Photography On The Color Line: W. E. B. Du Bois, Race, And Visual Culture (a John Hope Franklin Center Book) Download Free (EPUB, PDF)
Through a rich interpretation of the remarkable photographs W. E. B. Du Bois compiled for the American Negro Exhibit at the 1900 Paris Exposition, Shawn Michelle Smith reveals the visual dimension of the color line that Du Bois famously called “the problem of the twentieth century.” Du Bois’s prize-winning exhibit consisted of three albums together containing 363 black-and-white photographs, mostly of middle-class African Americans from Atlanta and other parts of Georgia. Smith provides an extensive analysis of the images, the antiracist message Du Bois conveyed by collecting and displaying them, and their connection to his critical thought. She contends that Du Bois was an early visual theorist of race and racism and demonstrates how such an understanding makes the important concepts he developed—including double consciousness, the color line, the Veil, and second sight—available to visual culture and African American studies scholars in powerful new ways. Smith reads Du Bois’s photographs in relation to other turn-of-the-century images such as scientific typologies, criminal mugshots, racist caricatures, and lynching photographs. By juxtaposing these images with reproductions from Du Bois’s exhibition archive, Smith shows how Du Bois deliberately challenged racist representations of African Americans. Emphasizing the importance of comparing multiple visual archives, Photography on the Color Line reinvigorates understandings of the stakes of representation and the fundamental connections between race and visual culture in the United States.
Series: a John Hope Franklin Center Book
Paperback: 272 pages
Publisher: Duke University Press Books (June 7, 2004)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0822333430
ISBN-13: 978-0822333432
Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.6 x 9.1 inches
Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #209,171 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #19 in Books > Arts & Photography > Photography & Video > Equipment, Techniques & Reference > Color #238 in Books > Arts & Photography > Photography & Video > Portraits #238 in Books > Arts & Photography > Photography & Video > Collections, Catalogues & Exhibitions
The book has 2 very contrasting parts. The first is an analysis of Du Bois' collection of Georgia Negro photographs, that he exhibited at the 1900 Paris Exposition. Several hundred photos. Mostly of middle class American Negroes, well dressed and well posed for the photographer. (Who was not actually Du Bois himself.) The photos tended to show people born after the end of the Civil War and slavery.In that Paris Exposition, Du Bois' offering was a deliberate contrast to the other depictions of Africans, which came from the European empires in Africa. These invariably showed tribal Africans. Backward and ignorant. This was the ideological or racial justification for the White Man's Burden of imperialism. What Du Bois depicted were educated Americans, as an eloquent counterpoint. Here were people of African descent, but otherwise indistinguishable from white middle class Americans or Europeans.Another fillip was the inclusion of light skinned Negroes by Du Bois. As a rejoinder to a strict racial and racist separation promulgated by some whites. In one example, there is a photo of a girl who looked more southern European (think Spaniard or Italian perhaps) than African. Yet to the white mainstream, she would have been irrevocably classified as Negro.The second half of the book studies the lynching photos. Taken by whites at lynchings throughout the American South. Here, Smith takes particulars never to show the grotesqueries of the victims. (Other books adequately do this.) Instead, there is an incisive analysis of the white spectators and participants. We see them preening and guiltless. Many of the photos were in fact used as postcards, sent by the participants to others. While the white ideology of those times depicted Negroes as savages, the book asks, who were the actual savages?
This book is about the photographs taken of middle class black people. These photographs were shown at the 1900 Paris Exposition, at the American Negro Exhibit. They are still interesting today,because the show how black people looked and dressed in that era. Also of interest were photographs of blacks who looked more white than black, including a black albino person. I already knew about blacks being raped by whites during slavery, which would render their off-spring mulatto... or looking totally white. I haven't seen many photographs of them though. All of the photographs in this book are superb in quality. I found the text about these photographs to be very informative as well.
If you are interested in the history of photography and also in African American photographers impact in history this is the book for you. Highly recommend.
Great old-time, Victorian-age photos of Black people in their splendor. Why aren't these images more widely known?
Photography on the Color Line: W. E. B. Du Bois, Race, and Visual Culture (a John Hope Franklin Center Book) PHOTOGRAPHY: Photography Business - 20 Crucial Tips to Kickstart a Successful Photography Business (Photography, Photoshop, Photography Books, Photography ... Photography Business, Digital Photography) PHOTOGRAPHY: Fashion Photography - 8 Practical Fashion Photography Tips For Your Models to Shine (Photography, Photoshop, Digital Photography, Photography Books, Photography Magazines) Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things (a John Hope Franklin Center Book) Photography: DSLR Photography Secrets and Tips to Taking Beautiful Digital Pictures (Photography, DSLR, cameras, digital photography, digital pictures, portrait photography, landscape photography) DSLR: DSLR Photography: Learn How to Master the Art of DSLR Photography the Quick and Simple Way: DSLR Photography: DSLR Photography for Beginners: DSLR ... Photography, History of Photography) Photography: Photography Lighting Hacks: 7 Must Know Lighting Tips For Dramatically Stunning Photos..Every Time (photography lighting, portrait photography, ... photography, creativity, dlsr photography) Darker than Blue: On the Moral Economies of Black Atlantic Culture (The W. E. B. Du Bois Lectures) Linux: Linux Command Line - A Complete Introduction To The Linux Operating System And Command Line (With Pics) (Unix, Linux kemel, Linux command line, ... CSS, C++, Java, PHP, Excel, code) (Volume 1) Photography: The Ultimate Editing Guide To Enhance And Create Stunning Digital Photos (Photography, Digital Photography, DSLR, Photoshop, Photography Books, ... Photography For Beginners, Photo Editing) Photography Business Box Set: Master the Art of Wedding Photography and Start Your Own Business (business photography, business photography, starting photography business) Photography Business: Sell That Photo!: 10 Simple Ways To Make Big Bucks Selling Your Photography Online (how to sell photography, freelance photography, ... to start on online photography business) The Self in Black and White: Race and Subjectivity in Postwar American Photography (Interfaces: Studies in Visual Culture) Mirror to America: The Autobiography of John Hope Franklin The Feminism and Visual Culture Reader (In Sight: Visual Culture) The Scholar Denied: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Birth of Modern Sociology The Anatomy of Racial Inequality (The W. E. B. Du Bois Lectures) At the Center of the Human Drama: The Philosophy of Karol Wojtyla/Pope John Paul II (Michael J. Mcgivney Lectures of the John Paul II Institute) Whispers on the Color Line: Rumor and Race in America Franklin and the Tooth Fairy (Classic Franklin Stories)
