always read things like "black [activity/job]" and then people sometimes treat them like a child who needs pity, sorry so irrelevant to this topic but just needed to talk about it bcs sometimes it makes me sad, but such is life.

Also these photos are so interesting to see, it reminds me of this old countryside house that my uncle had and id go as a kid and there was a huge family portrait similar to these ones, and it always fascinated me but it's also very eery and creepy looking tbh. Worst era ever thank god i wasnt born then lol

I completely get what you are saying (always treating people of color as ''other'', segretating the public discourse on black vs white, even the preferential treatment you described are things that go in the way of acceptance and paradoxally still reek a bit of racism tbh). However, I for instance live in an Eastern European city with an important Jewish history and it happens that at my city's local museum there is a Jewish-themed exposition which I find nothing wrong about. Race/ ethnicity themed expositions make sense in a museum.

[Chlorine 47,976]

4 hours ago, AnnaNicoleSmith said:

I hate reading things like "by black photographers" idk, it's almost like it's a distinguished part of our human race that is separated or something from all of us, but at the same time I understand all the history and treatment of people from african roots, but it sucks to always read things like "black [activity/job]" and then people sometimes treat them like a child who needs pity, sorry so irrelevant to this topic but just needed to talk about it bcs sometimes it makes me sad, but such is life.

Also these photos are so interesting to see, it reminds me of this old countryside house that my uncle had and id go as a kid and there was a huge family portrait similar to these ones, and it always fascinated me but it's also very eery and creepy looking tbh. Worst era ever thank god i wasnt born then lol

This is the key part:

The theme will be centered around the democratization of portraiture, which relies on diverse collections such as West’s in order to accurately tell the history of non-white and women photographers and display portrait subjects from a range of racial and class backgrounds.

US history is whitewashed. This is a huge deal for black people to see this type of portraiture of and by black people from this time period. It is extremely rare.