Series I. Visual Material

Visual Material consists chiefly of photographic images but also includes a small number of prints, paintings, and drawings. The photographs consist of nineteenth-century formats including Daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, tintypes, card photographs, stereographs, and larger albumen prints, as well as twentieth-century formats and genres including silver gelatin prints, photomechanical prints, snapshots, and news service photographs. The earlier photographs are predominantly portraits, but later images include outdoor scenes and documentary images of laborers at work in fields, factories, or shipyards, for example. Portrait subjects include servants, actors and musicians, athletes, military personnel, politicians, and leaders in the abolitionist and civil rights movements. The series also includes prints dating from the late eighteenth century, including engravings, etchings, and lithographs. The image subjects of the prints range from scenes of slavery to portraits of political figures to patriotic illustrations, including World War I posters promoting the military contributions of African Americans.