All Things Afrikan
Augustus Washington, link to John Hansen, let's get history correct!
He was born in Trenton, New Jersey as the son of a former slave and a woman of South Asian descent. He studied at Oneida Institute in Whitesboro, New York and the Kimball Union Academy before entering Dartmouth College in 1843. He learned making daguerreotypes during his first year to finance his college education, but had to leave Dartmouth College in 1844 due to increasing debts. He moved to Hartford, Connecticut, teaching black students at local school and opening a daguerrean studio in 1846.[1]
PHOTOGRAPHY REVIEW; In a John Brown Portrait, The Essence of a Militant
Article Tools Sponsored By
By MARGARETT LOKE
Published: July 7, 2000
Had the National Portrait Gallery not acquired one of his more striking daguerreotypes in 1996, Augustus Washington would probably still be buried in various archives as a black daguerreotypist who opened a studio in Hartford in 1846 and who emigrated with his family to Liberia in 1853.
The daguerreotype in question, that of the abolitionist John Brown, is a standout. Taken around 1846, more than a decade before Brown was hanged after a futile raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, the image is the earliest known portrait of the abolitionist. It is almost an acute distillation of Brown the militant.
This daguerreotype takes pride of place in the exhibition ''A Durable Memento: Portraits of Augustus Washington, African American Daguerreotypist'' at the International Center of Photography Uptown. It shows a grimly determined man: furrowed brow, thin lips, piercing eyes. One hand is raised, notes a caption, as if Brown were pledging his life to destroying slavery; the other grasps what is believed to be the banner of his proposed militant abolitionist group.
An impressive number of the daguerreotypes in this exhibition, which originated at the Smithsonian Institution's Portrait Gallery, are equally and astonishingly revealing. A pioneer and premier daguerreotypist, Washington owned and ran one of Hartford's first daguerreotype studios and included among his customers members of the city's elite and middle-class.
An unidentified young woman in an elaborate dark dress sits slightly turned to one side, her head tilted just a touch in the opposite direction. One forearm and hand rest on a draped table; the other hand holds a daguerreotype case. The face regarding the camera is calm and kind.
Presaging the mid-1850's portraits by the French photographer Nadar, a circa 1850 Washington daguerreotype shows a stout rumpled man, a twinkle in his eyes.
That Washington was an artist is indisputable. The wonder is that he has languished in obscurity for so long. Ann M. Shumard, acting curator of photographs at the Portrait Gallery and curator of this exhibition, began researching Washington's life after the acquisition of the John Brown daguerreotype.
Washington's studio was one of the most successful in Hartford, but only about 50 daguerreotypes by or attributed to him have been located in private collections and in various institutions. Thirty-two of them are in the show. The Hartford portraits are of white residents; those of the city's black residents, if any, have yet to surface.
The world's first commercially successful photographic process, the daguerreotype was wildly popular in the United States in the 1840's and 50's. For the daguerreotypist to produce an image on a highly polished plate in the camera, a sitter had to hold still for about 20 seconds. The majority of daguerreotypists simply registered faces staring determinedly, blankly, at the camera.
Washington, though, saw himself as an artist -- and said so in a surviving broadside from 1851 that is included in the exhibition. Under the headline: ''Strange! Passing Strange, Yet True!,'' he touted his ''knowledge of this art during seven years,'' his competitive prices, his superior ''likenesses.'' Prices of these ''durable mementos,'' the ad also proclaimed, ranged from 50 cents to $10.
The son of a former slave, Washington was born a free black in Trenton, N.J., around 1820. He had not intended to be a daguerreotypist. An abolitionist from the time he was a teenager, he wanted to contribute to the advancement of ''the oppressed and unfortunate people with whom I am identified.''
From the sparse information available, it seems that Washington was an excellent student, but he was too poor to get by on his own. Friends in the abolitionist community paved the way for him to become, in 1843, the only black member of the Dartmouth student body. To pay his bills, he began to make daguerreotypes.
In the early 1840's anyone who wanted to hang out a shingle as a daguerrotypist needed only a modicum of instruction and a small investment in the necessary equipment. Washington was clearly a natural. Still, in 1844, fully intending to return to Dartmouth, he went to Hartford and briefly taught at a school for black students. But by the end of 1846, Washington had settled in as a daguerreotypist.
He seemed unusually gifted in portraiture. The daguerreotype of Huldah Welles Wolcott at 90 is like a miniature Holbein. The second wife of the Revolutionary War veteran William Wolcott, she wears a ruffled bonnet and sits erect, her eyes alert.
Perhaps the most elegant and poignant portrait here is that of Sarah Taintor Bulkeley Waterman. She wears a light-colored dress, and her head is slightly tilted. According to the caption, she probably perished with her sea-captain husband when the San Francisco-to-Canton clipper ship on which they were sailing foundered on the South China coast.
But despite his success as a daguerreotypist, Washington decided that the chance of a better life for him and his family was not in the United States. The 1850 Fugitive Slave Act meant that free blacks could be seized for the flimsiest reason. In 1853 Washington, his wife, Cordelia, and their two children sailed to Liberia, a settlement for freeborn blacks and freed slaves from America that became a republic in 1847.
For a while Washington continued work as a daguerreotypist. Eventually he became one of Liberia's chief sugar cane growers and won election to the Liberian House of Representatives and then to the Senate. He also founded a newspaper. He died in 1875.
The daguerreotypes attributed to him that were taken in Liberia around 1857 are, in the main, strangely pro forma, the faces opaque. If these portraits were taken by him, they are not of the same caliber as the ones he took in Hartford or those in Liberia in 1854. There are exceptions. John Hanson, a former slave who bought his freedom to become a merchant and senator in Monrovia, the Liberian capital, has a strong, no-nonsense gaze. For his portrait, James B. Yates, son of a Liberian vice president, wears a light-colored vest and pants and a dreamy look. And Edward Morris, who was born into slavery in the South, assumes the suitably stern expression of a senator. For all that, though, he also seems timid and tentative.
It isn't every day that the photography world rescues an artist of distinction from obscurity. In Augustus Washington's case, luck had something to do with it. But if it were not for the originality of his art, the daguerreotype of John Brown offered at auction in 1996 would not have caught the attention of the National Portrait Gallery.
Despite his success he decided to resettle to Liberia as he was worrying about his future as an African American in America society. He moved in 1853 with his wife and his two small children. He opened a daguerrean studio in the capital Monrovia and also traveled to the neighboring countries Sierra Leone, Gambia and Senegal. He later gave up his photographic work and became a sugarcane grower and politician, serving in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. He died in Monrovia in 1875.[2]
Portrait of Chancy Brown, sergeant-at-arms for the Liberian senate.
Portrait of Joseph Jenkins Roberts, the first and seventh president of Liberia.
Portrait of John Hanson, Senator of Liberia
John Hanson (circa 1791-1860)
On August 11, 1827, John Hanson arrived in Monrovia aboard the brig Doris. A former slave who had purchased his freedom, Hanson was thirty-six years old when he left Baltimore and immigrated to Liberia. Settling in Grand Bassa County, he engaged in commerce and in time joined the ranks of Liberia's influential merchant class. In December 1840, Hanson won election to the newly created Colonial Council, Liberia's first popularly elected legislative body. Seven years later, when the independent Republic of Liberia held its first elections, Hanson was one of two senators elected from Grand Bassa County. He served several terms in the Liberian Senate and took a keen interest in his nation's economic development. When Hanson died in 1860, President Stephen Allen Benson mourned him as "a faithful and patriotic servant" whose loss was "very severely felt in Liberia."
In this daguerreotype, the bespectacled Senator Hanson appears much as he does in the watercolor rendering of the Liberian Senate.
Attributed to Augustus Washington
Sixth-plate daguerreotype, circa 1857
Image courtesy Prints and Photographs Division
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
Click here to view the Liberian Senate watercolor.
PHOTOGRAPHY REVIEW; In a John Brown Portrait, The Essence of a Militant
Article Tools Sponsored By
By MARGARETT LOKE
Published: July 7, 2000
Had the National Portrait Gallery not acquired one of his more striking daguerreotypes in 1996, Augustus Washington would probably still be buried in various archives as a black daguerreotypist who opened a studio in Hartford in 1846 and who emigrated with his family to Liberia in 1853.
The daguerreotype in question, that of the abolitionist John Brown, is a standout. Taken around 1846, more than a decade before Brown was hanged after a futile raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, the image is the earliest known portrait of the abolitionist. It is almost an acute distillation of Brown the militant.
This daguerreotype takes pride of place in the exhibition ''A Durable Memento: Portraits of Augustus Washington, African American Daguerreotypist'' at the International Center of Photography Uptown. It shows a grimly determined man: furrowed brow, thin lips, piercing eyes. One hand is raised, notes a caption, as if Brown were pledging his life to destroying slavery; the other grasps what is believed to be the banner of his proposed militant abolitionist group.
An impressive number of the daguerreotypes in this exhibition, which originated at the Smithsonian Institution's Portrait Gallery, are equally and astonishingly revealing. A pioneer and premier daguerreotypist, Washington owned and ran one of Hartford's first daguerreotype studios and included among his customers members of the city's elite and middle-class.
An unidentified young woman in an elaborate dark dress sits slightly turned to one side, her head tilted just a touch in the opposite direction. One forearm and hand rest on a draped table; the other hand holds a daguerreotype case. The face regarding the camera is calm and kind.
Presaging the mid-1850's portraits by the French photographer Nadar, a circa 1850 Washington daguerreotype shows a stout rumpled man, a twinkle in his eyes.
That Washington was an artist is indisputable. The wonder is that he has languished in obscurity for so long. Ann M. Shumard, acting curator of photographs at the Portrait Gallery and curator of this exhibition, began researching Washington's life after the acquisition of the John Brown daguerreotype.
Washington's studio was one of the most successful in Hartford, but only about 50 daguerreotypes by or attributed to him have been located in private collections and in various institutions. Thirty-two of them are in the show. The Hartford portraits are of white residents; those of the city's black residents, if any, have yet to surface.
The world's first commercially successful photographic process, the daguerreotype was wildly popular in the United States in the 1840's and 50's. For the daguerreotypist to produce an image on a highly polished plate in the camera, a sitter had to hold still for about 20 seconds. The majority of daguerreotypists simply registered faces staring determinedly, blankly, at the camera.
Washington, though, saw himself as an artist -- and said so in a surviving broadside from 1851 that is included in the exhibition. Under the headline: ''Strange! Passing Strange, Yet True!,'' he touted his ''knowledge of this art during seven years,'' his competitive prices, his superior ''likenesses.'' Prices of these ''durable mementos,'' the ad also proclaimed, ranged from 50 cents to $10.
The son of a former slave, Washington was born a free black in Trenton, N.J., around 1820. He had not intended to be a daguerreotypist. An abolitionist from the time he was a teenager, he wanted to contribute to the advancement of ''the oppressed and unfortunate people with whom I am identified.''
From the sparse information available, it seems that Washington was an excellent student, but he was too poor to get by on his own. Friends in the abolitionist community paved the way for him to become, in 1843, the only black member of the Dartmouth student body. To pay his bills, he began to make daguerreotypes.
In the early 1840's anyone who wanted to hang out a shingle as a daguerrotypist needed only a modicum of instruction and a small investment in the necessary equipment. Washington was clearly a natural. Still, in 1844, fully intending to return to Dartmouth, he went to Hartford and briefly taught at a school for black students. But by the end of 1846, Washington had settled in as a daguerreotypist.
He seemed unusually gifted in portraiture. The daguerreotype of Huldah Welles Wolcott at 90 is like a miniature Holbein. The second wife of the Revolutionary War veteran William Wolcott, she wears a ruffled bonnet and sits erect, her eyes alert.
Perhaps the most elegant and poignant portrait here is that of Sarah Taintor Bulkeley Waterman. She wears a light-colored dress, and her head is slightly tilted. According to the caption, she probably perished with her sea-captain husband when the San Francisco-to-Canton clipper ship on which they were sailing foundered on the South China coast.
But despite his success as a daguerreotypist, Washington decided that the chance of a better life for him and his family was not in the United States. The 1850 Fugitive Slave Act meant that free blacks could be seized for the flimsiest reason. In 1853 Washington, his wife, Cordelia, and their two children sailed to Liberia, a settlement for freeborn blacks and freed slaves from America that became a republic in 1847.
For a while Washington continued work as a daguerreotypist. Eventually he became one of Liberia's chief sugar cane growers and won election to the Liberian House of Representatives and then to the Senate. He also founded a newspaper. He died in 1875.
The daguerreotypes attributed to him that were taken in Liberia around 1857 are, in the main, strangely pro forma, the faces opaque. If these portraits were taken by him, they are not of the same caliber as the ones he took in Hartford or those in Liberia in 1854. There are exceptions. John Hanson, a former slave who bought his freedom to become a merchant and senator in Monrovia, the Liberian capital, has a strong, no-nonsense gaze. For his portrait, James B. Yates, son of a Liberian vice president, wears a light-colored vest and pants and a dreamy look. And Edward Morris, who was born into slavery in the South, assumes the suitably stern expression of a senator. For all that, though, he also seems timid and tentative.
It isn't every day that the photography world rescues an artist of distinction from obscurity. In Augustus Washington's case, luck had something to do with it. But if it were not for the originality of his art, the daguerreotype of John Brown offered at auction in 1996 would not have caught the attention of the National Portrait Gallery.
Despite his success he decided to resettle to Liberia as he was worrying about his future as an African American in America society. He moved in 1853 with his wife and his two small children. He opened a daguerrean studio in the capital Monrovia and also traveled to the neighboring countries Sierra Leone, Gambia and Senegal. He later gave up his photographic work and became a sugarcane grower and politician, serving in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. He died in Monrovia in 1875.[2]
Portrait of Chancy Brown, sergeant-at-arms for the Liberian senate.
Portrait of Joseph Jenkins Roberts, the first and seventh president of Liberia.
Portrait of John Hanson, Senator of Liberia
John Hanson (circa 1791-1860)
On August 11, 1827, John Hanson arrived in Monrovia aboard the brig Doris. A former slave who had purchased his freedom, Hanson was thirty-six years old when he left Baltimore and immigrated to Liberia. Settling in Grand Bassa County, he engaged in commerce and in time joined the ranks of Liberia's influential merchant class. In December 1840, Hanson won election to the newly created Colonial Council, Liberia's first popularly elected legislative body. Seven years later, when the independent Republic of Liberia held its first elections, Hanson was one of two senators elected from Grand Bassa County. He served several terms in the Liberian Senate and took a keen interest in his nation's economic development. When Hanson died in 1860, President Stephen Allen Benson mourned him as "a faithful and patriotic servant" whose loss was "very severely felt in Liberia."
In this daguerreotype, the bespectacled Senator Hanson appears much as he does in the watercolor rendering of the Liberian Senate.
Attributed to Augustus Washington
Sixth-plate daguerreotype, circa 1857
Image courtesy Prints and Photographs Division
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
Click here to view the Liberian Senate watercolor.
About
Donate to Blackunity
Badge
Events
-
Free the Scott Sisters Campaign
September 20, 2009 at 6pm to September 21, 2010 at 7pm – any
Assata Radio
© 2010 Created by Black-Unity (bka) moorbey on Ning. Create a Ning Network!
