Frederick Douglass was once the most photographed American.
Frederick Douglass once said, “It is evident that the great cheapness and universality of pictures must exert a powerful, though silent, influence upon the ideas and sentiment of present and future generations.”.
He would know: The abolitionist, author, and civil rights leader was the most photographed American of the 19th century, having sat for more portraits than the likes of Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain, and Thomas Edison. There are more than 160 pictures of Douglass taken during his lifetime, reflecting his unique stature in America’s cultural fabric.
Born into slavery in 1818, Douglass escaped at age 20 and later wrote that in freedom he “lived more in one day than in a year of my slave life.” He saw photography as a great leveler, a means of presenting himself in a dignified manner that undercut any preconceived notions his critics and peers might have of him. He illustrated this idea in his 1861 speech “Lecture on Picture,” saying, “The humbled servant girl whose income is but a few shillings per week may now possess a more perfect likeness of herself than noble ladies and court royalty.”
