Join a MAAH educator to explore our historic sites and current exhibition, Picturing Frederick Douglass: The Most Photographed American of the 19th Century. This first-of-its-kind exhibit revolutionizes our knowledge of race and photography in 19th-century America. The photographs trace Douglass's visual journey from self-emancipated man to firebrand abolitionist to elder statesman.
Douglass's visual and stylistic evolutions narrate a photographic autobiography across a half-century of history and shows him reinventing himself, even as he sought to transform the country using photography as a tool of reform, and becoming an astute critic of visual culture.
The exhibit highlights Douglass's use of photography in a deliberate effort to elevate the image of the African American in contradiction to demeaning and inhumane depictions of black life often seen in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Group size: 30 maximum
