Frederick Douglass

This is a small portrait of Frederick Douglass, made as a daguerreotype between 1847 and 1852. A daguerreotype is an early kind of photograph made on a copper plate coated with silver, which is sensitive to light. The plate is about fourteen centimeters tall, a little over five inches, and it sits in a folding case. Douglass is shown in a suit. The process was celebrated for its remarkably sharp detail, so move in close and let your eye travel across his face, where that precision shows most.

In 1839 Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre announced that he had perfected the daguerreotype. Within a few years, thousands of portrait studios had opened across the United States. One belonged to Samuel J. Miller, in Akron, Ohio. Most pictures made in such commercial studios were formulaic and told you little about the sitter's character. This one is a striking exception. Douglass was an intelligent manager of his public image, and he likely guided Miller in showing his intensity and sheer force of character.

Frederick Douglass was an escaped slave who became a lauded speaker, writer, and abolitionist agitator, someone who stirred people to act against slavery. Northeastern Ohio was a center of abolitionism before the Civil War, and he knew that supporters of his campaign would see this picture. It was one of an astonishing number that he commissioned or posed for. The feminist Elizabeth Cady Stanton observed that he appeared majestic in his wrath. Look at his face a little longer and ask how this small plate carries that force.