Enduring Truths: Sojourner's Shadows and Substance 9780226257389

Citation preview

Enduring Truths

Darcy Grimaldo Grigsby

EN D UR I NG TR U T H S

Sojourner’s Shadows and Substance

The University of Chicago Press  :  Chicago and London

DARCY GRIMALDO GRIGSBY

is professor of the history of art at the University of California,

Berkeley. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London © 2015 by The University of Chicago All rights reserved. Published 2015. Printed in China 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15   1 2 3 4 5 ISBN-­13: 978-­0-­226-­19213-­0 (cloth) ISBN-­13: 978-­0-­226-­25738-­9 (e-­book) DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226257389.001.0001 Library of Congress Cataloging-­in-­Publication Data Grigsby, Darcy Grimaldo, author.   Enduring Truths : Sojourner’s shadows and substance / Darcy Grimaldo Grigsby.    pages : illustrations ; cm   Includes bibliographical references and index.   ISBN 978-­0-­226-­19213-­0 (hardcover : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-­0-­226-­25738-­9 (e-­book) 1. Truth, Sojourner, –1883.  2. African American women abolitionists—United States—Biography.  3. Truth, Sojourner, –1883—Portraits.  4. African American women abolitionists—Portraits.  I. Title.   E185.97.T8G75 2015  306.3'62092—dc23  [B] 2014038311 This book has been printed on acid-­free paper.

Contents

Acknowledgments  vii Introduction  1



part i

the early cartes de visite



1

Truth in Indiana 1861   25



2

Truth as Libyan Sibyl   37



3

Truth in Michigan 1863   45



part ii



4

Truth’s Captioned Cartes de Visite after 1864   63



5

Shadows and Chemistry   85

shadows and substance

v



part iii

texts and circulating paper



6

Truth’s Illiteracy   103



7

Truth’s Copyright   123



8

Money and the Civil War   143



part iv



9



10

collecting and the late photographs Album Politics   163 Truth’s Last Portraits  1881–­83   177 Notes  189 Index  215

vi



Acknowledgments

This book began in 2007, when I purchased a carte de visite of Sojourner Truth that had been the final photograph in the family album of Ann Heald. Damaged and cropped, this small, modest picture is a fascinating historical object combining photography, mechanical printing, and multiple handwritten inscriptions indicating that Ann Heald had bought the card at a lecture given by Sojourner Truth in West Branch, Iowa, in 1870. I cherish this first object from the Civil War period and thank Ann’s descendant William Heald of Healdsburg, California, for selling it to me and telling me so much about his exceptional ancestors. I hope this book will please him and others who have since sold or shared their cartes de visite from that tumultuous era. I am grateful that Scott McCorkhill, descendant of Truth’s friends the Demings, sent me digital images of his family album and taught me about his amazing forebearers. I also thank historian Nell Irvin Painter, who shared her personal copy of an especially vivid, somewhat irritated Sojourner Truth, now held at Duke University, and collector Bruce Lundberg for providing me with digital images of his two cartes de visite.

vii

viii

In 2007 I presented my first thoughts on Truth’s

in German. Photographic historian Anne McCauley

portraits thanks to Huey Copeland and Krista Thomp-

shared her thoughts about copyright. Margaret Wash-

son, who invited me to speak at their conference “Out

ington assisted me in my search for the history of So-

of Sight: New World Slavery and the Visual Imagina-

journer Truth’s copyright. George Livingston, Local and

tion” at Northwestern University. In 2012 I gave a re-

Family Librarian, was very helpful in pursuing sources

lated talk at the Institute for Advanced Study and the

at the Willard Library in Battle Creek, Michigan. Most

Art History Department at Princeton University. I

recently, I have learned much from Leigh Raiford, with

remember helpful, probing comments from both au-

whom I taught a seminar on black visual culture. I also

diences. In writing this book, I have learned from so

thank Todd Olson, Jessica May, and Julia Bryan-­Wilson

many scholars; I thank them for their generosity in

for reading an early draft of this book, and Gregoria

the midst of busy lives. Fashion historian Joan Severa

Grigsby-­Olson for key writing suggestions.

kindly devoted much time to studying and describing

Student researchers have played an immense role

what Truth wears in her pictures. Literary scholar and

in tracking down primary sources, including pictures.

colleague Stephen Best wrote a book, Fugitive Property,

Through UC Berkeley’s invaluable Undergraduate Re-

that inspired me, and he also directed me to helpful

search Apprentice Program, many enthusiastically

sources on slavery and the law. Literary scholar Ann

waded through archives. I sincerely thank Sonia F­ leury,

Banfield attempted to teach me about the complexity

now a lawyer, for her amazingly thorough research both

of first-­person statements and proper names. I wish I

at UC Berkeley and, thanks to the Townsend Human-

had her theoretical sophistication and sensitivity to

­ attle Creek ities Center GROUP Summer Fellowship, in B

language. Curator and friend Roger Hankins taught me

and Detroit, Michigan; she compiled huge dossiers on

about making clay pots. Rhetoric professor Marianne

which I depended. I also thank Melodie Yashar for her

Constable pressed me when she served as a respondent

smart and persevering research on photography and

to my symposium on photography and the law, as did

copyright; she tracked down the record of Sojourner

fellow speaker Steve Edwards, who spoke on the history

Truth’s copyright. Katie Hornstein examined and pho-

of patents in nineteenth-­century England. Productive

tographed archives held at the University of Michigan.

too was the resistance of Saidiya Hartman in her few,

Thanks go as well to Cassie Stanzler for her work in the

surely forgotten, remarks to me at the “Out of Sight”

Leggett Papers at the Detroit Public Library; to Emilie

conference. Scholar Jan Von Brevern participated in a

Boone for research at the Chicago History Museum; and

helpful conversation about early photography and gave

to UC Berkeley undergraduates Theresa Sims, Claire

me his own translation of one of his pertinent articles

Desmond, Kathryn Krolopp, Hannah Lowe, and Kait-

Acknowledgments

lin Richardson. Ongoing graduate students Camille Mathieu, Kailani Polzak, and Alexandra Courtois also deserve thanks for support of many kinds. Photographer Julie Wolf of the UC Berkeley History of Art Department beautifully and patiently produced the majority of the photographs in this book, for which I am extremely grateful. I thank Jason Hosford, Senior Digital Curator, History of Art, for valiantly tracking down the outstanding illustrations and permissions. And I express my abiding gratitude to Linda Fitzgerald for her creative, large-­minded reinvention of our Visual Resource Center, formerly devoted to the making and cataloguing of slides and now serving the faculty’s publication needs. At the University of Chicago Press, I am very grateful that my editor, Susan Bielstein, believed in this book

whose unflagging energy even now in her late sixties

from its very beginnings and shepherded it to its beau-

makes it possible for me to believe that Sojourner Truth

tiful realization. I also thank her associates, Anthony

did all that she did in her sixties, seventies, and eighties;

Burton and James Toftness; and the manuscript editor,

my very smart, pragmatic, self-­made, and equally hard-

Sandra Hazel; and the designer, Ryan Li.

working sister, Lynne Grigsby, whose down-­to-­earth,

:::

Author’s maternal grandmother, Gregoria Allmallategui, Panama, 1960s?

unsentimental insights also help me imagine Sojourner Truth; and, living on in my memories and photographs,

During my health challenges of the past decade, So-

my powerful, proud Panamanian grandmother, Grego-

journer Truth has been the most marvelous of compan-

ria Allmallategui, who raised five children by working

ions. Poor and often ill, always engaged with the larger

as a seamstress and by selling tamals and aphrodisiacs;

world, always fighting its inequities, she has been an

with little education, she acted as a legal advocate for

inspiration. I will miss thinking about her in the daily

poor people like herself. She assumed, as did Sojourner

way that writing a book requires. People in my life have

Truth, that she could intervene in courts of law. Like

given me glimpses of her character: my immensely

Truth, she tactically wielded forthright speech on behalf

hardworking, tall, handsome friend Maureen Beck,

of the disenfranchised.

Acknowledgments

ix

For sustaining me, as always, I thank my family

And finally, for inspiration and joy and shared his-

and friends: Lynne Grigsby, Peter and Andrea Walters,

tory, I thank my husband, Todd Olson—­brilliant intel-

Trish Reed and Jack Rosenberg, Jan Leigh and Michael

lectual and domestic warrior; no one is more nurturing,

Fahy, Francesca and Emil Rose, Julia Bryan-­Wilson and

loyal, and hardworking than you. Once again, a book

Mel Chen, Anne Wagner and Tim Clark, Agnes Lugo-­

gives me the opportunity to tell my children how much

Ortiz and Diane Miliotes, Timiza and Lee Wagner, Anna

they mean to me. Thank you, Gregoria, so supremely se-

Seid­ler, Erika Naginski, Huey Copeland, Andre Dom-

rious, outrageously funny, thoughtful, insightful, and

browski, Nina Dubin, Roger Hankins, Michael Miller,

gorgeous; and thank you, Wilgens Pierre, whirlwind life

Leigh Raiford, Christina Kaier, Linda Fitzgerald, Mi-

force, ever so talented, bright, charismatic, and exqui-

chael Thompson, and Marlee Fry. At UCSF, I am grateful

sitely handsome. You three make me laugh and laugh,

for my selfless physician, Jeffrey Wolf, and the nurses,

thank goodness. You also help me do my hard work.

whose heroism is matched by their sense of humor.

x

Acknowledgments

Introduction

The decision of the anti-­slavery ques-

In 1863 American physician Oliver Wendell Holmes, champion of the new

tion should not be left to the “stern

stereograph, admitted with some chagrin to

logic of events” which is wrought by the bullet and bayonet. More knowledge is needed. —susan b. anthony, speech to the Women’s Loyal National League, New York City, July 25, 18641

the greater popularity of card-­portraits, which, as everybody knows, have become the social currency, the sentimental “green-­backs” of civilization, within a very recent period. . . . We . . . will not quarrel with the common taste which prefers the card-­portrait. The last is cheapest, the most portable, requires no machine to look at it with, can be seen by several persons at the same time,—­in short, has all the popular elements. Many care little for the wonders of the world brought before their eyes by the stereoscope; all love to see the faces of their friends.2

According to Holmes, the ordinary people hovering over small, humble card-­portraits, or cartes de visite, were ignoring “the wonders of the world.” He also believed they were turning their eyes away from the American Civil War, writing:

1

Many, having seen it and dreamed of its horrors,

tive could include four shots on the same plate. By the

would lock it up in some secret drawer, that it might

end of the 1850s, the craze for the relatively inexpensive

not thrill or revolt those whose soul sickens at such

cartes de visite had reached the United States.6 Amer-

sights. It was so nearly like visiting the battlefield

icans who could never have afforded a painted or da-

to look over these [photographic] views, that all the

guerreotype portrait or even a relatively inexpensive

emotions excited by the actual sight of the stained

tintype could now have their likenesses memorialized.

and sordid scene, strewed with rags and wrecks,

Combining affordability, repeatability, and portabil-

came back to us, and we buried them in the recesses

ity across great distances thanks to the remarkable US

of our cabinet as we would have buried the mutilated

postal system, the new cards appealed to a vast nation

remains of the dead that they too vividly represented.3

of dispersed people. As one fan wrote of the carte de visite in 1862, “A man can now have his likeness taken for

Holmes, himself traumatized by his son’s experiences

a dime, and for three cents more, he can send it across

as a Union soldier, recognizes the desire to repress “the

plains, mountains, and rivers, over thousands of miles

actual sight of the stained and sordid,” the need to lock

to his distant friends.”7 Of course one card might cost

photographs such as Alexander Gardner’s famous im-

as little as a dime, but you could not buy a single carte

ages of corpse-­strewn battlefields in a “secret drawer”

de visite. Still, they were less expensive than tintypes

and “the recesses of our cabinet.” Against the sicken-

or ambrotypes, which were unique direct-­positive im-

ing sight of “mutilated remains,” Holmes casts cartes de

ages on iron and glass respectively.8 The fan writing in

visite as a domestic frivolity.

1862 was right that cartes de visite had made portraiture

4

What are these humble objects that inspire such derision on the part of an eloquent champion of pho-

And unlike earlier photographs, these diminutive

tography? First invented and patented in 1854 by French

portraits were made as multiples and could be replicated

photographer André-­Adolphe-­Eugène Disdéri, cartes

in great numbers and distributed among many. Pho-

de visite responded to the practices of the European

tographers often advertised on the backs of cards that

elite. A substitute for the calling card, the carte de visite

they kept negatives so that new orders of old portraits

sustained its small size, approximately two and a half by

could be made years later. (Yet even in 1872, when cartes

four inches; the albumen photograph made from a glass

de visite had become immensely popular, some chose to

negative was just smaller than the cardboard mount to

pay for the unique photograph; a mother explained, for

which it was glued. The production of multiple portraits

example, that she would rather track her son’s growth

had been made cheap and easy by Disdéri’s invention of

over a series of tintypes than be forced to purchase many

a special camera with four lenses so that a single nega-

cartes de visite from one session.)9

5

2

available to many for the very first time.

Introduction

The widespread availability of cheap photographic

writings are rife with suffering bodies, amputation, in-

portraits made as multiples ushered in a revolution in

jury, and physical assault. Yet Holmes Jr. joked when he

representation. And that revolution accompanied the

asked his father for six photographs of himself, “The

most horrific war fought on American ground between

2/3 lengths—­they are stunners—­I think I’d rather play

Americans. Holmes was wrong. “Cartomania” was a

my game with that dummy than in person.” The image

consequence of the Civil War, not its repression. “All” es-

of the dummy who could serve as his substitute during

pecially “love to see the faces of their friends” and family

war is a poignant fantasy.11 And when Holmes Jr. fore-

when separated, perhaps forever, by war. The desperate

saw his own death, he decided to inscribe his wishes on

desire to memorialize the beloved was keenly felt both

the back of the photographic portrait to be found on his

by those who stayed at home and by those who went

body: “If I am killed you will find a Mem. on the back of

away. Here is one soldier’s diary entry of 1863:

a picture I carry wh. please attend to.”12 As we will see, cartes de visite registered the war and

I want to

played their own part in it. Not hidden in the recesses of

see my Dear wife oh

cabinets, they were found instead in the pockets of the

if I had her photograph

dead, in tens of thousands of letters, in family albums,

but I see her almost

in public lectures and political campaigns.13 Cartes de

Every night and in the

visite raised money for war orphans, veterans, many of

morning when I wake

them amputees, and also recently freed slaves. Moun-

up what a disappoint

tainous stacks of cartes de visite of military officers, vic-

ment no wife by

tims of war, government officials, and other celebrities

my side no Kezia

were on sale at photographic studios and bookstores.14

all alone.10

Most cartes de visite were portraits, but some attest to an ambition to represent the war more generally,

Longing, photographs, and dreams of a soldier who

even in this small-­scale format. A few cartes de visite

feels himself “all alone” without his wife at his side:

depict landscapes, battle sites, and military prisons;

cartes de visite were not as isolated from war as Holmes

others staged still lives, featuring, for example, a row

would make us believe. Even the example of his son,

of dead soldiers’ boots or tattered flags. A carte made by

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., the future Supreme Court

Sayre and Chase of Newark, Ohio, displays the scarred

justice, attests to the ways the little albumen photo-

­battle flag of the Seventy-­Sixth Ohio Volunteer Infan-

graphs glued onto cardboard were imbricated with the

try as well as a sword, a scabbard, and an officer’s sash

national crisis, playing many roles. The son’s Civil War

hanging from a line perfunctorily stretched across Introduction

3

the studio (fig. 1). Leaning against the floorboards are

cussing an epistolary friendship with a photograph

two large, framed albumen photographs of two Union

collector who finally sent his portrait in the mail,

generals: at the right, Charles Robert Woods, who or-

Holmes Sr. conceded with some humor:

ganized the Seventy-­Sixth Ohio, and his brother William Burnham Woods. Both men survived the war; as-

A photographic intimacy between two persons who

tonishingly, both became Supreme Court justices, like

never saw each other’s faces (that is, in Nature’s

the son of Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. The photographs

original positive, the principal use of which, after all,

are not themselves cartes de visite but larger prints

is to furnish negatives from which portraits may be

deemed worthy of frames, not merely inclusion in an

taken) is a new form of friendship. . . . And so these

album. In this carte de visite, torn and tattered relics

shadows have made him with his outer and his inner

of war are supplemented by portraiture. Photography’s

life, a reality for you; and but for his voice, which

indexicality—­its registration of “what has been”—­

you have never heard, you know him better than

serves as a form of incontestable evidence: here, for in-

hundreds who call him by name, as they meet him

stance, are scarred, inanimate objects that testify to bat-

year after year, and reckon him among their familiar

tle and connote both courage and suffering.15 And here

acquaintances.16

is a medium capable so economically of incorporating

figure 1.  Pro-­Union carte de visite commemorating the Seventy-­Sixth Ohio Volunteer Infantry and Generals Charles Robert Woods and William Burnham Woods, ca. 1865. On the verso: “Sayre and Chase of Newark Ohio.” This and other figures are from the author’s collection unless otherwise indicated.

portraiture into its visualization of a past. Yet this carte

Holmes may have been overly confident about the per-

de visite oddly miniaturizes the men it is intended to

sonal knowledge now available across distances, but

honor; the framed portraits point to the living actors

he was sustaining an American dream of overcoming

who wielded swords and flags but also commemorates

the nation’s vastness and also bringing the worthy up

them and suggests their deaths. Photographic portraits

close. In the decade before the advent of cartes de visite,

cannot indicate whether sitters are alive or dead. The

Mathew Brady had imagined a National Portrait Gallery,

medium’s memorializing power overwhelms the pres-

daguerreotypes replicated as engravings that would

ent even as it promises presence rather than absence.

unify the nation.17 But modest, inexpensive cards ulti-

Holmes Sr. claimed that Americans were burying the “remains of the dead” “in the recesses of [their] cabi-

4

mately created a far more inclusive nation in representation than he could have imagined in the 1840s.

net.” Instead, the proliferation of cartes de visite attests

And that nation was a nation at war over slavery.

to Americans’ desire to remember one another through

Cartes de visite were marshaled by enemies as well as

images even when those images represented people

allies in service to their cause. An anti-­Confederate

as shadows overpowered by the strangely vivid—­and

carte, probably dating to 1865, celebrates the Northern

sometimes mutilated—­inert things of the world. Dis-

defeat of the South by hanging a row of cartes de vis-

Introduction

ite portraits of Confederate generals from a pitchfork held by a rakish, sculpted satyr-­devil (fig. 2). From his other hand, the winged devil dangles a miniature figure of Jefferson Davis lynched beneath a Confederate flag. This carte de visite is a sensational, we might say vernacular, condemnation of the enemy. Exploiting the new format available to many and disseminated widely, this card’s creator could be anyone with props, including other cartes de visite; a bit of cash; and the initiative to make personal political convictions both public and visual. Long before the Internet, the carte de visite was an object at once cheap, mass-­produced, and broadly circulating—­here was a medium that could turn folks not only into portrait sitters but into authors. This carte de visite, like that celebrating the Seventy-­Sixth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, uses photographic portraits—­in this case, other cartes de visite—­as its key protagonists. The Confederate generals hang in effigy, but in effigy particularly modern in form: faded, dreary, and uniform photographic portraits were available to one and all, even enemies. This carte de visite features two different photographic images of Jefferson Davis: the topmost carte de visite hanging at right, and the small visage ex-

figure 2. Anti-­Confederate carte de visite with satyr-­devil hanging Jefferson Davis from a noose topped by a seven-­star Confederate flag from 1861; dangling from his pitchfork are seven portraits of Generals Davis, Stephens, Lee, Stonewall, Beauregard, and Price, ca. 1865. On the verso: “F. Guntekunst Photographer. 704 & 706 Arch St., Philada.”

Introduction

5

cised from another photographic card and attached to

10, 1865, purportedly by disguising himself as a woman

the hanging effigy at left. In fact the majority of such

(figs. 3–4). His photographed head was cut out of cartes

composite cartes de visite featured this Confederate

de visite and pasted onto drawings, prints, and other

leader. Especially popular were cartes de visite show-

photographs, then rephotographed and made into new

ing Davis’s attempt to escape the Union army on May

cartes de visite. Such pictures are important reminders

figure 3. Anti-­Confederate carte de visite caricaturing Jefferson Davis, 1865. On the verso: “Entered according to the Act of Congress in the year 1865, in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Northern District of Illinois, by P.T. Sherlock, Book, News & Periodical Dealer, 112 Dearborn Street, Chicago.” figure 4. Anti-­Confederate carte de visite caricaturing Jefferson Davis, 1865. On the verso: “Wenderoth & Taylor. 912–­914 Chestnut Street Philadelphia” and two-­cent tax stamp that dates it between August 1, 1864, and August 1, 1866. figure 5. Anti-­Union carte de visite of Abraham Lincoln in blackface, ca. 1861–­65. On the recto: “B.H. Benham Photographer.” Benham had a studio in Norwalk, Ohio, a hotbed for Copperheadism, so it is possible that the photographer was a Peace Democrat with very strong anti-­Lincoln views.

6

Introduction

that having one’s portrait taken in this medium risked

wife’s shawl for warmth), and Abraham Lincoln could

entering the fray of public debate. In the midst of war,

be travestied by blackface (fig. ­5). Cartes de visite were

opponents could slap together insulting collaged pho-

far from being Holmes’s domestic frivolity; they could

tographs: Jefferson Davis could be depicted escaping in

aggrandize the formerly enslaved, delivering them into

a dress (when he claimed that he was simply wearing his

the personhood of portraiture, and they could also be used to denigrate the enemy. In either case, these modest objects were tools of war. ::: Sojourner Truth was one of the many sitters for cartes de visite who would not have been able to afford a painted portrait, although she may have had a daguerreotype taken in 1850 to be reproduced as the engraving facing her Narrative’s title page. The woman Sojourner Truth is elusive and the archival evidence contradictory, but we do know salient facts about her life, some of which I list here: She was born a slave named Isabella Baumfree, perhaps in 1797.18 She spoke Dutch as her first language in an Upstate New York community. She was separated from her parents in 1810, when she was sold by her first owner for a hundred dollars; she was probably thirteen years old (fig. 6). She had three different slave owners the first year she was separated from her parents.19 She was beaten as a slave; she also lost a portion of her right hand’s index finger in a field accident in 1826.20

Introduction

7

She bore five children between 1815 and 1826, one of whom died. She expressed affection toward her last owner, but in

plates and reissued the book in three further editions in 1875, 1878, and 1881. The last posthumous

1826 at the age of thirty, she ran away after com-

edition of 1884 was entitled Narrative of Sojourner

pleting the spinning of some one hundred pounds

Truth: A Bondswoman of Olden Time, with a History

of wool, work that she felt she owed him.

of Her Labors and Correspondence Drawn from Her

She took her baby Sophia when she ran away from her master, but she left behind her husband and her three other children.21 She moved in 1828 to New York City, where she did household work and lived with a kind family until 1832.22 She joined a religious commune, the Kingdom of

“Book of Life”; Also, a Memorial Chapter, Giving the Particulars of Her Last Illness and Death.25 She published letters in the press throughout her life. She had a bank account.26 She campaigned on behalf of the abolition of slavery, the suffrage of African Americans and women, the rights to education and property for suddenly

Matthias, in 1832 after having already moved from

emancipated slaves, the desegregation of street-

a Methodist church to the Zion African Church

cars, and the elimination of capital punishment.

while in New York City. She remained loyal to its

She was a moving speaker. According to a Quaker

leader despite the fact that he beat her; in 1835 he

abolitionist, she “poured forth a torrent of natural

was charged with murder.23

eloquence which swept everything before it.”27

She went to court three times and won all three cases.

She worked tirelessly from 1864 to 1867 on behalf of

In 1828 she litigated to recover her son Peter, who

the thousands of emancipated Southern slaves ref-

had been illegally sold into slavery. In 1832 she filed

uged at the Freedmen’s Village in Washington, DC.

a slander suit in response to the scandal surround-

She attempted to relocate them to other regions

ing the Kingdom of Matthias and won $125 and

where she hoped they could find work, and also

costs. In 1865 she brought assault charges against

campaigned to have the government grant them

a Washington, DC, streetcar conductor who tried

land in the West.28

to throw her off his car; he was dismissed from his job.24 She renamed herself Sojourner Truth in 1843 at the age of forty-­six. She wrote a book with the help of two different women friends and paid for its first printing in 8

1850 on credit; she later recovered the printing

Introduction

She walked into Fowler and Wells’s Phrenological Cabinet in New York City on May 11, 1867, to have her skull read.29 She filed petitions with Congress and paid to have petitions printed in 1871: “I am urging the people to sign petitions to Congress to have a grant of land

set apart for the freed people to earn their living on, and not be dependent on the government for their bread. I have had fifty petitions printed at my own expense.”30 She tried to vote several times in advance of female suffrage, including for President Grant in the 1872 election, but was turned away from the polls.31 She collected autographs of famous persons and compiled three scrapbooks of newspaper clippings primarily about herself.32 She admired Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, listened to a lecture on Raphael’s School of Athens, and was impressed by the thinking of Socrates and Plato.33 She subscribed to a newspaper, the National Anti-­ Slavery Standard,34 kept abreast of news as reported by other papers, and was critical of their coverage. In the Standard, a friend wrote that “the World, the Herald, Tribune, and Independent all read so much alike that Sojourner Truth wondered where the Democratic papers were.”35 She made out a will.36 She was well versed in the Bible, but she also embraced modernity and technological inventions.37

figure 6. Inventory of the estate of Charles Hardenbergh, 1810. Among the possessions Hardenbergh lists are his slaves, including both Sojourner Truth’s mother, Bett, and Sojourner herself (Isabella). Ulster County Archives, Kingston, New York. Photograph courtesy of Ulster County Archives.

Introduction

9

She posed for photographic portraits, primarily cartes

down by a literate friend or family member. The many

de visite, over a dozen different times—­mostly

extant written texts attributed to her, even her personal

during the years of the Civil War, when she was in

letters or transcriptions of her speeches in the press,

her late sixties, but also in the years immediately

are discrepant, obviously determined by the different

before her death in 1883.

moments in which they were written and the writers’

She had a copyright filed in her name for her cartes de

different points of view. She was moving and heroic to

visite in 1864; the copyright in her name appeared

many, irritating to some, including Frederick Douglass,

on the backs of her portraits. At the same time,

and “a repellant negro” to others.42 Immersed in the

she added her printed name and a caption to the

archival traces, I have been surprised and inspired by my

fronts.38

glimpses of her courage, her largeness of vision, and her

She could neither read nor write. When she made out

hard work as an activist as well as her outspoken, often

her will in 1881, she was purportedly unable to sign

indecorous feistiness. But such glimpses are seized and

her name. She signed her “mark” to petitions.39

believed in the midst of contradictions and absences in the records.

We know these skeletal facts, and I could add many

We have no moving pictures to help us imagine the

more, but we have to interpret how they fit together and

way Sojourner Truth carried her angular frame, almost

who she was. They attest to an amazing resilience and

six feet in height. Nor do we have audio recordings of

to accomplishments all the more remarkable because

her voice, described so often as powerful and idiosyn-

Sojourner Truth was illiterate. That fact also challenges

cratic. She had a Dutch accent, but how that sounded

the historian. As her first amanuensis and collaborator,

when she sang or spoke is uncertain. Writers ascribed

Olive Gilbert, lamented in the narrative of her life, Truth

numerous accents to her, even a southern dialect that we

lived before “a Daguerrian art” had been invented that

know she did not have. We read her speech and her let-

could communicate the “impressions” she made upon

ters sometimes in the first person and sometimes in the

audiences when she was “moved by lofty or deep feel-

third. We cannot assume that the transcriber who pre-

ing.” We cannot know “the look, the gesture, the tones

ferred to shift her first-­person statements into the third

of the voice, in connection with the quaint, yet fit ex-

person was any less accurate than the writer who wrote

pressions used, and the spirit-­stirring animation that,

in the first. “She sends her love” or “I send my love”: ei-

at such a time, pervades all she says.” Because she

ther could accurately convey what Sojourner herself had

could not read or write, there is no surviving statement

said as she dictated her letters, her life story, or her polit-

made by Sojourner Truth that has not been mediated

ical appeals. Either might not.

40

by someone else. Each of her utterances was written 41

10

Introduction

Illiteracy makes the interpretation of textual sources

challenging, but it does not mean there were few such

Collins, whose 1983 article was notably expanded by his-

traces. Sojourner Truth’s life left behind many sub-

torian Nell Irvin Painter in her biography of 1996—­and

stances: among them, an inordinate number of texts

also the assistance of Margaret Washington, I here as-

written down by her friends and grandsons. Given her

semble more photographs of Sojourner Truth than ever

illiteracy, she was a stunningly prolific producer of writ-

before published, and I also introduce new evidence to

ing: an autobiography, personal letters, letters intended

date them more precisely and differently.43 While several

for publication in the press, speeches, petitions, an-

related articles have been written in the last decade, this

nouncements, and songs.

is the first book devoted to Sojourner Truth’s remark-

In addition, Sojourner Truth left us a visual archive.

able use of photography and its newly popular form, the

This book examines this corpus of at least twenty-­eight

inexpensive and diminutive carte de visite, in the con-

figure 7a. Captioned carte de visite of Sojourner Truth, 1864–­65. Seated pose from session H, same setting as session G but with flowers on the table; perhaps original mount. American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts. Photograph courtesy of the American Antiquarian Society.

different photographs, mostly cartes de visite, deriving

text of the Civil War.44

figure 7b. Verso.

from perhaps fourteen different sessions with a half dozen or so photographers (fig. 7a, b). Here are portraits that she chose to have made again and again throughout the Civil War, and once more at the end of her life in the early 1880s. After 1864, she appended texts: a caption followed by her proper name, “I Sell the Shadow to Support the Substance. Sojourner Truth,” and also a copyright in her name. Truth repeatedly advertised the sale of these pictures in newspapers and letters, and she sold them at lectures and by mail. Some were reprinted and attached to different mounts, each with her caption and name. At the end of her life, she commissioned a few cabinet cards with the same inscriptions. Many of her photographic portraits exist in multiple copies scattered across the country in different collections. I believe there may be yet others in regional historical societies, libraries, museums, and, perhaps most intriguingly, personal albums: I have found only four of the latter, all outside official archives. With effort and luck and the scholarship of those who came before me—­especially Kathleen Introduction

11

War inspired Sojourner Truth’s embrace of photog-

Our age gets very little credit either for poetry or song.

raphy. Like Frederick Douglass, she knew how import-

It is generally condemned to wear the cold metalic [sic]

ant its invention was for a society attempting to redefine

stamp of a passionless utilitarianism. It certainly is

the status of black men and women.45 Both former slaves

remarkable for many achievements, small and great,

believed in the liberatory power of modernization. Ac-

which accord with this popular description—­and

cording to Truth’s friend Eliza Seaman Leggett in a let-

yet, for nothing is it more remarkable, than for the

ter to Walt Whitman, Truth “doesn’t see any thing use-

multitude, variety and cheapness of its pictures. . . .

ful in the new translation of the New Testament—­says

Daguerre by the simple but all abounding sunlight has

that the history belongs to past ages, we have outgrown

converted the planet into a picture gallery. . . . Men of

the history. . . . [She] thinks there ought to be scriptures

all conditions may see themselves as others see them.

written of what God has done ever since the times of the

What was once the exclusive luxury of the rich and

early creation and Moses, scriptures telling of Railroads

great is now within reach of all.48

and Telephones and the Atlantic Cable. She sees God in a steam engine and electricity.”46 Frederick Douglass

Douglass had entitled his lecture “Pictures and Prog-

went so far as to credit technology with the power to end

ress,” and he imagined progress as the conversion of

slavery: “In every bar of rail road iron a missionary—­In

the “planet” into a “picture gallery.” Portraits were now

every locomotive a herald of progress—­the startling

“within reach of all,” and they permitted people of all

scream of the Engine—­and the small ticking sound of

conditions to “see themselves as others see them.” As

the telegraph are alike prophecies of hope to the philan-

Ginger Hill has observed, Douglass’s lectures under-

thropist, and warnings to the system of slavery, super-

score “not solely self-­possession but a possession of

stition and oppression.”

and by others. To be self-­possessed is not just to pres-

47

Douglass was certain that of all modern inventions,

ent one’s own image but to be intruded upon, aware

photography had the most far-­reaching impact. He de-

of how one is perceived by others. [Self-­possession]

voted public lectures in 1861 and 1865 to ruminate on its

requires recognition from others. To achieve such rec-

power. Not known for art, the nineteenth century, he

ognition, one must participate in a self-­objectification,

admitted, could be “condemned” for its “utlitarianism.”

become one’s own object of scrutiny.”49 Hill asks us to

Douglass’s wording connotes the press and the very

entertain the possibility that former slaves, persons

process of creating photographs, picture-­making of the

treated as fungible things, paradoxically needed to ob-

machine age, but he quickly shifts from condemnation

jectify themselves—­to see themselves as they were seen

to celebration of this new invention:

by others—­in order to attain full self-­possession. And former slaves were also inclined to turn their newly ob-

12

Introduction

tained private right to property in themselves into their

lieved that self-­possession hinged on a form of self-­

right to publicize that achievement, that personhood.

objectification. In 1867, for instance, she chose to have

Jane Gaines has alerted us to the contradiction in law

her skull read, even when it meant subjecting her body

“between personhood that is thought to be constituted

to analysis by an ostensibly expert white examiner. She

as a private entity and personhood that is constituted

took the risk of being subjected to racism masquer-

as public and commercial.” “The right of privacy,” she

ading as science—­four years earlier in 1863, the firm’s

asserts, is repeatedly “used to secure the right of pub-

Phrenological Journal had attributed “negro” features to

licity.” After all, to claim only the right to personhood

“uncultured whites.”53 But Truth’s examiner, Nelson

as private property would be to “threaten to remove

Sizer, was an abolitionist who had denounced the Fu-

[one’s] image from the public domain of history.”

51

gitive Slave Bill “as the roughest bill that a legal Turkey

Truth was negotiating precisely this tension between

buzzard ever held a piece of human carrion in.”54 What

self-­possession and self-­publicity.

is remarkable about Sizer’s reading of Truth is the utter

50

Self-­scrutiny surely informed how sitters chose to

absence of physiognomic description or racial refer-

be seen in the photographs they sometimes intended

ence. The report is entirely unmoored from her physical

to circulate widely. Douglass was discomforted by van-

body. There are no references to the shape of her skull.

ity (perhaps because he was so stunningly handsome),

Nothing indicates whether Sojourner Truth is white or

but he admitted to the sitter’s “preparation” for a pho-

black; she is unmarked as a woman, and nothing tells us

tographic portrait by peering into a mirror: “A man is

about the hills and valleys of her skull. Instead, Truth

ashamed of seeming to be vain of his personal appear-

received a flattering and altogether generalized portrait

ance and yet who ever stood before a glass preparing to

of her character that begins:

sit or stand for a picture—­without a consciousness of some such gravity?”52 Sitters studied themselves in mirrors and in photographs. They decided how to pose and what to wear and what to hold. Douglass generally chose a bust-­length portrait and to look not toward the viewer

You have a moral firmness of character, a kind of endurance that lasts forever: you never give up. You have Conscientiousness, and the love of justice. You believe that truth is a jewel.

but off to the side. Sojourner Truth generally chose seated poses in which she held something significant in

Sizer proceeded to describe Truth as courageous, self-­

her lap, or less often, full-­length standing poses. While

reliant, persevering, steadfast, ingenious, upright, good

her body is typically positioned slightly obliquely, she

with numbers, endowed with parental (not maternal) af-

almost always looks directly at the viewer.

fection, and liked by pets and children. He concluded:

Sojourner Truth, like Douglass, seems to have beIntroduction

13

You are a good reader of character—­you understand

Unlike phrenological examinations, cameras offer

strangers and are not easily deceived. You are

optical surfaces visible to the sight of one and all, the

ingenious—­could learn to use tools, and be a good

literate and illiterate. Relative to the blind, manual prob-

mechanic.

ing of a skull’s landscape, photographs are superficial, simplified condensations of information about a sitter’s

You are upright by nature.55

unique embodiment. Photographs are also visible; one Sizer credits Truth with his own professional skill

does not need to read a report summarizing the expert’s

as a “reader of character.” And he attributes qualities

observations in looping script. The photographic por-

to her—­courage, self-­reliance, and perseverance—­

trait is democratically available to all who can see and

resembling those of John Brown, the early radical aboli-

compare and examine the self in relation to others.

tionist willing to kill to end slavery, whom Sizer had an-

Sojourner Truth chose to have one phrenological

alyzed almost a decade earlier in 1858, the year before he

reading, but she did not publish her report. Instead, she

was executed. Coming into his office from the outdoors’

repeatedly sat before the camera. Her recurrent decision

bright glare, the phrenologist had barely discerned the

to be photographed betrays her impulse, like Doug­

“man’s dim outline” seen from the back, yet without

lass’s, to scrutinize herself but also to be recognized by

even seeing his face, he put his “hands on the other” and

others. And she intended to disseminate and profit from

offered a phrenological reading. Hardly able to see the

her multiples. The information registered by a photo-

man, Sizer was analyzing form, not the barely visible

graph was not solely for her purview. Once again, Truth

appearance of a man approached from the back. Phre-

took a risk. If nineteenth-­century phrenology could

nology presumes character is registered on the body,

be deployed as a racist tool, so too could photography.

that the body betrays its interiority, but its analysis

Over twenty-­five years ago, Allan Sekula alerted us to the

hinges not on appearance but on small protruberances

ways photography’s democratic promise was shadowed

and convexities often beneath the hair and purportedly

by its role as a mechanism for surveillance and the con-

uniquely configured for each individual. The 1863 Phre-

struction of racial and class typologies.57 The decade be-

nological Journal’s reference to “negro” features betrays

fore Truth’s decision to sit for cartes de visite, Harvard

an offensively racializing propensity, but Sizer’s osten-

racial scientist Louis Agassiz commissioned daguerre-

sibly expert, tactile probing and reading of the skulls of

otypes of slaves by J. T. Zealy, devastating photographs

John Brown and Sojourner Truth do not. Indeed, they

showing black men and women stripped bare in frontal

do not describe. Personhood in this phrenological cab-

and profile poses.58 But Sojourner Truth was nothing if

inet is paradoxically independent of the appearance of

not brave. She, like Doug­lass, embraced the opportunity

the body.

to enter photographic portraiture. She wished to pres-

56

14

Introduction

ent her self to others. And unlike the slaves subjected by

a vital argument out of exceedingly humble and fragile

Agassiz to unwelcome scrutiny and violence, she made

artifacts. She was also turning paper into value. Always

the choice to be photographed, and she decided how she

fighting poverty, Truth made a portrait of herself worth

would ­appear.

money. None of this comes as a surprise: the socially

This book insists that Sojourner Truth was the au-

marginal turned into value by art is a very old story in-

thor of her representation and its circulation during

deed. In Camera Lucida (1981), Roland Barthes introduced

and after the Civil War. Audiences and readers have

Richard Avedon’s photograph captioned as “William

alerted me to a pervasive resistance to recognize her

Casby, born a slave” immediately after stating: “In an

agency. Again and again, people assume that Sojourner

initial period, Photography in order to surprise, pho-

Truth was constructed by others both during her life-

tographs the notable; but soon, by a familiar reversal,

time and since. In marked contrast to the scholarly at-

it decrees notable whatever it photographs. The ‘any-

tribution of agency (and complexity) to Douglass, I have

thing whatever’ then becomes the sophisticated acme

learned in the process of writing this book that there is a

of value” (fig. 8).61 Like Avedon, Barthes uses the former

marked hesitation to credit Truth for her savvy produc-

slave to prove that “anything whatever” can accrue value

tion and circulation of her image. Against such skep-

if photographed. In this proposition, he who was once

ticism, I argue that Sojourner Truth was the strategic

property is now a thing turned by photography into an-

author of her public self and her photographic portrait.

other form of property of higher worth.

59

I agree therefore with Maurice O. Wallace and Shawn

The transformation of the impoverished into sub-

Michelle Smith, who argue that many famous African

stances of elevated value is not specific to photography;

Americans, including Truth, Frederick Douglass, Har-

painters have long performed such metamorphoses,

riet Jacobs, and W. E. B. DuBois, were “theorists and

making valuable illusions of humble things with inex-

practitioners of photography . . . although they might

pensive pigments applied to modest supports, whether

never have focused the lens or released the shutter on

canvas, wood, or paper. But Barthes emphasizes the

a camera.”

unique evidentiary power of photography: “The man I

60

By exploiting newly affordable photographic por-

see here has been a slave: he certifies that slavery has ex-

traits, Sojourner Truth created a new community, an-

isted, not so far from us; and he certifies this . . . by a new,

other form of political persuasion, and also a way finan-

somehow experienced order of proof.”62 Still, Barthes

cially to support her activism on behalf of former slaves

fails to acknowledge his utter reliance on the supple-

and women. She relied not only on her many friends but

ment of the caption: only the picture’s accompanying

on the new “photographic intimacy between persons

text proclaims that Casby was a slave. The photograph

who never saw each other’s faces.” Truth was making

alone cannot make visible the man’s legal and social Introduction

15

our awareness of representation’s inequities. Avedon turns the “anything whatever,” in this case a man, into a thing—­an artwork—­whose value enriches Avedon, not William Casby. The man Casby flickers in and out of value here. Eclipsed between this man’s birth as a slave and his capture as an object before Avedon’s lens is the length of a life gone unremarked; for us, as viewers, the man’s life matters only insomuch as it signifies the physical continuity of the present with the past. That life as a self-­determined free man is not valued here; it is merely the interim, the means by which Casby’s present is bound to his birth as a slave. Casby accrues value (and visibility) only once image and caption define him as a slave turned into an art object by a famous photographer. The slave made into light, then paper—­another form of property—­productive of wealth. The power of Sojourner Truth’s photographic portraits partly resides in the dissonance between her origins as a slave and the modernity of the medium of photography. Truth spent the first thirty years of her life as a slave, and her photographic image, like Casby’s, has figure 8. Richard Avedon, William Casby, Born a Slave, March 24, 1963, as it appears in Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida (New York: Hill and Wang, 1981).

16

status. Looking at the photograph, we believe William

accrued value. But during her free life, Truth, not the

Casby “has been,” but we cannot perceive whether he

photographer, profited from the sale of her photographic

was born a slave or a free man.

portrait. As a free woman, she supported herself by the

The French theorist’s surprise that he shares a tem-

sale of her likeness. William Casby’s life as a free man

poral continuity with slavery derives not from the pho-

was eclipsed by Avedon’s captioned photograph. Truth,

tograph’s legibility as a testament to that institution but

by contrast, made her photograph and wrote her cap-

from how modern he apprehends the medium to be. I

tion, and she turned both into a sign of her own freedom

think many viewers may share that response to the dis-

and rights. Like Douglass, she believed that photogra-

sonance between a far-­removed past and a medium so

phy mattered. Like him, she was determined to author

fully part of modern life. Photography also heightens

and profit from her representation of self.

Introduction

I am fascinated by Sojourner Truth’s commitment to

poraneity. All these meanings pertain to this book, and

photographic self-­portraiture, and thankful for the ma-

to Sojourner Truth’s prescient use of a relatively new

terial traces that have lasted sometimes against all likeli-

mechanical medium and its inexpensive paper mani-

hood in cluttered boxes, sometimes lovingly preserved,

festations both to sustain herself and to construct com-

sometimes sold as increasingly expensive commodities

munities of supporters across vast spaces. Like the fed-

online and by dealers. Still, I acknowledge that I con-

eral government that resorted to the printing of paper

struct her shadow, a shadow shaped from substances

currency to finance the war, Truth was improvising new

left by her life, but a shadow nonetheless. Truth left us

ways of creating value in order to finance her activism

her shadows. This book interrogates their value, then

and a war that she believed was being fought on behalf

and now.

of slaves. Throughout the Civil War, paper—­printed, :::

engraved, and developed as photographs—­was being made into value.

Enduring Truths is a book about Sojourner Truth’s photo-

The process was homely, improvised, and subject to

graphs; it is also a book about paper, reproductive tech-

fits and starts—­like so much nineteenth-­century tech-

nologies, and the law. When Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

nology betwixt and between the artisanal workshop and

called cartes de visite “the social currency, the sentimen-

the factory, between the unique object and the mass-­

tal ‘green-­backs’ of civilization,” he likened photographs

produced multiple. Midcentury, the borders between

to paper money, the new bills whose backs were often

different forms of representation were not fixed. Pho-

printed in green ink that had been invented to support

tography and photographic processes everywhere coex-

the Union cause, and also to currency more generally.

isted with far older technologies such as engraving and

Derived from the Middle English curraunt, meaning “in

printing. Improvisation and expediency were essential,

circulation,” currency refers not solely to money or a me-

and different media served inconsistent, overlapping

dium of exchange but to the transmission from person

purposes. Newly invented federal monetary notes, for

to person of such tokens as well as their wider circula-

example, were merely slightly enlarged pieces of en-

tion. Currency signifies both prevalence—­a general ac-

graved paper with postal stamp portraits at their center

ceptance or use—­and being up-­to-­date or “current.”

(fig. 9a, b). Signatures were initially handwritten in ink

Holmes’s word, especially when modified by the ad-

on the Treasury notes, and for a brief period, precious

jective social, thus offers a nexus of overlapping ideas:

metal was overlaid onto paper bills. Cartes de visite and

representation as constitutive of value; transmission of

tintypes also combined materials, even postal stamps.

representation among persons; wide circulation depen-

During the Civil War, stamps were glued to their backs

dent on collective consensus; and cutting-­edge contem-

as a federal tax on behalf of the Union cause. Introduction

17

figure 9a. Fifty-­cent fractional currency note representing five ten-­cent postage stamps, with a portrait of George Washington, 1862. 1.77 × 2.5 inches. figure 9b. Verso.

18

Consider the complexity of a pair of very small tin-

franchised persons into the portraiture heretofore re-

type photographic portraits of a couple and one of a well-­

served for the nation’s elite. Such an achievement was

dressed African American (figs. 10a, b– ­11a, b). Framed

especially notable for African Americans during the

ornately in brass, the tintypes of the couple are as tiny as

Civil War. If slavery defined black men and women as

the paper stamps on their backs that (inadvertently) ap-

fun­gible commodities, anonymous and exchangeable

pear framed as well; the portrait of the black man is only

things, portraits such as this small tintype made claims

slightly larger, and was also nested in a gutta-­percha

for the uniqueness of the black individual, here mir-

case. As required by law, the stamps on the backs of all

rored by the (mass-­produced) portrait of the founding

three tintypes were dutifully canceled; the couple’s tax

father on its verso. Both men, this radical object argues,

stamps bear a date, in this case finely written by some-

deserved portraits.

one, probably the photographer, in ink. Here we have

Like early monetary bills, these three tintypes are

individual sitters vying for attention with the mass-

complex, aggregate objects, combining multiple mate-

­produced, engraved pictures of government leaders on

rials, media, and registers of address. During the Civil

their reverse. Invisible to us, postage stamps were por-

War, such private mementos were inscribed by public

traits, a fact highlighted on the back of a carte de vis-

uses and legal requirements; chemically developed pho-

ite where such a portrait is inadvertently glorified by

tographs were joined to small rectangles of government-­

a preprinted frame (intended to function as the carte’s

issued, printed paper onto which ink had been applied

recto, not its verso) (fig. 12). Photography, as Doug­lass

by hand. Cartes de visite were also modest, rudimentary,

and Truth well appreciated, delivered formerly disen-

often aggregate objects; they were mechanically made

Introduction

figure 10a. Two tiny ninth-­plate tintype portraits with tax stamps featuring a portrait of George Washington on their verso, dating from the first month of the tax stamp, August 1864. figure 10b. Versos of both.

figure 11a. Sixth-­plate tintype portrait of an African American man, 1864–­66. figure 11b. Verso: tax stamp featuring portrait of George Washington. The stamp dates the tintype between August 1, 1864, and August 1, 1866.

figure 12. Carte de visite with tax stamp framed on the card mount’s recto. The stamp dates it between August 1, 1864, and August 1, 1866.

but not entirely; they existed as multiples that were not

The second part, “Shadows and Substance,” dis-

identical; they bore the marks of their makers which

cusses Truth’s cartes de visite after 1864 that bore a copy-

were sometimes printed, sometimes hand-­drawn,

right and also a caption and her name: “I Sell the Shadow

sometimes stylistic; they betrayed the peculiarities of

to Support the Substance. Sojourner Truth.” This sec-

their often hasty production; and later their worn sur-

tion examines Truth’s metaphor of the shadow and also

faces registered their circulation by countless users. So-

the staging of these portraits in domestic interiors. The

journer Truth’s cartes de visite were (and are) complex,

bourgeois propriety of Truth’s pictures should not make

multilayered things.

us overlook her significant inclusion of knitting. Holding her craft in hand, the ever-­industrious Truth intro-

:::

duced manual labor into a machine-­made image that

Enduring Truths is divided into three parts. The first,

had required her to sit passively before the camera. This

“Early Cartes de visite,” introduces Sojourner Truth’s

section also examines the materiality, the chemistry, of

earliest uncaptioned photographs that originated partly

a medium too often discussed solely as optical. Finally,

as a corrective to Harriet Beecher Stowe’s portrayal of

it interrogates contemporary anxieties about photog-

her in the Atlantic Monthly. Even these early photo-

raphy’s disturbingly unpredictable representation of

graphs, dating from the early 1860s, explicitly supported

complexion. Rather than securing racial difference,

the Civil War—­in one case likening Truth, wrapped in

photography proved to be anything but consistent;

a flag, to a personification of the Union; in another, per-

the variables that determined its results were many:

mitting her proudly to honor her grandson after he had

lighting, exposure times, the medium’s discrepant reg-

enlisted in the Fifty-­Fourth Massachusetts Regiment,

istration of colors, the procedure’s chemistry, and the

the first voluntary all-­black infantry. Like so many of

practitioner’s skill, to name but a few. And as a positive-­

her contemporaries, including Holmes and Douglass,

negative medium, photography raised the eerie, dis-

Truth deployed photography to make arguments. Dou-

quieting specter of racial inversion: in negatives white

glass had insisted that “Picture-­making” was a power-

became black, only to produce white again.

ful tool “subject to a wild scramble between contending

The third part, “Texts and Circulating Paper,” turns

interests and forces,” and he celebrated photography

from the visual and material aspects of photography to

as “a mighty power—­and the side to which it goes has

the textual, and examines the prominent role of words

achieved a wonderous [sic] conquest.” Sojourner Truth

in Sojourner Truth’s cartes de visite. How should her

was equally determined to seize that new and wondrous

photographs’ inclusion of printed texts (name, caption,

power in order to win the war against slavery.

and copyright) be interpreted given her illiteracy? Why

63

20

Introduction

did an illiterate woman, who could not sign her name,

or were photographs in fact public property? This sec-

collect autographs and choose to publish them in later

tion redresses a lacuna in extant scholarship by taking

editions of her Narrative? What should be made of the

seriously the confusion surrounding copyright law and

period’s pervasive mechanical reproduction of the

photography in the United States during the nineteenth

handmade sign for the self ? Because Sojourner Truth

century. Who owns the image of a person? Could Jeffer-

went to court three times, won each case, authored and

son Davis contest the abuse of his face?

signed petitions with her “mark,” and copyrighted her

Enduring Truths concludes with a discussion of col-

photographs, we need to examine the legal ramifica-

lecting. The pervasive circulation of paper of shifting

tions of her textual additions to her portrait. Through-

value led not only to legislation intended to secure its

out the Civil War era, the legal status of circulating,

worth but to private acts of accumulation. Cartes de

inscribed pieces of paper was vigorously debated. The

visite were collected by individuals, arrested in fam-

arguments were heated because currency itself was

ily albums, and also distributed, often by post, among

interpreted as an expression of pro-­slavery and anti-­

friends and strangers whose collections constructed dif-

slavery c­ ommitments.

ferent narratives.

During the conflict, avalanches of paper—­bills,

During the Civil War, paper—­ including pho-

notes, stamps, prints, petitions, autographs, news-

tographs, letters, autographs, stamps, prints, and

papers, and photographs—­were put to new uses and

newspapers— ­circulated promiscuously.64 This book

subjected to new laws, raising questions not only about

argues that the flood of paper stemmed partly from the

representation but about value itself. This book is alert

desire to create political communities across the im-

to the anxieties engendered by the currency—­or wide

mense distances of a nation in crisis. Sojourner Truth’s

circulation—­of representations on paper: Could in-

self-­chosen name speaks to her impulse to travel and

scribed paper really function as a substitute for precious

to disseminate belief. Her astute deployment of every

metal? Could paper sustain its value? Who would profit

available technological opportunity attests both to her

from the exchange of newly issued federal bills? Could

shrewdness and to her modernity. She knew that me-

value be counterfeited? Was a photograph a shadow

chanically reproduced shadows offered substitutes for

capable of supporting substance? Who legally owned a

substance and also functioned as persuasive tokens of

photographic portrait—­the sitter or the photographer,

belief.

Introduction

21

1

Truth in Indiana 1861

When I was dressed I looked in the

Sojourner Truth “began dictating her autobiography to Olive Gilbert” in

glass and was fairly frightened. Said I,

1846, the year after the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass sold 4,500

“It seems I am going to battle.”

copies in less than six months.2 William Lloyd Garrison, editor of the Bos-

—sojourner truth 1

ton Liberator and president of the American Anti-­Slavery Society, had introduced Truth to his own printer, the progressive freethinker George Brown Yerrington. While the American Anti-­Slavery Society had published Douglass’s Narrative, Truth printed her book on credit. She was therefore officially the publisher of her book as well as its distributor and seller. The debt proved onerous, however, and she did not repay it until the 1850s. It is unclear whether this is why the printing plates remained in the hands of one of her printer’s colleagues, a spiritualist-­physician named James Boyle. Eventually, Boyle gave Truth the plates, thereby enabling her publication of later editions in the 1850s, 1870s, and 1880s.3 Historian Nell Irvin Painter has argued that Truth’s self-­publication was not extraordinary at a time when the publishing business was fluid, but Truth priced her books unusually cheaply, twenty-­five cents per softcovered copy. Her intention was to pay for her first home with the profits. 25

The earliest edition (1850) of Sojourner Truth’s Narrative featured an engraved portrait facing its title page and captioned simply SOJOURNER TRUTH (fig. 13a, b).4 The final edition (1884) included the same engraving but placed it midway in the book to precede the newly added section called the “Book of Life,” a compendium of press accounts, including Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Libyan Sibyl,” along with personal letters and autographs added to the Narrative by Frances Titus in the edition of 1875 (fig. 14). The revised caption of 1884, “A Picture taken in the days of her Physical Strength,” implied that the 1850 engraving was based on a photograph. While we cannot be certain, this is likely to be true. Truth’s later 1875 and 1884 title page portraits of her with knitting in hand were both based on photographs, and reliance on photographs for author portraits was commonplace. Frederick Douglass’s Narrative of 1845, inspiration for Truth’s own autobiography, had featured an engraving based on one of his many photographic portraits.5 Indeed, Douglass underscored the convention in his 1861 lecture on photography: “A man who now o’days pubfigure 13a. Portrait of Sojourner Truth; frontispiece for Narrative of Sojourner Truth (1850).

lishes a book, or peddles a patent medicine and does not

figure 13b. Title page for Narrative of Sojourner Truth (1850).

and get credit for simpler modesty. . . . The picture must

figure 14. Engraving of the Sojourner Truth portrait from the 1850 edition of Narrative of Sojourner Truth (fig. 13a), reprinted in the posthumous 1884 edition. The portrait was inserted before the “Book of Life” section of the book and featured a new caption: “A Picture taken in the days of her Physical Strength.” From the Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection, courtesy of the Indiana State Museum and the Allen County Public Library.

publish his face to the world with it may almost claim be in the book, or the book be considered incomplete.”6 The original 1850 photograph of Sojourner Truth, if it existed, was probably a daguerreotype, a singular image now lost to us. Like many daguerreotypes, this portrait moves in close and emphasizes the face. Truth’s body turns slightly to the right, but she directs her tilted head toward us. The subtle complexity of her pose imTruth in Indiana

27

bues Truth with a sense of mobility absent in so many early photographs. Wide-­eyed and unsmiling, she appears alert, active, self-­confident, and unconcerned with our approval; we might even interpret her bold expression as mildly challenging. How very different is the next portrait we have of her, made a decade later! The earliest extant photograph of Sojourner Truth is unique among her portraits—­indeed entirely unlike the portrait of 1850 and all the images that followed (session A, fig. 15). It is also the only photograph that we can tie to a specific historical event, a political event, moreover, that occurred at the outset of the Civil War. Although a carte de visite, not a daguerreotype, only one example of this photograph has been located thus far.7 Sojourner Truth stands as she was dressed before delivering a speech to a hostile pro-­slavery crowd in Angola, Indiana, at the very beginning of the Civil War. The date was June 1861. Although Indiana was pro-­Union in its allegiances and had a Republican governor, the Civil War precipitated violent riots on the part of pro-­slavery fanatics often called Copperheads, a nickname connotative of viper and metal as well as racial prejudice.8 Racism was especially rampant in Steuben County where Truth was to speak. She was particularly vulnerable because the state’s recent Black Laws forbade blacks

figure 15. Uncaptioned carte de visite of Sojourner Truth. Standing pose from session A. Likely Indiana, ca. 1861. Chicago History Museum.

28

Chapter One

and mulattos, presumably seeking freedom, to enter

to take a sword or pistol. I replied, “I carry no weapon;

the state.9

the Lord will reserve [preserve] me without weapons.

The simple directness of the 1850 engraved portrait contrasts with this 1861 photograph of a woman all but overwhelmed by clothing and accessories. We see Truth

I feel safe in the midst of my enemies; for the truth is powerful and will prevail.” When we were ready to go, they put me in a large,

standing. The chair, conventional sign of bourgeois re-

beautiful carriage with the captain and other gentle-

spectability, has been pushed to the side, like the pat-

men, all of whom were armed. The soldiers walked by

terned floor an apparent irrelevance to the image’s force.

our side, and a long procession followed. As we neared

Her body is again turned slightly to the right and her

the court-­house, looking out of the window I saw that

face is directed toward us, but the full-­length format

the building was surrounded by a great crowd. I felt

radically reduces her face in size, and her glasses ob-

as if I was going against the Philistines and I prayed

scure her piercing eyes. Most startling is the extent to

the Lord to reliver [deliver] me out of their hands. But

which her body is covered from head to toe by her the-

when the rebels saw such a mighty army coming, they

atrical, enveloping costume. She is blanketed by layers

fled, and by the time we arrived they were scattered

of cloth, a heavy, fringed shawl perhaps of wool, a light-­

over the fields, looking like a flock of frightened crows

colored polka-­dot apron, an expansive skirt, a white

and not a one was left but a small boy, who sat upon

(overexposed) scarf, and a reflective, deeply colored

the fence, crying “Nigger, nigger!”10

padded headdress, its pale, matte interior consisting of several layers. Truth is swaddled beneath her costume.

This image of a young child left alone to chant racial

The clothing was not of her own choice: she had

slurs while the cowardly “rebels” disperse like fright-

been dressed “in uniform” by “ladies.” In her Narrative,

ened crows implies a quick victory, but in fact Truth’s

Truth described preparations for the event:

speech was repeatedly interrupted by violent protestors. Her companion Josephine Griffing recounted that when

The ladies thought I should be dressed in uniform as

Truth declared that

well as the captain of the home guard, whose prisoner I was and who was to go with me to the meeting. So

she was armed (stretching out her long bony arm) to

they put upon me a red, white, and blue shawl, a sash

fight for the North, and if she was ten years younger—­

and apron to match, a cap on my head with a star in

(she is now seventy), she “would fly to the battle-­field,

front, and a star on each shoulder. When I was dressed

and nurse and cook for the Massachusetts troops,

I looked in the glass and was fairly frightened. Said I,

brave boys! and if it came to the pinch, put in a blow,

“It seems I am going to battle.” My friends advised me

now and then” . . . a mob of grocery law-­and-­order Truth in Indiana

29

rushed up stairs, and like a pack of hounds, with ears

herent volatility of the appearance of a black activist in

well rubbed, set upon this patriotic, noble woman,

Indiana.

and with insolent threats and yells choked her down.

Their conscious goal may have been merely to as-

A few men of the place, with better profession and

similate the elderly former slave into the official Union

blacker hearts, stood behind the curtain, and sharp-

troops, but Truth, refusing to bear arms, was less sol-

ened their filthy [taunts] with “Jeff. Davis,” “Black

dier than personification. She was, after all, wrapped in

Laws,” and bad whiskey. Threats of tar and feathers,

patriotic signs of the nation during the very first months

eggs, rails, shooting, and a general blowing up, were

of the Civil War. The ladies of Indiana may have been

heard at every corner.11

inspired by pictures of female personifications carrying flags such as The Spirit of 61 (fig. 16). Their strategy

30

After the speech, Truth’s friends bravely protected her;

anticipated numerous images showing slaves rescued

several were taken to court for illegally harboring a black

and protected by the nation’s flag; for instance, a carte

from out of state. As the danger increased, lady friends

de visite entitled Emancipation (and copyrighted 1863)

advised Truth to hide in the woods, but she refused, say-

depicts a white female personification of the nation

ing she would rather go to jail. Retreat into the coun-

holding an immense flag that wraps around two kneel-

tryside would have too closely repeated her history as a

ing slaves (fig. 17). The female slave’s mannered pose in

slave whose freedom was gained only through escape.

this engraving would be repeated in a carte de visite of

Truth’s earliest extant photographic portrait me-

a light-­skinned slave child rescued from New Orleans,

morializes her appearance that afternoon in Angola,

part of an extensive series intended, as the inscription

Indiana. Except for a few details such as the stars on

on its verso indicates, to raise funds “for the education

the cap and each shoulder, we see her in the patriotic,

of Colored People in the department of the Gulf now

vaguely military costume she describes. The masquer-

under the command of Major Gen. Banks.” Captioned

ade was apparently intended to protect her by enfolding

“‘oh! how i love the old flag.’ REBECCA, A Slave

her within the regiment of armed Union soldiers who

Girl from New Orleans,” the photograph shows Re-

served as her bodyguards, but Truth herself was “fright-

becca seated on the stripes of an immense flag, gazing

ened” by what she saw when she looked in the mirror

reverentially at the stars while crossing her arms over

after being dressed by the abolitionist supporters who

her chest (fig. 18). Pale, lovely, and neatly dressed, Re-

wished to shield her. The excesses of the costume sug-

becca was often photographed in order to shock North-

gest the extent to which abolitionists felt they had to

ern viewers with the specter of wrongful enslavement.

hide the black body in order to minimize its incendiary

(Even genteel white children are being enslaved in the

power. By so doing, they may have exacerbated the in-

south!)12

Chapter One

figure 16. Currier and Ives, The Spirit of 1861; lithograph, 1861. Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

figure 17. Carte de visite, Emancipation, ca. 1863. On the recto: “G.G. Fish, Pinx. Entered according to Act of Congress. In the year 1863, by Jon Sowle, in the clerk’s office of the District Court for the District of Massachusetts. emancipation. Published by John Sowle. 14 Summer St., Boston.” figure 18. Carte de visite. “‘oh! how i love the old flag.’ rebecca, A Slave Girl from New Orleans.” On the verso: Two-­cent revenue stamp; letter B handwritten in ink. The tax stamp dates the card between August 1, 1864, and August 1, 1866.

While Rebecca is an immaculately dressed actor in “‘oh! how i love the old flag,’” Truth appears burdened by the attributes that have been appended to her body. Encased by her accoutrements, she better resembles the New Orleans children in another carte de visite featuring the flag. “our protection” shows Rebecca and her younger counterparts, Rosa and Charley, wrapped (and awkwardly conjoined) by enormous stars and stripes (fig. 19). The photograph of Rebecca by herself had repeated the pictorial conventions of painting and prints: a figure responds in adoration to an emblem held high. “our protection,” by contrast, is organized as a portrait in which the three children face the photographer. Yet the enormous flag hiding their bodies makes the picture unsatisfactory as a portrait. We are unsure of their relative heights, for example. Are the girls seated, or is Charley indeed the tallest? And the extremely wrinkled flag retains its material specificity. As in so many photographs, the overabundance of physical detail works against metaphorical significance. The children are models doing the job that the photographer has required of them, and the flag itself is reduced to an awkward prop hauled out from a corner of the studio and draped over the obedient children. Obedience is a requirement of photographic studios and also of slavery. Herein lay the paradox for those using photography to condemn that institution. The carte

figure 19. Carte de visite. “our protection. rosa, charley, rebecca. Slave Children from New Orleans,” ca. 1864.

32

Chapter One

de visite commemorating Truth’s brave visit to Indi-

may have been masking the fact that sometime in the

ana shows a woman who has agreed to be dressed and

winter or spring of 1826, while she was a slave, she had

posed. Her textual account of the event also underscores

lost a portion of her right index finger in an accident

the tension between her agency and her capitulation to

that disfigured the others. The photograph’s failure to

others. She alternately describes herself as soldier and as

clarify what we see makes the inexplicable white mass

“prisoner” to those who protected her; as ready for battle

monstrous: what is this unrecognizable, irregular white

and as unwilling to bear weapons. She also emphasizes

thing that holds the weapon-­like cane? Viewers may feel

the extent to which she felt alienated by the role that had

intimidated by this black woman peering out from her

been foisted on her: she said that looking in a mirror, she

strange, enigmatic, and startling encasement.

was frightened by her own appearance. The photograph

Truth was aware that she could arouse fear—­her ap-

memorializes what it is like to see oneself as others have

pearance in patriotic masquerade had even “frightened”

made you appear. In 1862 one portrait sitter described

her. But when she spoke of the fear that she inspired in

how “heavy” was the “blow,” “the agony,” of first seeing

Indiana’s pro-­slavery Rebels, she emphasized not her

himself in a carte de visite. So often this is our response

costume but her blackness. According to Josephine

to photographs of ourselves, but in the case of Truth’s

Griffing, she told the Indiana mob, “You are afraid of

portrait, the alienation is exacerbated by the costume

my black face, because it is a looking-­glass in which

imposed on her by others.

you see yourselves,” to which Griffing added “as others

13

Why Truth agreed to make the photograph is

see you.” Truth announced, “It seems that it takes my

unclear—­perhaps the carte de visite is simply another

black face to bring out your black hearts; so it’s well I

manifestation of her activism and willingness to play

came.” Truth thus proposed that she functioned as a

her part in the political theater unleashed by her visit.

mirror in which Negrophobes saw themselves as black.

That theater entailed obedience but also tremendous

But she also argued that her appearance drew them out:

courage and assertiveness. In the photograph, she looks

looking upon her, the Rebels reveal their internal black-

uncomfortable and wary, perhaps frightened. Beneath

ness, here a signifier of hatred. Her statements ricochet

her glasses, we see the whites of her eyes; especially

between (black) surface and (black) interior—­Truth’s

her right eye, whose gleaming iris is directed to the far

black face functions as a mirror, and it also unmasks.

left and makes her appear startled. Yet the overall ef-

Her appearance incites racist behavior. Truth is imag-

fect of the image is aggressive. She does not bear arms,

ining herself as bait and catalyst—­given the menacing

but she holds a cane that stands between her body and

violence of the crowd, she was very brave. None of her

us. Her blurred, mysteriously warted right hand, per-

other cartes de visite would so aggressively challenge its

haps covered by a mitten, heightens the tension. She

viewers. Truth in Indiana

33

But in photographically memorializing her appear-

and others who remain unnamed; or victimized former

ance in Indiana, she took another risk: that of appearing

slaves such as Gordon; or liberated orphans such as Re-

merely ridiculous, a clownish figurehead that refuted

becca, Rosa, Charley, and Fannie Lawrence; or midgets

the claim that slaves deserved emancipation. The pho-

such as Tom Thumb, Charles Decker, and Maggie Mi-

tograph of Sojourner Truth as she appeared in Indi-

nott (figs. 21–­23).15

ana comes closest in her entire corpus to casting her

And according to the memoir of Annie Wittenmyer,

not merely as a curiosity but as a sideshow aberration

a pair of photographs, in all likelihood cartes de visite,

who appeared, moreover, uncomfortable with her as-

portrayed another pro-­Union female curiosity who,

signed role.

like Truth, had been dressed and photographed by la-

For good reason. When Sojourner Truth in her late

dies who wished to help her financially.16 This white

sixties decided to circulate photographs of herself, she

woman had cross-­dressed as a male soldier and served

hazarded being likened to “The Greatest Natural & Na-

for more than a year in a Union regiment. When she was

tional Curiosity in the World. Joice Heth” (fig. 20). Pur-

wounded, captured, and hospitalized by Confederates,

portedly 161 years old, Heth had been purchased by a

they attempted to humiliate her Northern regiment by

young P. T. Barnum in New York in 1835, eight years after

returning her with a note whose “substance” was: “As

the sale of slaves in New York had been declared illegal,

the Confederates do not use women in war, this woman,

nine years after Truth had escaped from her master in

wounded in battle, is returned to you.”17

that state.14 Barnum’s contract indicated that he bought

Upon her release from the hospital in Nashville, the

“possession of the person,” not just the right to exhibit

Union surgeon required that she wear women’s clothes:

her as “unquestionably the most astonishing and interesting curiosity in the World!” When Heth, a relic of

“She must have women’s clothes to put on.” We

slavery and purported nurse to the Father of Our Coun-

women from the North, by gift and by purchase,

try, died in 1836, Barnum charged the public fifty cents

provided the necessary outfit for a woman’s wardrobe.

to witness her autopsy. A thousand people came.

To raise some funds for her we had her photograph

The 1860s were not the 1830s, but persons were still figure 20. Advertisement, “The Greatest Natural & National Curiosity in the World. Joice Heth, Nurse to Gen. George Washington (the Father of our Country) will be seen at Barnum’s Hotel, Bridgeport,” 1835. Somers Historical Society, Somers, New York.

34

taken, first in the uniform of a private soldier, and

being displayed as curiosities. On Saturday, Septem-

then dressed as a woman. She sold them to soldiers

ber 27, 1862, the National Anti-­Slavery Standard published

and visitors for twenty-­five cents each, and raised

both the Emancipation Proclamation and an announce-

considerable money. I have the two I purchased, which

ment of a new attraction at Barnum’s Museum. And

I have treasured in my war album all these years. She

there were many circulating cartes de visite of “freaks,”

was stout and muscular, with heavy features, high

whether an amputee veteran named Benjamin Franklin

cheek bones, and her black abundant hair was cut very

Chapter One

figure 21a. Carte de visite of Benjamin Franklin, veteran amputee, ca. 1865. figure 21b. Verso: “BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, the unfortunate soldier, who lost all his limbs by freezing, while crossing the plains from Fort Wadsworth, Dakotah Territory Fort Ridgely, Minn. . . . He was out eight days and seven nights without food or fire, when found by two Indians was nearly starved to death. He is the only Soldier in the United States without hands and feet, and is trying to sell his Photographs for the benefit of his family. Price, 25 Cents. Bailey & Magraw Photographers. 174 Third Street St. Paul, Minn.”

figure 22. Untitled carte de visite of Gordon, ex-­slave, 1863. On the recto: “Brady Washington.” National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. Photograph: National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution / Art Resource, NY.

figure 23. Carte de visite of Fannie Virginia Casseopia Lawrence, ca. 1863. On the recto: “fannie virginia casseopia lawrence. A Redeemed slave child, 5 years of age. Redeemed in Virginia by Catherine S. Lawrence; baptized in Brooklyn, at Plymouth Church, by Henry Ward Beecher, May 1863. Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1863, by C. S. Lawrence, in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New York.” On the verso: “J. W. Black, 173 Washington St. Boston” and handwritten: “Sylvia B. D. Y. Ells.”

close. She was perhaps twenty-­six or twenty-­eight

to extract both pieces of information by promising not

years old, but when in her military rig looked like a

to make either public. Annie kept that promise, telling

beardless boy.18

her memoir’s readers only that she was from the Northwest. Our solitary example of Truth’s carte de visite as a

36

Much here resonates with the carte de visite of So-

personification in Indiana does not indicate her name,

journer Truth dressed by ladies and presumably pho-

but her identity was well known because of her public

tographed at their initiative. Striking, however, is the

rather than clandestine role as a pro-­Union advocate.

decision by the female soldier’s benefactors to make

And three years later, in 1864, she would add her name

two portraits of this sitter as both a woman and a man, a

and legal rights to all but a very few of her cartes de

civilian and a soldier, implying that neither would suf-

­visite.

fice. This sitter has not been personified but has been

Surely, Truth did not want her image to be confused

made into a freakishly convincing double. She surely

with photographs of curiosities such as these. We need

benefited from the increased revenues of the sale of the

to think about how she chose to differentiate herself

pair of photographs, costing fifty cents altogether. The

from them in her subsequent photographic portraits,

two pictures were bought by Annie and treasured in her

and also how she differentiated herself from the most

war album, but the woman herself remains unnamed:

famous and distorted portrait of her by Harriet Beecher

in fact, she long refused to share her birth name or even

Stowe in 1863, two years after her personification in

her place of origin, although Annie eventually managed

­Indiana.

Chapter One

2

Truth as Libyan Sibyl

When I recall the events of her life, as

Sojourner Truth and Harriet Beecher Stowe relied on each other to sell their

she narrated them to me, I imagine her

work, to enhance their fame, and to make their brief encounter in 1853 into

as a living, breathing impersonation

mechanically reproducible products from which they both would profit for

of that work of art. —harriet beecher stowe, “Libyan Sibyl,” National Anti-­Slavery Standard, March 28 1863; Atlantic Monthly, April 1863

years to come. Although both women were gifted oral storytellers, they relied on the sale of published work to earn a living. Both supported themselves as authors as well as speakers. Both appreciated the crucial role played by the press in enhancing their fame and advertising their work. And both had a beloved family member, a grandson and a son respectively, who volunteered to fight during the Civil War and returned home permanently damaged.1 Significantly, it was Truth, not Stowe, who initiated their commercial relationship. In 1853, just a year after the serial publication of Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin between 1851 and 1852 and the record-­breaking sale of three hundred thousand copies of the book in 1852, Truth traveled to Stowe’s home in Andover, Massachusetts, to obtain a “puff ”—­or promotion—­for the second edition of her Narrative.2 She was asking a newly famous author of an immensely popular novel about slavery to promote her own life story as a slave. In the years leading up to the Civil War, both women were writing about 37

slavery. Both were denouncing slavery and also capital-

turning Truth into a symbol of Africa. As in Indiana, a

izing on it.

white woman was turning Truth into personification.

3

In this relationship, Stowe, the writer of fiction,

But the name “Libyan Sibyl” was not Stowe’s inven-

assumed it was her job to adjudicate truth. Her state-

tion: it derived from a statue made by a Boston sculp-

ment about Sojourner Truth’s Narrative begins, “The

tor residing in Rome. According to Stowe, William

following narrative may be relied on as in all respects

Wetmore Story’s Libyan Sibyl had been inspired by her

true & faithful.” She was, of course, entirely unquali-

verbal descriptions of Sojourner Truth long before she

fied to make such a claim about her new acquaintance’s

wrote her essay (Story never corroborated this) (fig. 24).

autobiography. She had not been witness to Truth’s life.

Stowe’s essay of 1863 was, therefore, hastily assembled

Indeed she had met her only after the Narrative had been

out of two separate occasions: her visits with Story in

published: how could she know if it was “in all respects

Rome in the mid-­to late 1850s and her brief encounter

true”? Stowe’s statement rested on her decision to be-

with Sojourner Truth in Andover in 1853. Her essay’s

lieve, or to say that she believed, the woman who visited

final pages leave Truth behind, and instead promote

her in Andover. She authorized Truth’s life story after

Story’s sculptures Cleopatra and Libyan Sibyl, shown in

briefly meeting her. By doing so, she claimed to be an

1862 at the International Exhibition in London. Stowe

authority on her life.

concludes her essay by calling for their acquisition and

4

Ten years later, in the midst of the Civil War, pressed for money and regularly writing articles for the Atlan-

This relay from black former slave to white female

tic Monthly, Stowe decided to turn authority on Truth’s

author to white male sculptor to white marble statue

life into authorship about it. Appearing in both the

and back to white female author to textual portrait of

National Anti-­Slavery Standard and the Atlantic Monthly

black former slave is worthy of reconstruction. What

in the spring of 1863, her essay “Sojourner Truth, the

began as a conversation between Truth and Stowe in

Libyan Sibyl” introduced Sojourner Truth to a wider

Andover, Massachusetts, led to Stowe’s performance of

public and earned Stowe two hundred dollars. In 1863

that conversation, to Story’s making of a plaster statue

Stowe purported to narrate details, even conversations,

supposedly inspired by that conversation in Rome, to

from Truth’s visit ten years earlier. As the title betrays,

the exhibition of a marble sculpture in London, to re-

Stowe’s essay is peculiar, combining quotidian descrip-

views of the sculpture in the American press, including

tion and grandiose myth-­making: woman and sibyl.

the National Anti-­Slavery Standard, to the publication

While Stowe foregrounds her firsthand knowledge of

of Stowe’s essay on Truth in that newspaper and in the

the woman Truth—­describing her body, her speech, her

Atlantic Monthly. Stowe’s article purportedly recreated

mannerisms—­she repeatedly resorts to personification,

her conversation with Truth in 1853, but in 1863 she was

5

38

display in Washington, DC.

Chapter Two

in one of the loftiest and most original works of modern art, the Libyan Sibyl, by Mr. Story, which attracted so much attention in the late World’s Exhibition.6

The woman was dead, receding with the tide, but her memory “lives” in the statue made by a man who had never met her: Some years ago, when visiting Rome, I related Sojourner’s history to Mr. Story at a breakfast at his house. Already had his mind begun to turn to Egypt in search of a type of art which should represent a larger and more vigorous development of nature than the cold elegance of Greek lines. . . . The history of Sojourner Truth worked in his mind and led him into the deeper recesses of the African nature,—­those unfigure 24. Charles Wetmore Story, Libyan Sibyl, 1860; this version 1861. Marble. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of Erving Wolf Foundation, in memory of Diane R. Wolf, 1979, accession no. 1979.266.

explored depths of being and feeling, mighty and dark as the gigantic depths of tropical forests, mysterious as the hidden rivers and mines of that burning continent whose life-­history is yet to be. A few days after, he told me that he had conceived the idea of a statue which he should call the Libyan Sibyl.7

promoting the inanimate artwork that had inspired her to write the essay and to name it “Libyan Sibyl.”

Moving from Sojourner Truth’s biography to fabulist ge-

Stowe’s essay was therefore predicated on a sculp-

ography, Stowe claims that her recounting in Rome led

ture and was intended to endorse it. Moreover, she as-

the Boston Brahmin to access the “unexplored depths”

sumed that the black woman, whom she had met and

of the African nature. Her presentation of Truth’s life

supported ten years earlier, had died:

becomes the conduit not merely to a woman but to a “mighty and dark,” “burning,” and “mysterious” conti-

But though Sojourner Truth has passed away from

nent, a landscape of forests, rivers, and mines, in short

among us as a wave of the sea, her memory still lives

a colonial phantasm. The living woman activist is proTruth as Libyan Sibyl

39

claimed to be dead, and textual and sculpted substi-

still gave the impression of a physical development

tutes are offered in her place. Sojourner Truth becomes

which in early youth must have been as fine a speci-

­Africa.

men of the torrid zone as Cumberworth’s celebrated

And Story asks Stowe to repeat her narration of Truth’s life when she returns to Rome:

statuette of the Negro Woman at the Fountain. Indeed, she so strongly reminded me of that figure, that when I recall the events of her life, as she narrated them to

Two years subsequently, I revisited Rome, and found

me, I imagine her as a living, breathing impersonation

the gorgeous Cleopatra finished, a thing to marvel at,

of that work of art.9

as the creation of a new style of beauty, a new manner of art. Mr. Story requested me to come and repeat to

Truth was “as fine a specimen of the torrid zone

him the history of Sojourner Truth, saying that the

as Cumberworth’s celebrated statuette”! Indeed, that

conception had never left him. I did so; and a day or

statue had replaced the body of Truth herself in Stowe’s

two after, he showed me the clay model of the Libyan

memory; she recalled the narrated events of her life as

Sibyl. I have never seen the marble statue; but am told

those of “a living, breathing impersonation of that work

by those who have, that it was by far the most impres-

of art.” The substitution was material, bronze for flesh,

sive work of art at the Exhibition.8

and also rhetorical, fiction for biography. Charles Cumberworth’s bronze statue was called Marie after the fe-

Stowe’s portrait of Truth in 1863, written ten years af-

male slave in Bernadin de Saint-­Pierre’s Paul et Virginie,

ter their single meeting, was mediated by an inanimate

an eighteenth-­century sentimental novel whose success

statue, the final version of which she never saw. But as the

in its era rivaled that of Uncle Tom’s Cabin (fig. 25).10

title of her essay underscores, she was claiming a privileged relationship to both the woman and the statue.

But against this petrification of marble and bronze erupts dialogue. Stowe’s essay pits picturesque speech

Even before she discussed Story’s work, Stowe had

against its myth-­making purple prose. When Stowe

introduced Truth as a sculpture. At the essay’s very

wrote that she “related Sojourner’s history to Mr. Story

opening, she admitted that she recalled the woman

at a breakfast at his house,” she downplayed how she had

Truth “as a living, breathing impersonation of [a] work

narrated “Sojourner’s history.” In fact Stowe repeatedly

of art”:

offered her friends a performance. A friend, the Englishman, J. C. Derby, recalled:

When I went into the room, a tall spare form arose to

40

meet me. She was evidently a full-­blooded African,

Mrs. Stowe’s conversation about negro people when

and though now aged and worn with many hardships,

she is in a narrative mood are equal to anything in

Chapter Two

When she was in Rome she related it to Mrs. Browning and the sculptor Story, at the house of the former. They were so struck with it, that parties were afterwards formed there to hear her give narrative accounts of some of these negro characters. I have sometimes thought she narrated better than she wrote.11

Stowe disapproved of theater—­she disliked theatrical adaptations of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, although she dramatized the novel for African American orator Mary E. Webb—­but she was herself a lively oral performer.12 Indeed many, like her friend Derby, believed that she was a more talented raconteur than writer; her published fiction, literary scholars have emphasized, stemmed from storytelling in the domestic spaces of the parlor.13 Imagine Stowe, “an inimitable story-­teller and a great mimic,” repeatedly performing Truth in a Roman apartment to a circle including William Story, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Elizabeth Gaskell, and Nathaniel figure 25. Charles Cumberworth, Marie at the Fountain, sculpture from the Salon of 1846. Bronze. Musée du Louvre, Paris. Photograph: Thierry Le Mage / © RMN-­Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY.

Hawthorne.14 According to one scholar, “Story was so impressed by the way she imitated Sojourner Truth’s ‘ringing barytone’ that he always wanted her to do it for his friends.”15 Historian Margaret Washington has declared that “Stowe’s ‘Libyan Sibyl’ was not only fiction; it was So-

Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Sojourner Truth once gave Mrs.

journer Truth in blackface.”16 But the blackface perfor-

Stowe an account of her life. It is a most extraordinary

mance began as Stowe’s own. The published dialogue of

narrative of events which never could have occurred

1863 purportedly stemmed from Stowe’s meeting with

anywhere except among these American negroes.

Truth a decade earlier, but Stowe had more recently per-

Mrs. Stowe’s recital of this story is very touching.

formed that dialogue in the mid-­and late 1850s in Rome. Truth as Libyan Sibyl

41

In 1863 she was citing her own performance. In her essay,

have misunderstood me, but you will find my book a correct

she begins:

history. I related a story to her and she has put it on me, for I never make use of the word honey. I have sold my books

“So, this is you,” she said.

for twenty-­five cents apiece. I will send you six copies

“Yes,” I answered.

today, and I am much obliged to you. You will find them

“Well, honey, de Lord bless ye! I jes’ thought I’d like

correct, they are Sojourner herself.

to come an’ have a look at ye. You’s heerd o’ me, I reckon?” she asked. “Yes, I think I have. You go about lecturing, do you not?” “Yes, honey, that’s what I do. The Lord has made me a

Isaac Post’s wife from Rochester, has sent for two dozen of my photographs, and now that I cannot do anything, I am living on my shadow. I used to travel and sell my books, but now I am not able to do that, I send whatever is requested of me. If you can dispose of any

sign unto this nation, an’ I go round-­a-­testifyin’,

for me I would be very much obliged to you. I will put

an showin’ on ’em their sins agin my people.”17

no price on them, let them give whatever they choose to. Please let me know if you received my books.18

Truth was not dead in 1863 (she lived for two more decades). Nor did she recognize her own speech in

Truth’s letter casts her book and her shadow as “cor-

Stowe’s dialogue. Characteristically, she immediately

rect.” Stowe, by contrast, had misunderstood the story

published a refutation in the press. Unable to read or

that Sojourner had related to her and “put” that misun-

write, Truth nonetheless repudiated the best-­selling

derstanding “on me.” Truth is careful to correct Stowe’s

author in print within three months of the publication

repeated, histrionic identification of herself with Af-

of the essay. Truth’s letter appeared in a Boston newspa-

rica. Stowe was mistaken; she said Truth came from Af-

per, the Commonwealth, on July 3, 1863:

rica when only her grandmother and mother-­in-­law did. Associating Truth with an African origin was in-

42

Mr. Redpath—­Dear Sir: I received your note of

correct, but so too were the specific words Stowe put in

June 10th, and am happy to say that I can serve you.

her mouth: “I never make use of the word honey.” While

I am not personal acquainted with you, but I know

Truth said she never used the word, we know that Stowe

you from reputation. You are a friend who stands for

often did. In Uncle Tom’s Cabin, for instance, she had put

liberty. The history which Mrs. Stowe wrote about me,

the term of endearment in the mouth of Tom’s wife, the

is not quite correct. There is one place where she speaks

slave cook Aunt Chloe: “Here you, Mose and Pete! get

of me as coming from Africa. My grandmother and my

out de way, you niggers! Get away, Mericky, honey,—­

husband’s mother came from Africa, but I did not; she must

mammy’ll give her baby some fin, by and by.”19 And

Chapter Two

Stowe consistently created distance between the way the narrator and the slave characters speak: “‘So you di—­so you did, honey,’ said Aunt Chloe, heaping the smoking batter-­cakes on his plate.”20 Surely, Stowe had ventriloquized her own dialogue from Uncle Tom’s Cabin in her performances in Rome. And she was rehearsing them yet again in her essay of 1863. Truth was accustomed to writers’ reliance on southern dialect to describe her unusual Dutch-­accented speech, and while some scholars argue that she was resigned to this misrepresentation, there is also evidence that she resented it. In her third and only extant scrapbook, she kept a clipping from the Kalamazoo (Michigan) Telegraph: Sojourner also prides herself on a fairly correct English, which is in all senses a foreign language to her, she having spent her early years among people speaking “Low Dutch.” People who report her often exaggerate her expressions, putting into her mouth the most marked southern dialect, which Sojourner feels is rather taking an unfair advantage of her.21

In her 1863 letter in the Commonwealth, Truth was con-

Life” and labeling the engraved frontispiece portrait of

testing the accuracy of both parts of the title of Stowe’s

herself “Libyan Sibyl” (fig. 26), she also expressed utter

essay: “Sojourner Truth. Libyan Sibyl.” Neither the spe-

boredom with that “old symbol.” According to a pub-

cific description nor the personification was accurate.

lished letter, “She would never listen to Mrs. Stowe’s

Stowe had misunderstood what she had said and “put

‘Libyan Sibyl.’ ‘Oh!’ she would say, ‘I don’t want to hear

it on” her. Truth knew that Stowe had created a symbol,

about that old symbol; read me something that is going

and while she incorporated the famous author’s elab-

on now, something about this great war.’”22

orate “puff ” into later editions of her Narrative, even

The war. 1863. The year of the publication of “So-

including the entire essay in the appended “Book of

journer Truth: Libyan Sibyl” was the year of the EmanciTruth as Libyan Sibyl

figure 26. “Sojourner Truth. ‘Libyan Sibyl.’” Based on a carte de visite; see figure 7a. Frontispiece for Narrative of Sojourner Truth (1875).

43

pation Proclamation and the battle at Gettysburg. Stowe

changes produced by the Civil War. She was an avid con-

was fabricating timeless symbols of Africa in the midst

sumer of newspapers and a dedicated follower of current

of epic historical events in the United States. One would

events; she wanted to know what was in newspapers,

hardly know this reading her essay or contemplating the

not in parlor fabrications, no matter how strategically

longue durée of Story’s unmoving marble sculptures.

useful they might be in “puffing” her public reputation.

Truth, by contrast, had chosen to name herself a traveler, a moving agent, a teller of truths, and thus like a sibyl—­but a sibyl who kept apace with the enormous

44

Chapter Two

Immediately, Truth began making photographs as one response to Stowe’s myth-­making.

3

Truth in Michigan 1863

Now that I cannot do anything, I am

When Truth refuted Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Libyan Sibyl” in her June 17,

living on my shadow.

1863, letter to the Commonwealth, she directed readers to her own book, six

—sojourner truth, letter to Mr.

copies of which she had mailed with her letter: “You will find them correct,

Redpath, June 17 1863; published in the

they are Sojourner herself.” The very next line introduced her cartes de vis-

Boston Commonwealth, July 3, 18631

ite, made only one month earlier as an alternative to Stowe’s article and Story’s sculpture. Thus, her first mention of photography in the press was part and parcel of her explicit repudiation of Stowe’s fictitious portrait. Her photographs, she implies, are like her book, a “correct” alternative to Stowe’s misrepresentation, that story “put on” her, for she “never” uses “the word honey.” After informing readers that she sells her own “correct” books for twenty-­five cents, she continues: “Isaac Post’s wife from Rochester, has sent for two dozen of my photographs, and now that I cannot do anything, I am living on my shadow.”2 The statement is unclear, but correspondence clarifies that Amy Post had agreed to pay for the making of Truth’s photographs. Truth was also indebted to another woman friend, Frances Titus, for helping her get the photographs made. No small feat, it turns out.

45

Stowe’s “Libyan Sibyl” had pronounced Truth’s

in better health & is being made more comfortable than

death. When the essay appeared in the spring of 1863,

she was in the winter. She has now received her $10,

Truth was, in fact, gravely ill. The National Anti-­Slavery

smaller donations have come from various places. She

Standard printed Stowe’s essay on March 28 in advance of

expressed great thankfulness for the money you sent.

its appearance in the April issue of the Atlantic Monthly,

She spoke in very affectionate terms of Amy Post.”4

and also published a correction: “She is living at ­Battle

Amy came through, not least in paying for Truth’s

Creek, Michigan, and though unable, from age and in-

first photographs explicitly made to support her when

firmity, to ‘go round a testifyin’ and showin’ the people

she could not travel and sell her books. In the same let-

their sins,’ is as deeply interested as ever in all that con-

ter to her sister, heretofore unpublished, Frances Titus

cerns the welfare of the oppressed.” A week later, on

offers a glimpse of the challenges of obtaining a photo-

April 4, the same paper published a letter announcing

graphic portrait:

Truth was at death’s door: It rained all the first week after your letter came & it Since printing Mrs. Stowe’s sketch of this remark-

was such a dark week that Sojourner could not have

able woman, we have received . . . a letter from Mrs.

her likeness taken & the next week we were obliged to

Phebe Stickney, of Battle Creek, Mich., to Joseph A.

wait till seventh day morning the Artist was so busy &

Dugdale, of Mount Pleasant, Iowa, from which we

now another week has elapsed without my being able

copy as follows: “At the request of our dear friend,

to send them. I have had Company & been so busy I

Sojourner Truth, I write to thee and thine to solicit

could not go for them . . . Monday morn. Sojourner

a little assistance for her. She is, this Winter, quite

has been here this morning. She is quite well & very

feeble, not able, by selling her book, to support herself

enthusiastic on the war question. It would do you all

with the many little comforts that an aged and feeble

good to be with her.5

person needs. . . . She says if thee would only get a few friends to put a little together for her, she would ever

In 1863, bad weather meant you could not have your pho-

remember it in this world, and return a hundred fold

tograph taken for lack of light. Inevitably, the photog-

in the next. I write this with Sojourner at my side, and

rapher was doubly busy the following week. And then

at her request. She is very poorly, and probably won’t

you had to wait until the “Artist” could print the cartes

live long.3

de visite and someone had the time to pick them up. Day-­to-­day circumstances could significantly delay the

46

Truth’s friends rallied to help her. A month later, her

material realization of what had been a relatively brief

friend Frances Titus could tell her sister Esther: “She is

procedure of sitting before the camera. Two months

Chapter Three

later, Frances was still negotiating with the photogra-

that leaves nothing to be desired. In the face, “black

pher, asking her sister, Esther, in Rochester, New York,

but comely,” what majesty, what intelligence, what

to “write to Amy Post & ask her to please send the money

inspiration! It is a subject worthy of a Vandyke or a

to pay for Sojourner’s pictures, $2.50. The man wants his

Raphael.8

money.”6 From this we learn that the Battle Creek photographer had released the pictures before being paid.

Explicit here is the extent to which the aggrandizement

Whether Post paid for the entire session or simply for

of the sitter and the portrait is interdependent: Truth

two dozen for herself remains unclear. If the latter, each

is a “noble woman”; her face is characterized by “maj-

photograph cost ten cents.

esty” as well as “intelligence.” Such a sitter deserves a

A few weeks earlier, on June 25, 1863, Truth had sent

portrait by great painters, but the “card photograph”

a letter to Gerrit Smith, written as always by a friend.

is nonetheless remarkable, a “speaking likeness” “that

It closed: “Please accept she says her shadow. . . . If any

leaves nothing to be desired.” While painted portraits

desire her picture for albums she’d like to send these

are usually identified with their creators—­“a Vandyke”

for 50 cts.” Fifty cents was steep, especially given that

or “a Raphael,” the editor here entirely eclipses the pho-

she sometimes sold her Narrative for twenty-­five. Ini-

tographer: the carte de visite is made by the genial and

tially, she had not named a price; later she would sell her

accurate “sun-­god.” The portrait is the product of an en-

cartes de visite for less, for instance, three for a dollar

counter between a noble woman and a deified medium.

or thirty-­five cents each. Significantly, Truth imagined

Despite the use of the word artist by Titus and also by

that her photograph would be bought and placed within

Truth in a letter the following year, this writer, like so

albums, a point to which I will return.

many others, would rather celebrate a picture made

7

Another letter also written by a friend, listing the

by sunlight. These early cartes de visite made in Battle

price as fifty cents, was sent to the National Anti-­Slavery

Creek bear no photographer’s imprint, and no mention

Standard on the same day. On July 4, 1863, the paper pro-

is made of photographers’ names in letters. The very

moted the photographs by introducing and publishing

anonymity of a provincial photographer may have made

the letter from Battle Creek. This unsigned article begins

it easier to credit the sun.

unusually by elevating both sitter and photograph in inflated language:

This journalist’s hyperbole about artfulness abruptly shifts to the mundane: the photograph had arrived at the Standard in a letter written by one of Truth’s “lady”

A card photograph of that noble woman, Sojourner

amanuenses, reproduced in its entirety. In contrast

Truth, lies before us. It is a speaking likeness. The

to the editor’s emphases on majesty and nobility, the

sun-­god has done his congenial work with a fidelity

friend’s letter defines Truth as the grateful recipient of Truth in Michigan

47

donations.9 Yet the quotidian also restores her to politics

between war and her heart, suggests the warm and liv-

and the heroism of a war fought to end slavery:

ing presence on which it depends. The letter inserts the “shadow” in the midst of war and closes with another

Her faith is strong that God’s hand is in this war, and

beating heart born from the daughter she had borne: her

that it will end in the destruction of slavery, which day

grandson would fight to end slavery as she could not.

she hopes to live to see. The enlisting of the colored

When James Caldwell enlisted, as did two of Frederick

people she considers the most hopeful feature of the

Douglass’s sons, he eagerly exclaimed, “Now is our time

war. She says she can only send you her shadow, while her

Grandmother to prove that we are men.”11 Not slaves.

heart beats warm for yourself and the dear friends who

Not shadows.

cared for her wants. You helped to cure her in sickness,

Again and again, Truth announced her grandson’s

and now every day, her heart is cheered as she thinks

enlistment. In an earlier letter to the National Anti-­

of you all. The remembrance is most delightful to her.

Slavery Standard, dated June 27, 1863, she also used the

Her grandson, James Colwell [sic], has enlisted in the

opportunity to name her grandson, hoping that some-

54th Massachusetts. We are sure that many of our read-

one could give her news: “She wishes you to print the

ers will thank us for informing them that Sojourner

name of her grandson, James Culvin [sic] of the 54th,

will send her photograph by mail to any one who

thinking that some one may go and see him.” Her search

will write her enclosing 50 cents and a 3 cent stamp.

was likely thwarted by the continual misspelling of

Letters to be directed to Battle Creek, Michigan.10

James’s surname by her different scribes, likely because she herself did not know how to spell it. As in Indiana,

Fascinating here is the way Truth’s photographs are

she also repeatedly declared her own desire to fight in

sandwiched between references to the war “that . . . will

the war. In mid-­April 1863, before she had taken her pho-

end in the destruction of slavery” and her grandson’s en-

tographs in Battle Creek, Truth had sent yet another let-

listment in the famous Fifty-­Fourth Massachusetts Reg-

ter, written by her friend Phebe Stickney, to the National

iment, the first all-­black voluntary infantry. “The enlist-

Anti-­Slavery Standard:

ing of the colored people” is “the most hopeful feature

48

of the war,” but she “can only send you her shadow.” Her

She wishes the friends to know that the “little curly-­

shadow thus serves as a loving thank-­you to those who

headed jolly grandson,” whom Mrs. Stowe so graphi-

“cure[d] her in sickness,” but also as substitutes for both

cally describes, is now grown to a tall, able-­bodied lad,

her beating heart and enlistment. And while the word

and has just enlisted in the 54th Massachusetts Regiment;

shadow can suggest that photographs are meager rec­

gone forth with her prayers and blessings, she says,

ords of those who are gone, here her “shadow,” wedged

“to redeem de white people from de curse dat God has

Chapter Three

sent upon them.” . . . [S]he seems at times to be filled with all the fire and enthusiasm of her former years. She says if she were only ten years younger, she would be “on hand as the Joan of Arc to lead de army of de Lord; for now is de day and now de hour for de colored man to save dis nation.” 12

Either Truth or Stickney had misremembered Stowe’s description: the novelist had described James not as a “curly-­headed jolly grandson” but as “the fattest, jolliest wooly-­headed little specimen of Africa that one can imagine. He was grinning and showing his glistening white teeth in a state of perpetual merriment.”13 Stowe is, of course, unoriginal in her portrayal. The racial stereotype of the unthreatening Sambo, with wide-­open eyes and shining white teeth, had long been applied to male slaves, but during the Civil War it was also used

figure 27. Carte de visite of Thomas Nast’s “The ‘Colored’ Volunteer,” ca. 1863. On the recto: “Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1863, by thomas nast, in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United State for the Southern District of New York.”

to denigrate contrabands—­escaped slaves—­as well as black soldiers.14 Copyrighted in 1863, the year of Truth’s letter, a carte de visite by Thomas Nast features a drawing of one such beaming, wide-­eyed boy marching with a broom (fig. 27). Captioned “The ‘Colored Volunteer,’” the picture mocks and emasculates the black men who fought and died to end slavery. Against that image, Truth describes her grandson as “a tall, able-­bodied lad”

portraits made counterarguments. Whether ambro-

determined to redeem white people from God’s curse

types or tintypes or cartes de visite, whether beautifully

and to save the nation, and she portrays herself as an old

framed in gleaming brass and leather and gutta-­percha

woman who wishes she could be Joan of Arc leading the

cases or merely humble sheets of iron or paper glued to

colored troops.

cardboard, whether made by skillful professionals or

And against Nast’s denigrating picture she uses pho-

hastily contrived by itinerant amateurs, whether set be-

tography, as did so many black soldiers. Photographic

fore blank canvas hung outdoors or inside studios with Truth in Michigan

49

figure 28. Ninth-­plate tintype portrait of an unidentified young African American soldier in Union uniform with forage cap, 1863–­65. Library of Congress, Washington, DC. figure 29. Sixth-­plate tintype portrait of an unidentified African American soldier in Union uniform and gloves with musket; another soldier waits off to the side, 1863–­65. Library of Congress, Washington, DC. figure 30. Carte de visite of “John Sharper,” ca. 1863.

50

lavish backdrops, Civil War photographs show us alert

fig. 112a). So too, although more rarely, did families, as

and serious black men, even boys, who were determined

in an especially poignant portrait of one of the war’s

to fix their portraits as soldiers willing to lose their lives

earliest black soldiers with his wife and two daughters

to win the war against slavery (figs. 28–­30).

(fig. 32). The embossed gilt borders framing tintypes,

During the Civil War, African American women

ambrotypes, and daguerreotypes declared a social sta-

and girls also had their likenesses taken (fig. 31; see also

tus sometimes exceeding that of the sitters. When, for

Chapter Three

example, the frame is removed from this family por-

worthy of ornamental enclosure. They also made pos-

trait, the transaction of sitting for a photograph is laid

sible the acquisition of precious gold jewelry applied

bare (fig. 33). Revealed are the edge of an improvised

as strokes of paint. Glistening paint ornamented sit-

studio’s backdrop and corner; this larger empty space

ters with sparkling accessories: gold rings, necklaces,

makes the tense sitters appear smaller and more vul-

buttons, military belt buckles. Portraits could socially

nerable. The gilt frame excises details such as the girls’

­elevate.

boldly patterned skirts; it produces a more commanding

But women and children could not be visibly identi-

and intimate unit, but it also crops the wonderful way

fied with the cause of the Civil War as simply as soldiers

the father’s large hand holds the younger daughter at

could. To wear a military uniform between 1861 and 1865

her waist as if protecting her from a larger world sig-

was publicly to enter history. In Indiana at the outset of

naled by the more extensive space of the studio.

the war, Truth had agreed to wear a costume denoting

Tintype and ambrotype portraits framed persons as

patriotism; experimenting with personification, she Truth in Michigan

figure 31. Ninth-­plate tintype portrait of an unidentified African American woman with gold jewelry (three rings, pendant necklace, earrings) that was painted onto the image, ca. 1865. figure 32. Framed ambrotype portrait of an African American family, ca. 1863. In May 1863, US secretary of war Edwin Stanton issued General Order no. 143, creating the Bureau of U.S. Colored Troops. This image was found in Cecil County, Maryland, making it likely that this soldier belonged to one of the seven U.S.C.T. regiments raised in Maryland. Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

51

figure 33. Unframed version of figure 32.

52

gravely faced the camera in vaguely martial garb. Two

son James Caldwell by displaying his framed photo-

years later, in 1863, the year bracketed by the Emanci-

graph on her lap (session B, figs. 34–­37).15

pation Proclamation and the Gettysburg Address, she

In yet another letter to the National Anti-­Slavery

made her grandson’s service in a Colored Regiment the

Standard, published on September 12, 1863, Truth an-

subject of what may have been her first extensive pho-

nounced his uncertain fate as well as her decision to in-

tographic series. Taken in Battle Creek with the help of

clude his portrait in her own photographs, now on sale

Frances Titus, these portraits memorialized her grand-

for twenty-­five cents:

Chapter Three

figure 34. Uncaptioned carte de visite of Sojourner Truth, 1863. Seated pose from session B. Tennessee State Library and Archive (another copy is held by the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, MA). Blank verso. Cartes de visite such as this one, where the photographs are mounted on thin white cards with square corners, date between 1858 and 1866 and rarely later. Photograph courtesy of the American Antiquarian Society. figure 35. Uncaptioned carte de visite of Sojourner Truth, 1863. Seated pose from session B. Blank verso.

figure 36. Uncaptioned carte de visite of Sojourner Truth, 1863. Seated pose from session B. Blank verso. Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington, DC; recent auction purchase. figure 37. Uncaptioned carte de visite of Sojourner Truth, 1863. Seated pose from session B. Blank verso. Photograph courtesy of the Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library.

Says the Commonwealth: “Sojourner Truth writes to

ial bond (the position of his picture connotes that he

Mr. Redpath that her grandson, James Calvin [sic], is a

comes from her loins) and also a sacrifice by grandson

member of the Fifty-­Fourth regiment and was taken

and grandmother on behalf of the nation. The photo-

prisoner at Fort Wagner. ‘I had much rather,’ she says,

graph within a photograph functions as a testimonial, a

‘he had been killed, than to have him in the hands of

memento mori, perhaps a safeguard—­a grandmother’s

the rebels. I had his picture lying in my lap when I had

effort to protect and keep present the absent grandson

mine taken. I will enclose one of mine in this.’ The

whose fate was unknown. In fact James was alive, but

photograph likeness of herself in this letter is very

had been captured during the regiment’s first skirmish

good, and will be acceptable to her many friends.

July 16, 1863, on James Island, South Carolina (not Fort

Copies can be obtained both of this and her book

Magruder, Virginia, as Truth mistakenly believed).18

(from which we have made copious extracts) by writ-

Knowing of his capture would not have alleviated

ing to her at Battle Creek, Michigan. The price of the

her worry, as Confederate troops sometimes killed and

pictures is twenty-­five, of the book thirty-­five cents.

often badly mistreated black prisoners. As Truth her-

We wish Mr. Redpath might issue a new edition of

self said, she would have preferred for her grandson to

the book including Mrs. Stowe’s and Mrs. Gage’s

have “been killed, than to have him in the hands of the

sketches of the old Sibyl.”16

rebels.” Truth’s impulse may initially have been personal,

A few months later, Truth notified her friend Mary

but her subsequent staging was typically public: she

Gale of the same news in a personal letter: “Poor dear

used her fame, the press, and the medium of photogra-

boy! He fought bravely at Fort Magruder but was not

phy to pay public homage to her grandson’s decision. If

found among the killed or wounded, he must have been

she could not go to war, the young man born of her flesh

taken prisoner or drowned—­I can only trust him in the

could. And she would proudly communicate her grand-

hands of the good God.” Here in a private missive, Truth

son’s bravery to those who read about her carte de visite

exactly repeated her recourse to photography in face of

as well as those who saw it. Truth was already tying pho-

loss: “I had his picture lying in my lap when I had mine taken.

tographs to the press and public pronouncement. And

I will enclose one of mine in this.”

she was relying on relatively modern creations: photog-

17

54

In Truth’s carte de visite, we see neither the ­giggling

raphy, paper currency, the press, and the postal service.

“African cherub” described by Stowe, nor do we see

She was exploiting the postal reforms that had made the

James himself. Instead, we see a diminutive framed

inclusion of photographs in letters all but free, and she

portrait with the slightest suggestion of a dark face in

relied on the publicity provided by the press, asking ed-

an oval setting. The double portrait inscribes a famil-

itors to publish letters indicating where and how to buy

Chapter Three

her photographs, sometimes stipulating that friends should “not forget to enclose a stamp for postage.”19 There are at least four different cartes de visite in which Truth displays her grandson’s framed portrait lying open in her lap. In all four, Truth wears a dark polka-­dot skirt, and behind her we see the same tall, multibanded baseboard. In two pictures, she is seated directly facing the viewer, her right arm held akimbo, her legs outspread beneath her skirt and dark apron so that they fill the lower half of the picture. She rests her left arm on a table at right. In another, she faces left, leaning her right arm on the table now placed at left. She appears much as the daughter of her friend Eliza Seaman Leggett described her: “scrupulously tidy & clean,” sitting in a “great straight back chair, her elbows resting on her knees and her long arms stretched out with the closed hard knotty hands” revealing, in Margaret Washington’s paraphrase, “one stump of a finger.”20 There are two other very similar cartes de visite, though in these she wears a different, boldly striped blouse and does not display the photograph of James (session C, figs. 38–­39). One comes from the family album of the Salem, Ohio, abolitionists John and Angelina Deming, her friends and supporters.21 Still owned by the Demings’ descendants, the album displays Truth’s carte de visite next to a portrait of her grandson (fig. 40). Neither photograph bears a printed caption or copyright. And the album page’s penciled label calls James only “Grandson of S. Truth.” Had Truth or her friends been

figure 38. Uncaptioned carte de visite of Sojourner Truth, ca. 1863. Seated pose from session C. Handwritten on the album page beneath the card: “Your friend, Sojourner Truth.” Blank verso. From John and Angelina Deming’s photograph album. Photograph courtesy of Scott McCorkhill, descendant of the Demings. figure 39. Uncaptioned carte de visite of Sojourner Truth, ca. 1863. Seated pose from session C; same clothing as in figure 38.

instrumental in getting James’s portrait taken? Would Truth mail his carte de visite as well as hers to interested Truth in Michigan

55

figure 40. Page from the Demings’ family photograph album including cartes de visite of Sojourner Truth and her grandson James Caldwell. Handwritten inscription: “Sojourner Truth” and “Grandson of S. Truth.” Session C. Photographer unknown. Photograph courtesy of Scott McCorkhill, descendant of the Demings.

56

supporters? The Demings may have been given both

that the editor, Oliver Johnson, had written the un-

cards as a gesture of friendship, or more likely, because

signed article of July 4 that began, “A card photograph

of Truth’s continual financial need, they may have paid

of that noble woman, Sojourner Truth, lies before us.” If

for both. Lying side by side in the Demings’ album, the

he had, he was far less impressed by the second delivery.

two portraits also could have inspired her to incorporate

He bluntly responded in his letter to Truth published on

his image into her own.

July 29: “I thank you for the photographs, though they

In 1863 Truth twice mailed photographs from Battle

are poor compared with the one you sent me first. It is a

Creek to the National Anti-­Slavery Standard. It is likely

pity you did not preserve the negative of that instead of

Chapter Three

this. Not only is the likeness better, but the work also.”22 We cannot be certain as to which photographs Johnson found poor, although a possible candidate is the portrait glued into one of the family scrapbooks of Truth’s friend Eliza Seaman Leggett (session D, fig. 41).23 Unmounted, this photograph is unusually large, measuring three and seven-­eighths by six inches, about the size of prints attached to cabinet cards in the 1870s and 1880s. But this portrait of Truth resembles her captioned cards from the mid-­to late 1860s, not those from the end of her life, in which she does not wear glasses. While it could date from the 1870s, this print’s size does not exclude the possibility that it dates earlier; during the 1860s albumen photographs were occasionally made large, even up to twenty by twenty inches. The portrait in the Leggett family scrapbook is ­startling. Boldly proximate but positioned obliquely, the camera awkwardly enlarges Truth’s lower body, particularly her left arm. As a consequence, her head is diminished in size and appears bullet shaped with its tall, narrowing white bonnet. Truth looks down rather than out to us, as if caught before she had arranged herself in relation to the camera. In place of her grandson,

figure 41. Photograph of Sojourner Truth in the scrapbook of Percival Leggett (son of Eliza Seaman Leggett). Seated pose from session D? The scrapbook was given to Percival as a Christmas present in 1872. Leggett Family Papers, Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library. Photograph courtesy of the Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library.

Truth in Michigan

57

she holds her knitting, as she would in all the captioned

ently did not save the negative of the early picture, it is

seated portraits of the 1860s, but here her hands and the

possible that fewer copies were produced, making that

needles appear oversized and crowded within a com-

picture more rare. As Truth proceeded to have photo-

pressed space; we do not see the expanse of her lap. Un-

graphs made, she seems to have learned how to control

usual too is the visibility of her right hand’s truncated

production. Securing possession of negatives, when

index finger. While her face is turned to the left, the

photographers usually kept them, made ordering copies

stump is fully frontal, as if the wound transgressively

more efficient. Possession of the negatives would save

addresses us when she would not. This photograph also

her the cost of paying a photographer to reshoot her

appears atypically brightly lit and high in contrast; the

cartes de visite in order to make more copies.

hand holding a knitting needle appears to cast a dark shadow on the rectangle of white knitting below.

but Truth, having recovered her strength, repeatedly

It is difficult to ascertain whether this was the pic-

traveled between the two cities in the winter of 1863–­64.

ture Johnson disliked, and also which among the earlier

She was arriving in Detroit after harrowing riots had

photographs he considered a better likeness and a better

erupted the previous spring. On March 6, 1863, angry

“work,” especially given that some have probably been

white crowds, incited by the Copperhead (pro-­slavery)

lost. By July 1863, Truth had sent Johnson one photo-

Detroit Free Press, viciously attacked blacks as well as

graph and then several, the latter perhaps variants from

whites who defended them; troops were called in and

the same session. Extant cartes de visite show that each

thirty buildings were burned down. The riot had been

of her sittings in Battle Creek entailed multiple poses.

set off by the rape of a white woman and the subsequent

Given the early date, it is likely that all these photo-

trial, although the accused was not black but of mixed

graphs sent to Johnson were made in Battle Creek; none

Spanish and Indian descent.24 Tragically, throughout

would have included a copyright, because we know that

the Civil War, violence was inflicted on African Amer-

the copyright was filed in Detroit seven months later, in

icans in order to attack Lincoln’s administration. Not

February 1864.

coincidentally, Detroit’s riots occurred just two weeks

Truth may initially have sent Johnson one of the early Battle Creek photographs of her seated, likely

58

Battle Creek and Detroit are some 120 miles apart,

after the formation of the first Michigan Colored Infantry on February 23, 1863.

without the photograph of her grandson, because the

Truth was traveling to support that newly formed

July 4 article celebrating the card photograph of the

black regiment. She came to Camp Ward in eastern

­“noble woman” makes no mention of the portrait within

Detroit with supplies she had solicited in Battle Creek,

the portrait. We may be missing the photograph whose

including food for a Thanksgiving dinner. She was fol-

likeness and quality were “better.” Since Truth appar-

lowing her own advice to her grief-­stricken friend Eliza

Chapter Three

Leggett, who had lost a son in battle soon after the death

Please tell any friends who may want my pictures

of her daughter: “Take hold and do what you can just as

that they can have them by writing to me in this place

you think they would do. Don’t cry no more—­but find

(where I shall remain a few weeks longer) care of Mrs.

work. Oh! Lord there’s plenty of it all over.”25

Euphemia Cochrane, Box 75 Detroit, Michigan. Say

While at Camp Ward, Truth gave inspiring lectures

that I sell the three for $1 or a single one for 35 cents. I

both to the troops and to white supporters. Her letter

have to charge a little more than the common price be-

to another friend, Mary Gale, dated February 25, 1864,

cause the paper & envelope and sometimes the stamps

stated her purpose, but she moved without pause to de-

cost XXX and they will see by my card that I sell the

scribe the challenges of having new photographs made

shadow to support the substance.28

in Detroit. She may have been photographed by James J. Randall, whose business is listed in the city directory of

In February 1864, photography was on Truth’s

that year. We know that his son would photograph her

mind. She was feeling healthy; she was “filled with . . .

more than once over a decade later. Truth’s letter reads:

fire” about the war and wanted to lecture; she intended

26

to travel and to help recently freed slaves in WashingI came to Detroit in November with a donation of good

ton, DC; she hoped to meet President Lincoln; and she

things from the people of Battle Creek to the Coloured

planned to live off the sale of her cartes-­de-­viste, her

Regiment and finding friends have stayed longer than

songs, and her books as well as supporters’ donations.

I intended. I should have answered your letter when

Shadows had once supported her because she could

first I came only I was having a new photograph taken

not travel; now she wished them to support her so that

and the Artist has been slow in the finishing. I wanted

she could resume her peripatetic life. And the shadows

to send you the best. I enclose you three all in different

themselves were mobile, sometimes wandering with

positions.27

Truth and being sold at her lectures, more often circulating in the mail—­she was right to include envelopes

Immediately following this passage, she repeated her

and stamps as part of their cost.

published statement that James had been lost after fighting bravely at Fort Magruder, and then returned to her photographs:

Truth in Michigan

59

4

Truth’s Captioned Cartes de Visite After 1864

They will see by my card that I sell the

Suddenly, inexplicably, in 1864 Truth’s cartes de visite were inscribed with a

shadow to support the substance.

caption, her name, and a copyright: “I Sell the Shadow to Support the Sub-

—sojourner truth, letter to

stance,” “Sojourner Truth,” and “Entered according to the Act of Congress

Mary Gale, February 25, 1864

in the year 1864 by SOJOURNER TRUTH, In the Clerk’s Office of the U.S. District Court, for the Eastern District of Mich.” The textual additions to Truth’s cards occurred all at once. Any card that has her name and caption has her copyright, and the inverse is also true: any card that has her copyright also has her name and caption. Even before her copyright was filed in Detroit on February 16, 1864, Truth had made public her intention to make new copyrighted photographs in a letter dated February 3 and published in the Anti-­Slavery Standard. This was her second mention of photography in that newspaper. Unlike the earlier personal homages to her grandson during the previous summer, Truth’s letter of February 3 focuses on photography and announces her plans to the public and to her friend, editor Oliver Johnson. Her letter was published in the Anti-­Slavery Standard only ten days after she wrote it:

63

Detroit, Feb 3rd, 1864. Oliver Johnson. My Dear Friend:

as a business. Succinctly, Truth summarizes a lengthy

I have been absent from my home in Battle Creek more

procedure: having the photograph taken, obtaining the

than two months, having been in this city [Detroit]

copies after a long wait, publicizing their availability,

since I came in November with a donation for the colored

receiving orders and payment, and finally mailing pho-

soldiers. During my absence a great many letters have

tographs to buyers in letters that she “shall have . . . writ-

been received for me, the most of which have been

ten” for her. It is within this context that she makes her

applications for my photograph . . . and now I feel very

only known reference to copyright: a friend will have her

badly lest the dear kind friends who have sent all these

photograph “copyrighted for my benefit.” Whether the

good and welcome letters should think they are not

idea to copyright her cartes de visite originated with her

going to get any answer at all, and therefore I write to

or the unnamed friend we cannot know.2 The only record

ask you, who have already made so many kind notices

of her copyright held by the Copyright Office of the Li-

of and for me, to insert a few words in The Standard,

brary of Congress states that it was “Entered in the name

informing the friends . . . that now I am about to have

of Sojourner Truth, under No. 355, February 16, 1864.”3

a new, and, I hope, much better photograph taken of me,

Thus, we do not know who filed on her behalf, but we do

which a friend is going to have copyrighted for my benefit;

know that the copyright was obtained only two weeks

and when this is done I shall have letters written in answer

after she had written her letter to Oliver Johnson. And it

to all those which have been sent, and enclose the required

is significant that she had announced the decision even

photographs . . . . I will receive it as a great kindness if

before the fact in a letter intended for publication. In

you put the substance of this in the first number of

advance of the copyright, she was making a claim to her

your paper because it will be, likely, two or three weeks

property rights to her photographs. And she was doing

before I can get the photographs, the artists are so slow. . . .

so in the press. Three weeks after writing to the Anti-­

I will send you a copy of my photograph when I get it. Your

Slavery Standard and nine days after filing her copyright,

friend, SOJOURNER TRUTH

Truth wrote her friend Mary Gale that she had received

P.S. My friends who send for photographs should not forget to enclose a stamp for postage. My address for the month of February will be, “Detroit, care of Euphemis Cockrane, Box 75.”1

the photographs and enclosed “three all in different ­positions.”4 Between 1864 and 1865, Truth appears to have sat for at least three different series of photographs. A solitary carte de visite from this period, now in the Schomburg

64

Here, in a letter only four and a half months after

Center for Research and Black Culture at the New York

her first mention of photography, the medium emerges

Public Library, bears no name, caption, or copyright

not as a meditation on loyalty, absence, and love but

(session E?, fig. 42). Replacing the photograph of her

Chapter Four

grandson in her lap in the earlier uncaptioned cartes, Truth here holds knitting in her hands. She has made the transition from personal commemoration to the inclusion of work. Unusually, she faces to the left, and entirely atypically, her photographed skirt extends to the bottom of this card, filling the space accorded texts in all the other portraits from these sessions and hereafter. The Schomburg portrait teaches us that most of Truth’s cartes de visite were made by simply cropping her skirt so as to provide space for the preprinted name and caption (rather than, for instance, by making smaller photographic prints). This uncaptioned card was produced at one of her earliest sessions in 1864, likely around the time when her copyright was filed; the photograph closely resembles another carte in which she stands (session E or F, fig. 43). In both she wears the same clothes, and behind her we glimpse a slightly wrinkled, simple cloth backdrop without a baseboard. But the standing pose bears the textual inscription that is on all but two of the cartes de visite produced after this date. The carte shares the mount and typeface of five other portraits in which Truth wears the same

figure 42. Uncaptioned carte de visite of Sojourner Truth, perhaps February 1864, Detroit. Seated pose from session E? Photographs and Prints Division, Schomburg Center for Research and Black Culture, New York Public Library, New York. Photograph: The New York Public Library.

clothes but poses in different studio settings (session F, figs. ­44–­48). It was made at the time her friend filed a copyright in her name and she invented her caption. We have secure dating for only three of Sojourner Truth’s cartes de visite from the Civil War period, and they all derive from this single session. On the back of one seated portrait, a two-­cent revenue stamp postmarked “Jan 26

figure 43. Captioned carte de visite of Sojourner Truth, perhaps February 1864, Detroit. Standing pose from session E or F. Same mounts as above; same clothing. New York Public Library.

1865” indicates that it was made by that date and after the filing of the February 1864 copyright (fig. 44a,  b); Truth’s Captioned Cartes de Visite

65

figure 44a. Captioned carte de visite of Sojourner Truth, perhaps February 1864, Detroit. Seated pose from session F. This carte de visite, with its double gilt rules and square corners, is typical of the 1860s. The “sepia” look of the image comes from a natural yellowing of the original yellowish-­brown image tone. figure 44b. Verso: “Entered according to the Act of Congress in the year 1864 by sojourner truth, In the Clerk’s Office of the U.S. District Court, for the Eastern District of Mich.” The postmark on the tax stamp dates this card as earlier than January 26, 1865.

figure 45. Captioned carte de visite of Sojourner Truth, perhaps February 1864, Detroit. Seated pose from session F. Same image and mount as figure 44a, but higher contrast. On the verso: “Entered according to the Act of Congress in the year 1864 by sojourner truth, In the Clerk’s Office of the U.S. District Court, for the Eastern District of Mich.” The two-­cent tax stamp dates the carte between August 1, 1864, and August 1, 1866. Harvard Art Museums/ Fogg Museum, Transfer from Special Collections, Fine Arts Library, Harvard College Library, Bequest of Evert Jansen Wendell, 2010.69. Photograph: Imaging Department © President and Fellows of Harvard College.

figure 46a. Captioned carte de visite of Sojourner Truth, perhaps February 1864, Detroit. Standing pose from session F? Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, New York, GLC06391.20. Photograph: Courtesy of The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. figure 46b. Verso: “Entered according to the Act of Congress in the year 1864 by sojourner truth, In the Clerk’s Office of the U.S. District Court, for the Eastern District of Mich.” The two-­cent tax stamp dates the carte between August 1, 1864, and August 1, 1866.

68

another identical portrait now at Harvard also bears a

telegraph, and so forth. This overly elaborate system led

tax stamp, but its postmark is illegible (fig. 45). A third,

Congress to make the stamps interchangeable in late

somewhat awkward standing portrait from the same

1862. All stamps featured a portrait of George Washing-

studio, framed by the same drapery at right and sharing

ton in a frame labeled “Internal Revenue”; the stamps on

the same mount, also bears a tax stamp on its verso; it

Sojourner Truth’s cartes de visite quite wonderfully read

may stem from the same session and resembles another

“PLAYING CARDS.”

standing portrait (fig. 46a, b). In general, tax stamps date

The three cards of Sojourner Truth that have a tax

photographs from August 1, 1864, to August 1, 1866, but

stamp belong to this group (session F) featuring three

they were attached only to a very small percentage of the

seated and three standing poses, mounts with a double

photographs; hence an absence of tax stamps does not

gold stripe, and identical capitalized captions in a small

mean that the photographs were made outside those

black font with her name placed below and indented to

dates. For instance if the tax was 2 percent of the total, a

the right (figs. 43–­48). Despite the two different set-

ten-­dollar purchase of photographs would only require

tings, the photographs could have been made at one

a single tax stamp of 2 cents attached to a single card.

time or during different sessions; in either case, the

As opposed to 3-­cent and 5-­cent stamps, 2-­cent stamps

photographer used the same mount. (Here I call all six

were for the cheapest photographs, costing up to 25

cartes de visite with the same mount and clothing ses-

cents each. Since two of these specific portraits of Truth

sion F.) In the seated portraits, she sits beside a table,

bear 2-­cent tax stamps, we know that she bought at least

holding her knitting. It is likely that all date from 1864,

twenty dollars’ worth (there may have been others with

and while we have no indication of a specific photog-

tax stamps). Given that the 2-­cent tax indicates a maxi-

rapher, I believe that these were the pictures she made

mum price of 25 cents for each carte de visite, she seems

in Detroit when she wrote on February 3, 1864, “Now I

to have paid for at least eighty, a considerable number.

am about to have a new, and, I hope, much better pho-

The quantity was likely even larger given that the hypo-

tograph taken of me, which a friend is going to have

thetical price of 25 cents per individual photograph is

copyrighted for my benefit.” Which earlier pictures she

quite high, especially for such a large order (at the end of

disliked is unclear, as she seems to have been proud of

her life, as we shall see, she twice ordered one hundred

the earlier photographs of herself with her grandson,

5

copies at a time, and each photograph cost only 5 cents).

and the single portrait without the picture of her grand-

The federal government did not issue stamps specif-

son very much resembles those. The uncaptioned por-

ically for the tax on photographs, although it did cre-

trait in one of the family scrapbooks of her friend Eliza

ate stamps for many other specific uses. Stamps were,

Leggett is a candidate (fig. 41); if so it could date to late

for instance, labeled bank check, contract, playing card,

1863 or January 1864.

Chapter Four

figure 47. Captioned carte de visite of Sojourner Truth, perhaps February 1864, Detroit. Seated pose from session F? Different chair, slightly different pose and thread. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. Photograph: National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution / Art Resource, NY. figure 48. Captioned carte de visite of Sojourner Truth, perhaps February 1864, Detroit. Standing pose from session F? Different bag and background. Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, Northhampton, Massachusetts.

After 1864 Truth’s cartes de visite with seated poses

personal and familial with an identification with the

replace her grandson’s photograph in the 1863 portraits

government, the law, and the Union cause. (The knitting

with her name, caption, copyright, and the knitting in

may seem exceptional here, but I will argue otherwise.)

her lap. In the cards bearing a tax stamp on their verso,

In the next series (session G), she wears a pale dress

George Washington’s head accompanies her in place of

and sits holding her knitting beside a small, modest

her grandson. In multiple ways, these cards replace the

­table in a spare setting (figs. 49–­51). The baseboard sigTruth’s Captioned Cartes de Visite

69

nals a level of accomplishment and propriety that con-

is imprinted with “Wrights’ New York. Gallery, Battle

trasts with the wrinkled canvas backdrop in the Battle

Creek, Mich.,” in purple ink (fig. 48b). The name, cap-

Creek photographs (see figs. 42–­43). She appears to have

tion, and copyright are printed in red. Although I have

had at least three different poses made at this subse-

not located a studio with that full name, in the Battle

quent sitting. We have evidence that these photographs

Creek Journal on March 20, 1863, S. C. Wright was adver-

were made in Battle Creek: a single card from that series

tised as having taken over a business and gallery:

figure 49a. Captioned carte de visite of Sojourner Truth by S. C. Wright, Battle Creek, Michigan, 1864–­65. Seated pose from session G. Collection W. Bruce Lundberg. figure 49b. Verso.

70

Chapter Four

Ambrotype and Photographic Gallery Over Dr.

to call and give me a trial. S.C. WRIGHT. Battle Creek,

Bartlett’s Dentist Office. Piper’s Old Stand.

March 18, 1863.

The undersigned having leased the GALLERY formerly occupied by Mr. Piper, is prepared to

The Calhoun County Business Directory for 1869–­70 lists

make all kinds of PICTURES, either in the

“S.C. Wright” as a photographer residing in a house on

Ambrotype or Photographic line. All are solicited

3 Lydia Street, Battle Creek.6 The same directory lists

figure 50a. Captioned carte de visite of Sojourner Truth by S. C. Wright, Battle Creek, Michigan, 1864–­65. Seated pose from session G. figure 50b. Verso.

Truth’s Captioned Cartes de Visite

71

figure 51a. Captioned carte de visite of Sojourner Truth by S. C. Wright, Battle Creek, Michigan, 1864–­65. Seated pose from session G. Nell Irvin Painter collection, Duke University. figure 51b. Verso: same as in figure 49b, with the copyright and a doodle in pencil inside the blank area of the photographer’s imprint.

72

Sojourner Truth as a “lecturer” and “colored,” boarding

bearing a tax stamp, presumably made in Detroit. Were

in Battle Creek.7 We can only speculate why a solitary

all these cards made in Battle Creek, presumably by

card bears the photographer’s imprint, especially given

Wright, and he merely switched the color of inks as well

that the card is identical to those without the photog-

as the card mounts themselves (since their backs differ)?

rapher’s imprint. The font and layout closely resemble

Perhaps Truth’s copyright was acquired immediately af-

the black printing on the cards from another session,

ter Wright had imprinted some cards with his name on

Chapter Four

figure 52a. Remounted captioned carte de visite of Sojourner Truth, 1864–­65 (see figure 7a). Seated pose from session H. figure 52b. Verso, handwritten: “bought by Ann Heald at West Branch Iowa 1870 at the lecture by Sojourner Truth.”

the back, and Truth then requested that the copyright

satisfactory and reproduced it throughout her life (ses-

replace the identification of the photographer on other

sion H, fig. 52a, b; see fig. 7). This was the picture that

blank cards.

she chose to incorporate into her Narrative as an engrav-

Truth’s favorite seated portrait was likely made

ing (see fig. 26). The cards do not bear the ornamental

around the same time—­perhaps by Wright, but proba-

frame on their versos as do Wright’s pictures. In them,

bly later, since Sojourner treated this picture as her most

she wears the same outfit as in the Wright portraits and Truth’s Captioned Cartes de Visite

73

she still holds her knitting, but here she sits next to a ­table covered by a different cloth and adorned with small vase of flowers. Another picture from the same session shows her standing and is quite rare (fig. 53a). In these ubiquitous and well-­known cards, which for clarity I will henceforth call the “favorite portraits,” the setting is far simpler than in the portraits bearing a tax stamp (session F). Gone is the baroque, patterned, and tasseled drape; gone are the curving back of a dark wooden chair (see figs. 44–­45) and the tall, floral-­carved back in another version (see fig. 47); and gone is the prominent dark-­light patterning of the heavy tablecloth. Instead, these relatively ubiquitous favorite portraits minimize studio props connoting ostentation and wealth. In the favorite seated portraits, the photographer has used very few props to suggest a respectable interior, and the spare setting permits Truth to preside over, rather than be overwhelmed by, the room and its furnishings (figs. 52a, 54–­56; see fig. 7). In the earlier, more heavily ornate interiors (session F), Truth apfigure 53a. Remounted captioned carte de visite of Sojourner Truth, 1864–­65. Standing pose from session H. figure 53b. Verso, handwritten: “An ex-­slave entertained by Uncle & Aunt Campbell.”

pears tense, perhaps more alert, certainly more bold. The Wright cartes de visite and the favorite portraits are less tonally dissonant. Without the high contrasts, sharp angles, and competing details of the earlier images, these ­simple, almost bland sepia pictures derive whatever monumentality they have from the figure of Truth herself. As in the other portraits where she also holds knitting, we are made aware of her skirt’s vast landscape of folds; but in these the winding yarn and the shawl’s tangled tassels are the composition’s most acute details.

74

Chapter Four

figure 54. Remounted captioned carte de visite of Sojourner Truth, 1864–­65. Seated pose from session H. Gladstone Collection, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

figure 55a. Captioned carte de visite of Sojourner Truth, 1864–­65. Seated pose from session H. Collection W. Bruce Lundberg. figure 55b. Verso, handwritten: “Aug 30th 1878. Met her at Mrs. Arnold’s Friday afternoon.”

figure 56. Remounted captioned carte de visite of Sojourner Truth, 1864–­65. Seated pose from session H. Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC.

What also distinguishes the favorite pictures from

stern. The relative abundance of copies of this portrait

earlier sessions is Truth’s calm facial expression; the

attached to a wide variety of mounts suggests that Truth

annoyance, tension, or suspicion suggested in the

kept these negatives, perhaps also made by S. C. Wright,

earlier portraits (sessions E and F) gives way here to a

and had photographers wherever she resided make

greater ease, we might say self-­possession. Across the

additional copies as she needed them. The faded sepia

photographs of these years, we trace Truth’s eventual

color of these pictures partly derives from the fact that

relaxation in front of the camera. In this most famous

many are later photographic copies, some from nega-

portrait, her head is slightly tilted, but her gaze is level

tives but others most likely from other cartes de visite

and straightforward, her mouth unsmiling but not

reshot and reprinted. In one carte de visite, the floor and background have been retouched (fig. 57). Truth’s accomplishment as a sitter, her eventual relaxation, may have depended on her familiarity with the photographer. In the next series (session I), made in a different studio, she appears far less at ease. Because of an exceptional photographer’s imprint on the verso of a photograph, we know that Truth posed for at least three cartes de visite in Rochester, New York, likely in late 1866 or early 1867 (figs. 58–­60); one of these may have been an unmounted albumen print later pasted into the scrapbook of the son of her friend Eliza Leggett (or its original cardboard mount may have been cropped). Rochester City Directories list N. B. Baker as a photographer between 1859, when he is described as “Baker, N.B., daguereotype gallery, entrance 18 Buffalo,” and 1869. The name

figure 57. Remounted captioned carte de visite of Sojourner Truth, 1864–­65. Seated pose from session H. Retouched floor and background. Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, Northhampton, Massachusetts.

and address imprinted on Truth’s card exactly matches the listing of 1864; after 1866 he calls himself “Baker N. Byron, photographer” at the same address. However, mounts do not allow us precisely to date cards; Baker could have been relying on old stock, or he could have used a different name for the directory than he chose to stamp on his photographs.8

76

Chapter Four

figure 58a. Captioned carte de visite of Sojourner Truth by N. B. Baker, Rochester, New York, late 1866–­early 1867. Standing pose from session I. International Center of Photography, New York, Purchase, with funds provided by the ICP Acquisitions Committee, 2003, Entered into the Daniel Corwin Collection. figure 58b. Verso.

figure 59. Captioned carte de visite of Sojourner Truth by N. B. Baker, Rochester, New York, late 1866–­early 1867. Seated pose from session I. Same mount and dress as figure 58a. Schomburg Center for Research and Black Culture, New York Public Library.

figure 60. Captioned carte de visite of Sojourner Truth by N. B. Baker, Rochester, New York, late 1866–­early 1867 (cropped). Seated pose from session I. Leggett Scrapbook, vol. 2, p. 114; Leggett Family Papers, Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library. Photograph courtesy of the Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library.

Sojourner Truth was in Rochester fairly often to visit her close friends Amy and Isaac Post. Her friend-

ment, intends holding meetings in adjoining towns, in aid of this effort.13

ship with this radical, abolitionist, and feminist Quaker ­couple extended back to 1851, when she stayed with

Both pro-­slavery and anti-­slavery locals responded neg-

them for two and a half months; she visited them again

atively to this announcement. A Rochester abolition-

in 1853. In December 1866, at the age of sixty-­nine or

ist condemned the Freedmen’s Bureau for its failure

seventy, she attended the Rochester Equal Rights Con-

promptly to send former slaves, arguing that they were

vention, where Susan B. Anthony introduced her before

being retained in Washington, DC, because each one

she spoke. Early in 1867 she was with the Posts again,

earned the bureau additional government funding. Pro-­

and in 1868 she attended a national Spiritual Convention

slavery spokespersons condemned the plan with even

in Rochester. In 1871 she was invited to preach at a Meth-

more virulent rhetoric. A local pro-­slavery newspaper

odist church.

that Truth called “Copperhead” savagely attacked her

9

10

11

When Sojourner Truth visited Rochester in 1867, she

as “an old negress who was once a slave in this state,”

was trying to arrange for the relocation of former slaves

warning that the influx of freedmen would steal jobs

there. She intended to set up a “board shanty” to receive

and more: “Look to your chicken coops.”14

them, and with the Posts published an advertisement on

Two of the three cartes de visite of Sojourner Truth

behalf of freedmen in two different Rochester newspa-

made in Rochester share the same mount, and she wears

pers on March 13. It read:

the same pressed dress with a slight sheen; one has been

12

cropped or excised from its mount and placed in a fam-

78

Sojourner Truth, the well known Mrs. Stowe’s Afri-

ily scrapbook of Truth’s friend Eliza Seaman Leggett.

can Sybil, is now in Rochester, endeavoring to find

All three pictures pose her body facing to the right. In

employment for some of the Southern freed people,

one card (fig. 58a), she stands against a column with her

who are in Washington, several thousands of them

head tilted and her gaze deflected uncharacteristically to

supported by the Government and philanthropists, in

the side, suggesting an atypical wistfulness. This Baker

idleness. They are willing and able to work, but there

standing portrait is the only picture from the 1860s in

is none for them there.

which she looks away from us. In the intact carte de

It is therefore proposed to establish a depot for

visite with a seated pose (fig. 59), she sits tensely on a

some of them in Rochester, where the farmers and

carved chair turned to the right. Awkwardly holding up

citizens can supply their great need of such help. . . .

her knitting in her left hand and clutching the armchair

Sojourner Truth, who is the life and soul of this move-

with her right, she turns her face toward us and appears

Chapter Four

startled, as if caught unawares. This seated pose is unap-

traits that she created almost two decades later, in 1881

pealing, and the standing version awkwardly suggests

and 1882. For now, her captioned portraits made imme-

aspiration to an elevated socioeconomic status. The

diately after the filing of the copyright in 1864 require

carte de visite (fig. 60) in the Leggett scrapbook is more

introduction as images (despite being text-­laden). In all

successful; her body still seated and turned to the right,

these cartes de visite, invented and likely photographed

Truth looks toward the photographer in a more relaxed

during the Civil War, Truth chooses to present herself,

manner and brings her hands together to hold her knit-

in the words of Painter, as “a lady,” proper and decorous.

ting. A comparison of the two seated poses allows us to

She chooses not to appear as a combatant or personifi-

appreciate how much she relied on the familiarity of the

cation as she had in Indiana, nor as a victim or martyr

act of knitting both to justify and to relax the gesture of

like the scarred former slave Gordon or the many slaves

her hands.

featured in cartes de visite (see fig. 22). Instead, Truth of-

Derision as a “negress” ex-­slave so close to the site of

fers herself as a model for an emancipated, prosperous

her former enslavement in Upstate New York may have

African American future, a model worthy of emulation.

contributed to Truth’s decision to have photographs

In picture after picture, she is neatly dressed. Fash-

taken in Rochester that emphasized her gentility, even

ion historian Joan Severa informs us that

elegance. In the standing pose, she holds neither cane nor knitting but a handkerchief that hides her maimed

nothing whatsoever in the dress of Sojourner Truth is

right hand; her clothing appears elegant, and the col-

related to her race or economic status. She is dressed

umn is immense. In her seated poses, she once again

precisely as any woman of her age, across a very wide

chose to hold her knitting, but the pictures are domi-

spectrum of relative affluence. The cap is not quite as

nated by the ornate chair and the luster of her dress. Ma-

persistent through the years for all women, though it

terial affluence is signaled, yet the relationship between

was certainly common through the sixties. The white

sitter and setting appears dissonant. These pictures

shawl is rather a personal choice, but a shoulder wrap

deviate from her normative simple, frontal poses, and

of some kind is a frequently seen accessory for older

unusually I have located no variations in the mounts of

women.15

these two pictures made by Baker; this suggests that she disliked both, perhaps for different reasons, and had no

Severa dates all the photographs “as not before 1860 and

copies made.

not after 1870,” but explains that dating precisely from

Truth’s caption and copyright will be considered

clothing is difficult because “all women were expected

in the next part of this book as will the captioned por-

to stop following fashion about age 40, and henceforth

Truth’s Captioned Cartes de Visite

79

to dress in a modest manner, in plain dark colors, and

mission’s depots.18 Sometimes socks were mailed with

without the accents and accessories of high style.”16 Se-

poetry and notes to anonymous soldiers.19

vera notes, “The sleeves of this bodice are double: a long

One Northern woman was critical of the patriotic

plain sleeve, somewhat looser in fit than was the fash-

call to knit, but cooperated nonetheless: “Everything

ion, with a slightly belled 3/4 oversleeve. This is a winter

not ‘national’ is arrested. It looks like the business of

style, as lined silk was the warmest fabric, and the dou-

[Secretary of State] Seward. I do not know when I have

ble sleeve was for warmth.”

seen a woman without knitting in her hand. Socks for

Especially in her seated poses, Truth is not only

the soldiers is the cry. One poor man said he had dozens

dressed respectably, she is shown surrounded by the

of socks and but one shirt. He preferred more shirts and

conventions of bourgeois respectability, including

fewer stockings. We make a quaint appearance with this

knitting, flowers, book, hanging drapery, and a table

twinkling of needles and the everlasting sock dangling

covered by a woven cloth. In all her seated portraits,

below.”20 Abolitionist Lydia Maria Child also expressed

Truth carefully chose the items she held in her lap: ini-

political reservations about knitting, but she too ulti-

tially the photograph of her heroic missing grandson

mately took up needles: “This winter I have for the first

and thereafter her knitting. We must take her choices

time been knitting for the army; but I do it only for Kan-

seriously. According to Severa, during this period it was

sas troops. I can trust them, for they have vowed a vow

“not uncommon for older women of any station to have

unto the Lord that no fugitive shall ever be surrendered

a knitting bag included in a portrait. It is simply a re-

in their camps.”21 The older generation was also asked to

minder to later viewers that knitting was a major factor

pass on its skills to younger women “who, through the

in the sitter’s life. To those who actually knew the sitter,

triumph of mechanical skill in the manufacture of ho-

it would be a fond reminder.”

siery, had been left untutored in this branch of domestic

17

During the Civil War, however, knitting acquired

80

female industry.”22

new, patriotic connotations. No longer merely a femi-

The call for women to knit was equally strong in the

nine domestic art, knitting had become a public sign.

South: “We spent all of our spare time knitting socks,

When the United States Sanitary Commission was es-

getting the thread spun on the plantations by the ne-

tablished in April 1861 in order to distribute donations

groes; and we never went out to pay a visit without

and volunteers to battlefields and hospitals, newspapers

taking our knitting along. It was a common salutation,

published the plea that sewing and knitting societies de-

when we met our friends, to say, ‘Come, bring your knit-

vote themselves to serving the cause: “Every woman in

ting, and spend the day.’”23 This passage underscores

the country can, at least, knit a pair of woolen stockings,

that Southern slaves often spun thread but did not

or, if not, can purchase them” and send them to the com-

knit.24 Sojourner Truth by contrast had been a domestic

Chapter Four

slave in Upstate New York and had done both: she had

Truth associated knitting with industry and advance-

spun wool for four to six months every fall, and she had

ment, not gentility. With real savvy, she informally in-

also knit.

troduced the craft to freed slaves by practicing it as she

25

During the Civil War, Truth was determined to teach

spoke to them in their cabins; she was demonstrating

her skills to emancipated slaves, often former plantation

the skill, not just telling her audience to learn it. The

field hands, living in Freedmen’s Villages. In December

many cartes de visite that feature her knitting sustain

1864, Captain George B. Carse, a volunteer from Penn-

this demonstration. Painter has argued that Truth, re-

sylvania, heard Truth preach cleanliness and industry to

fusing to foreground her former enslavement, instead

the sixteen hundred residents at the Freedmen’s Village

intended to appear as “a respectable, middle-­class ma-

in Arlington, Virginia, where he was superintendent. In

tron” with book and flowers at her side “as simplified

the National Anti-­Slavery Standard, Carse reported that

tokens of leisure and feminine gentility.”27 While I agree

she would say, “Be clean, be clean, for cleanliness is a

that Sojourner Truth wished to appear respectable and

part of godliness.” He paraphrased Truth’s beliefs:

middle-­class, I wish to emphasize that her intention was not to exhibit gentility defined as leisure. Instead, with

They must learn to be independent—­learn industry

her knitting in hand, she was determined to look skilled,

and economy—­and above all strive to show people

useful, and hardworking. In the Civil War era, knitting

that they could be something. She urged them to em-

was a form of labor, exertion undertaken as a patriotic

brace for their children all opportunities of education

duty, not a genteel hobby. For many newly emancipated

and advancement. In fact she talked to them as a white

African Americans from the South, knitting also repre-

person could not, for they would have been offended

sented the acquisition of useful skills. Here were former

with such plain truths from any other source. I think

plantation slaves redefining their labor as the expertise

she will do much good among them. She is one of

of freed persons—­no small feat. Sitting with her thread

them—­she can call them her people—­go into their

winding its way across her lap, Truth would knit, striv-

houses and tell them much they should know. . . . She

ing “to show [her] people that they could be something”

goes into their cabins with her knitting in her hand,

through industry, skill, and work. Even the old, she ar-

and while she talks with them she knits. Few of them

gued, “will be much happier if usefully employed.”

know how to knit, and but few know how to make a

And Truth’s choice to have herself depicted knitting

loaf of bread, or anything of the kind. She wants to

represents an insistence on her own “making”—­her

teach the old people how to knit, for they have no em-

touch, her manual labor—­in photographs that dis-

ployment, and they will be much happier if usefully

tanced her from authorship because of their mechani-

employed.26

cal registration of light. Photography had many advanTruth’s Captioned Cartes de Visite

81

tages during the Civil War: it was cheap, produced in multiples, portable, and magically indexical of presence amid so many poignant absences. But it also was woefully (and wondrously) mechanical, seemingly autonomous of the actions of bodies, the pressures of fingers and the repeated gestures associated with making the things of the world in the 1860s, gestures that permit us, in Huey Copeland’s eloquent phrasing, to “apprehend the flesh that undergirds the historical construction of objecthood,” slavery’s violent redefinition of persons as things.28 Compare Truth’s cartes de visite to the massive clay pots made by the slave named Dave in South Carolina between the late 1830s and the 1860s.29 Like Truth, Dave repeatedly inscribed economic transaction onto the object he would sell for his own profit. In 1840 Dave wrote onto a clay pot: “Dave belongs to Mr. Miles / wher the oven bakes & the pot biles,” thereby acknowledging his status as property and consequent resemblance to the object he had manufactured. But that same year, on another signed and dated pot, Dave prominently, we might say brashly, inscribed the clay: “Give me silver or either gold / though they are dangerous to our soul.” Later he incised another jar with the blunt phrase “cash wanted.”

figure 61. Nineteen-­inch clay pot, made, inscribed, and signed by the enslaved potter named Dave, South Carolina, 1857. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Harriet Otis Croft Fund and Otis Norcross Fund, 1997.10. Photograph © 2015 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. figure 62. Detail of inscription in figure 61: “I made this jar for cash / though its called lucre trash / Dave August 22, 1857.”

82

Chapter Four

Much like Truth’s captioned photographs, another pot

Perhaps for this reason, Dave insisted again and

combines his name with a first-­person statement of

again that he had made the jars that he sold: his inscrip-

commercial intent (figs. 61–­62). This nineteen-­inch ves-

tions repeatedly deploy the first person to say “I made

sel, now at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, bears

this,” not, as in Truth’s caption, “I sell this.” Even “I

Dave’s name on both sides as well as a tongue-­in-­cheek

made this jar for lucre cash” insists that Dave’s making

inscription: “I made this jar for cash / though its called

preceded his selling. Especially beautiful is the 1858 in-

lucre trash / Dave August 22, 1857.” The making of clay

scription “Making this Jar = I had all thoughts,” which

pots invites inscription: adding handles, for instance,

emphasizes the prolonged process of manufacture as

requires incisions. The medium not only allows but

well as the simultaneity of making and thinking. An in-

summons writing.

scription of the previous year indicates how profound

30

Michael Chaney has compared Dave’s “commercial”

the thoughts of this slave artisan could be: “I wonder

pots to “the many slave narratives . . . published along-

where is all my relation / friendship to all—­and, every

side supplementary legal documents bearing the slave’s

nation.” According to Chaney, “Dave coalesces in vari-

signature.” In Chaney’s words, Dave’s inscribed vessels

ous and contradictory locations of identity” because of

were “a kind of supplementary document circulating his

“the interplay of the verbal and the visual.”34 I would add

will to being.”31 Not only was Dave drawing attention

that the interplay in Dave’s pots is not just between the

to his literacy when South Carolina’s laws had forbid-

verbal and the visual but also between the verbal and

den teaching slaves to read and write since 1837, he was

the haptic and three-­dimensional. The massive clay pot

also asserting his right to profit from his labor. Chaney

everywhere registers the potter’s touch and movement:

emphasizes how transgressive Dave’s claim to financial

his making.

32

remuneration was:

Dave the potter and Sojourner Truth both inscribed objects with first-­person statements, their names, their

Dave’s avowals of monetary gains are rebellious. . . .

commercial intent, and their eloquent interpretation of

South Carolina legally forbade slaves to participate

the transaction the object enabled: for both, commodi-

in the cash economy, despite widespread practices of

ties functioned as “supplementary document[s] circulat-

slaves bartering, hiring out their time, and even sell-

ing [their] will to being.” Circulation is key to Chaney’s

ing excess crops in an underground economy. Legally,

assessment of the purpose of Dave’s sold things. Surely,

slaves [were] viewed as bearing commodity value but

cartes de visite were more mobile than his wonderfully

were not permitted to be bearers of currency. These

massive pots, but sitting passively for photographers

jars, therefore, display for public scrutiny an unlawful

alienated Truth from the industrious work with which

desire.33

she so proudly identified. Her commodity was neither Truth’s Captioned Cartes de Visite

83

the sign nor the product of her own labor. As an ob-

Jonathan Crary has characterized the nineteenth

ject, the carte de visite does not convey her touch or the

century as a time when “knowledge bound up in touch”

movements needed to make the things of this world.

became “irreconcilable with the centrality of mobile

The woman who ran away from her slave master only

signs and commodities whose identity is exclusively

after she finished spinning a hundred pounds of wool;

optical.”35 But Sojourner Truth, like Dave before her,

who told her grieving friend, “Don’t cry no more—­but

wished to reconcile touch and seeing, things and cir-

find work. Oh! Lord there’s plenty of it all over”; and

culation. They both marked things with their effort,

who strove to teach manual skills to the newly enfran-

although making touch visible in photographs was far

chised slaves, this woman was compelled to insert her

more elusive: it entailed turning matter into paper and

physical exertion, her craft, her touch, within the opti-

letting the sign, the shadow, stand in for substance.

cal shadow—­that enduring, apparently machine-­made record of her passive stillness. And she did so by holding her knitting and by displaying its winding thread across her lap. Here was matter in disarray that would be organized into form by her skill.

84

Chapter Four

5

Shadows and Chemistry

I had seen only his shadow and not the man.

“I Sell the Shadow to Support the Substance.” Sojourner Truth’s reliance on

—william wilson chamberlaine 1

the word shadow is hardly original. Henry Fox Talbot believed that the invention of the new medium required the arrest of this ephemeral shape of darkness. His “On the Art of Fixing a Shadow” explains the need to fix or stop sun’s action: “Such is the fact, that we may receive on paper the fleeting shadow, arrest it there, and in the space of a single minute fix it there so firmly as to be no more capable of change.”2 The conception of photography as a shadow was indeed pervasive.3 As early as 1843, Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote a letter in which she paid homage to the new medium: It is not merely the likeness which is precious in some cases—­but the association, and the sense of nearness involved in the thing . . . the very fact of the very shadow of the person lying there fixed for ever!—­It is the very sanctification of portraits I think. . . . I would rather have such a memorial of a one I dearly loved, than the noblest Artist’s work ever produced. I do not say so in respect (or disrespect) to Art, but for Love’s sake. . . . [I am] longing to have such a memorial of every Being dear to me in the world.4 85

Advertisers understood the power of appealing to

conceived as a silhouette and the shadow conceived as a

­people’s desire to memorialize “for Love’s sake” and

photograph. The silhouette offers a precise shape whose

cajoled readers “to fix the shadow ‘ere the substance

outer contours map the profile of the sitter; but within

fades.’” The term shadow was also used in more mun-

that delineated shape all information is withheld. Inside

dane ways. In an 1861 letter, an American correspondent

the contour there are no distinctions, and the blackness

explained that he could not send a photograph because

conceals relations among parts (an effect fully exploited

there were no “itinerant shadow catchers” in the area.

by Kara Walker in her art).

5

6

Abraham Lincoln referred to his photographic portraits as shadows in 1860.

7

Indices signify absence (the foot that made the footprint is gone), but they can also function as resem-

Most simply, then, Truth’s “shadow” is the small,

blances or, using Peirce’s term, as icons (the footprint

modest, cheap, mechanically reproduced, and exceed-

represents the foot).10 Indices, in other words, can be

ingly popular photographic carte de visite that she

deceptive or revelatory. Some shadows cast by bodies

sold to support herself, often at lectures, sometimes

resemble their source and give away its location. A Civil

by correspondence. In the most basic way, her shadows

War officer recounted:

supported her substance. Still, it is worth pausing over

figure 63. Carte de visite of a silhouette of an unknown man. On the verso: a tax stamp that dates the card between August 1, 1864, and August 1, 1866.

86

the image of the photograph as shadow, a metaphor far

[In] our Company “G,” 6th Virginia Infantry, many

stranger than scholars have acknowledged. After all, a

­little tricks were resorted to by the men to go off

shadow is the interception of light by a body. Unlike the

without leave and spend a night at home. On one occa-

word photograph, “writing by light”—­the shadow rep-

sion . . . I saw the wife of one of our men standing at a

resents the absence of light, a withholding. The term

window of the saloon, apparently very sad at leaving,

places emphasis, that is, on the want of light rather

the yellow shade of the next window was lowered,

than light’s capacity to inscribe a chemically sensitive

but the western sun cast the shadow of her husband full

paper.8

upon the yellow shade and I recognized it distinctly. His

A Civil War carte de visite featuring a silhouette com-

person was concealed, but the shadow told on him. In such

bines the earlier convention of inexpensive paper cut-

cases it was best not to notice the little trick, so I let it

out portraits with the newer albumen print pasted to a

pass. The volunteers were making a great sacrifice for

cardboard mount, in this case preprinted with an ornate

their country and I did not think we ought to be too

frame (fig. 63).9 The object at once draws our attention

strict in little matters. I had seen only his shadow and

to the continuity between an earlier, rudimentary form

not the man. His absence was not officially reported

of portraiture and its photographic counterpart, but

to me.11

also to the fundamental difference between the shadow Chapter Five

This officer was “recognized . . . distinctly” by the dark shape cast on the shade, so closely did it resemble the man; but the 1860s also witnessed the popularity of the parlor game of turning shadows into pictures, a diversion predicated on the misfit between signifier and signified. Hand-­Shadow Stories and Hand Shadows to Be Thrown upon the Wall were both published in the United States in the early 1860s, immediately before Truth’s choice of caption.12 Hand-­Shadow Stories featured both Sambo and Grandpapa as dark shadows (figs. 64–­65). In these illustrations, as in silhouette portraits, race was signified not by the obstruction of light, not by the darkness shared by all, but by the outer contours of shape. The fingers of the slender white hands are bent and twisted to produce the external edges of the shadow. The pictures propose that Sambo’s rounded shapes require the fingertips to be withdrawn and folded into the palm, while the grandfather’s cragginess is created by the protrusion of fingertips as so many bumps and an-

figure 64. “Grandpapa,” in Hand-­Shadow Stories (Boston: Taggard and Thompson, 1863). figure 65. “Sambo,” in Hand-­Shadow Stories (Boston: Taggard and Thompson, 1863).

gular edges. The illustrations invite us to compare the strangely contorted hands to the profiles that they produce. In this game of complicated hand poses, surprise is one of the promised pleasures: we have difficulty anticipating the shadow the hands will make. While a man can sometimes be recognized by the shadow he casts on a shade, hand-­shadow games often confound understanding. Shadows can be unpredictable and fantastic projections, or they can be mimetic doubles (betraying men who fail to hide). When photographs were called shadows, the comparison suggested both their equivalence and nonequivalence to their referent. Shadows and Chemistry

87

Truth used the word shadow to refer to photographs,

dark shapes on walls, window shades, and the ground,

not only in her caption but in her daily speech. At least

thereby likening the complexion of Sambo and Grand-

an amanuensis in a letter of 1863 suggests as much:

papa, photography’s chemistry could also risk such

“Please accept she says her shadow.” Another letter to

­confusion.

13

Mary Gale on February 25, 1864, closed by saying, “They

Many commentators on photography, including

will see by my card that I sell the shadow to support the

Roland Barthes, have been uninterested in its chemis-

substance.” To rely on this word was to underscore the

try, defining a photograph instead as the consequence

fragility and evanescent, illusory quality of the photo-

of the click of a shutter.15 But in 1863, the same year

graphic image. Shadow emphasizes the immateriality

Truth began making her cartes de visite, physician Ol-

and ephemerality of photography; its tenuous, fleeting

iver Wendell Holmes drew attention to this “strange

registration of both light and light’s obstruction. But

aspect” of the photographic process.16 In “Doings of the

photographs are fundamentally unlike shadows con-

Sunbeam,” the same essay in which he conceded the

ceived as silhouettes. Photographic portraits are more

popularity of cartes de visite, Holmes emphasized

often frontal than profile views, and they offer a tonal

the staggering amounts of valuable metal required by

array of internal differentiations, not external contours:

the photographic process:

14

cheek versus mouth, fold versus button. And a photographic “shadow” is not an absence of light. In fact a

In another portion of the same establishment are great

photograph depends on the action of light on chem-

collections of the chemical substances used in photog-

ically sensitive paper, not just once but twice. In the

raphy. To give an idea of the scale on which these are

making of the negative and in the development of the

required, we may state that the estimate of the annual

positive, the paper responds to the presence of light and

consumption of precious metals for photographic

turns dark. Light is what causes the chemical reaction;

purposes, in this country, is set down at ten tons for

shadow is merely the nonoccurrence of such a reaction.

silver and half a ton for gold.17

Photographs, moreover, are man-­made material things. To conceive of the photograph as a shadow is to

Describing the making of a negative, Holmes noted that

imply that it is a natural phenomenon when it is not.

on its surface treated with silver nitrate, there appears

Nineteenth-­century photographs are created objects—­

88

they entailed work and also a great amount of substance:

a strange aspect,—­for where where there was light . . .

not only paper but egg and metals. Photography is the

we have shadow, and where there was shadow we

result of chemistry as much as it is the consequence

have light. Presently the fluid grows brownish, and

of opticality. And if shadows turned all persons into

at the same time the whole picture gains the depth of

Chapter Five

shadow in its darker parts which we desire. . . . This is a negative—­not a true picture—­which puts darkness for light and light for darkness. From this we can take true pictures, or positives.18

The negative inverts (fig. 66). Subsequently, during the printing of the positive picture, the negative’s dark areas block the action of light—­thus producing, in the final print, white where once there was light; black or brown where once there was darkness. The sense of the negative’s reversal of the world is acute, and we are not surprised that Holmes is quick to stress that the positive print is the “true picture.” According to Holmes, (pictorial) truth is restored when white is finally once again white, and dark is once again dark (after a temporary confusing inversion). To avoid that unpleasant racial disorientation, Hermann Vogel, author of The Chemistry of Light and Photography in Their Application to Art, Science and Industry (1875), recommended that sitters not be shown the negatives of their portraits, because

figure 66. Glass negative for an undated cabinet card portrait, 4 1/2 × 6 3/4 inches.

“however interesting . . . a negative could be, it could not satisfy the purchaser of a portrait, because it showed everything reversed. . . . No one would hang up on his wall a picture representing him as a Moor.”19 Let us now think about the making of a photograph

have hardly come out at all.”20 Perfect exposure makes

of Sojourner Truth (fig. 67). Exposure time, as we all

“it [look] as if Miss E. V. had washed her face since the

know, is decisive to a successful photographic portrait.

[earlier] picture was taken.” Overexposure, surprisingly,

Holmes had called the timing of exposure one of pho-

produces a similar photograph; the overexposed face

tography’s greatest challenges. He pointed out that in

“has a curious resemblance to No. 1, but is less dusky.”21

an underexposed photographic portrait, “the young la-

And still requires soap. Thus, underexposure and over-

dy’s face is very dusky on a very dusky ground. The lights

exposure both produce a face that does not emerge from Shadows and Chemistry

89

example, he remarks, “No Sultana was ever veiled from the light of heaven as this milky tablet”; thereafter he describes the chemical reaction: “Stop! What is that change of color beginning at this edge, and spreading as a blush spreads over a girl’s cheek?”22 In the midst of the Civil War, Holmes not only presumes sitters are white but associates the photographic process itself with the subtle shifts that he believes a white woman’s complexion alone can register.23 Photographs of the era, whether tintypes or cartes de visite, often added pink pigment to emphasize this sign of pale skin (fig. 68). Extremely unusual is an ambrotype of a handsome African American soldier that is hand-­tinted with a pink blush applied to his cheek (fig. 69). Holmes’s instructions can be interpreted partly as an attempt to help photographers uphold his conviction that a true picture is a picture of white people who appear white, not dusky, and who do not ambiguously disappear into the background. Photography was easy, he argues, but we are “no doubt” likely at first to “over-­ time and under-­tone, and otherwise wrong, the coun-

figure 67. Negative view of a Sojourner Truth carte de visite (fig. 44a).

tenance of some of our sitters; but we should get the knack in a week or two.”24 Holmes was repeating the refrain of other commentators, including Lady Elizabeth Eastlake, who wrote a refreshingly skeptical analysis of the new medium in 1857. The Englishwoman was

90

the surrounding, whether too dark or too light. These

especially critical of photographic portraits. Like so

incorrectly exposed photographs fail adequately to dis-

many others, she disapproved of photography’s failure

tinguish the figure from the ground.

to make distinctions. Registering detail equivalently,

Holmes’s essay of 1863 is rife with the imagery of

the medium failed to privilege the face over clothing

complexion. In reference to the photographic plate, for

and also left no mystery. Eastlake was also unusually

Chapter Five

sensitive to photography’s distortion of the face’s sub-

on this delicate epidermis [are] so spread and nicety

tle tonal range:

of modeling is obliterated. . . . If the cheek be very brilliant in colour, it is as often as not represented by a

Without referring to M. [Antoine] Claudet’s well-­

dark stain. If the eye be blue, it turns out as colourless

known experiment of a falsely coloured female face,

as water; if the hair be golden or red, it looks as if it

it may be averred that, of all the surfaces of a few

had been dyed, if very glossy it is cut up into lines of

inches square the sun looks upon, none offers more

light as big as ropes. This is what a fair young girl has

difficulty, artistically speaking, to the photographer,

to expect from the tender mercies of photography—­

than a smooth, blooming, clean washed and carefully

the male and older head, having less to lose, has less

combed human head. The high lights which gleam

to fear.25 Shadows and Chemistry

figure 68. Sixth-­plate tintype portrait of three sitters, hand-­tinted, ca. 1870. figure 69. Sixth-­plate ambrotype portrait of an unidentified African American soldier in Union uniform, hand-­tinted, 1863. Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

91

Lady Eastlake sees lovely young women as victims of

out well, while red, yellow, and green, yield results of

photography’s crude misrepresentations. Black and

an opposite character.27

white photography produces lies, distorting a pink cheek into a “dark stain” and turning blondes and red-

The back of one American carte de visite prepared sit-

heads into brunettes, their lustrous hair cut into ropes

ters for posing by announcing which colors “take dark,”

of light. Eastlake refers to the “experiment of a falsely

“take drab,” or “take light”: “Dark Brown, Green, Maroon

coloured female face” by London photographer Claudet

and Black Woolen Goods will take dark. Snuff Brown,

that surely came to the same conclusion.

Dark Leather, Dark Orange, Cherry, Scarlet, Crimson

Photographers were fully aware of the strange ways

and Bismark will take a rich drab. Violet, Blue, Pink,

colors were translated in a black and white spectrum. As

­Purple and Magenta will take white. Wet or glossy hair

Jan Von Brevern has summarized:

will take light.”28 How inaccurate was photography! What was a sitter to do?

Early emulsions were only sensitive to a small part

Newman’s Manual of Harmonious Coloring, as Applied

of the light spectrum. The short-­waved colors like

to Photographs, an 1866 popular handbook for photogra-

(ultra-­) violet and blue have a (as it was called) strong

phers, offered a more sophisticated analysis of the rela-

“photogenic” effect while colors with longer wave-

tionship between colors and the challenges they posed

lengths such as green, yellow and red made little

to photographers. In it, heads are divided into three

impression on the photographic plates. This led

classes: those with moderate or average contrast, those

in many cases to unfamiliar translations of colors

with unusually great contrast, and those with unusual

into gray shades. . . . Photography had its very own

want of contrast. According to Newman’s Manual, ex-

­chromatics.26

cessive divergence between the sitter’s complexion and hair color or between his head and his clothing produces

Photographers were advised to prepare clients in ad-

insurmountable challenges for the photographer:

vance for such shifts. A Popular Treatise on Photography of 1863 noted:

When the indications of the face and those of the drapery point in opposite directions . . . there is no

92

In reference to the best colour for dresses to be worn

mode of overcoming them, and the sitter must either

by sitters, the same remarks apply as have been made

return with a style of costume in harmony with the

respecting that of the glass room; that is to say—­

photographic exigencies of the face, or else must be

neutral tints, analogous to grey, violet, and blue, come

satisfied with inferior work.29

Chapter Five

Sending sitters home is an extreme solution, unlikely to

portrait the client displays as a counterexample is faint

have been embraced by most photographers. But New-

and indistinct, an inferior work. But the photographer

man’s Manual also defended photographers by shifting

also gets it wrong: a correct longer exposure would not

the responsibility for “inferior work” to sitters who wore

make the dark brown complexion white, but it would

the wrong clothing.

better register its details. And as this brown sitter be-

“Unusually great contrast” could describe a sitter in

came more detailed, his blonde companions would have

the wrong clothes but also sitters with unlike friends or

become at once paler and vaguer, their details disappear-

family members. In an 1872 memoir, a photographer re-

ing into overexposed whites veering toward the color of

counted the displeasure of a “gentleman of dark brown

the paper itself. Only a very long (over) exposure would

complexion and black hair” who had been photographed

turn the dark brown man “white,” and by then his pale

with two fair blonde women. Seeing the resulting por-

companions would appear ghostly. Photography was a

trait, he exclaimed:

crude instrument. A memoirist rightly pointed out that backlighting at Niagara Falls makes a person “generally

“Horrid! altogether too dark and the ladies too light”

appear in the photograph as black as a sweep.”31 Posing

and at the same time with an air of dignity taking a

against the light temporarily blackens the white sitter

faint, indistinct vignette card picture of himself from

like an ash-­covered worker.

his pocket, “There! that’s white. I want mine in the group

Still, some people insisted on using (black and

white as that.” . . . The artist politely informs him that

white) photographs to differentiate skin color. In 1859

all things are not possible with a photographer; that

Miss J. Williams, a white missionary, was photographed

by sitting him alone, with a view of producing a “white

with black and mixed-­race schoolchildren (fig. 70). She

picture,” he would be required to sit longer. The

explained, “My object in having so many taken together

clear white and rosy complexion of the ladies did not

was to show the varieties of color between the genuine

require one half as much time in the light, as his dark

African and the nearest approximation of Anglo-­Saxon.”

hued features, black hair and coat absorbing the rays

She then proceeded to number the children as different

of light.30

“shades” from dark to light, with little Lizzie in ringlets at her side as no. 2, the lightest. Not recognized by Miss

“There! that’s white. I want mine in the group white as that.” The photographer justifiably condescends to

Williams is the extent to which both she and Lizzie were overexposed.

the “dark brown” customer expecting photography radi-

Photography was a medium strangely combining

cally to change his skin color; after all, the photographic

precision and crudeness, accuracy and falsehood. And

Shadows and Chemistry

93

We frequently hear people complain that their faces look black and dirty, and so they do, as if they had been black-­leaded before sitting; but just keep the tone warm, and what was before dirt is now half-­tint, and the effect is pleasing. . . . You will never find a flesh shadow black, therefore you cannot expect to represent it by black.32

To wrong the countenance of a white sitter was easy given the complexities of exposure and photography’s development process, but eventually the photographer would get it right. Subtending all these arguments was a commitment to the preservation of racial difference, especially whiteness. You should never make white flesh “shadow black.” For Holmes, it would be wrong to make a white person appear “dusky,” because dusky, while conjuring a diminution of light, was typically used to describe African Americans, those “dusky” sons and daughters of Africa. Take, for example, a statefigure 70. Photographic portrait of African American schoolchildren, 1859. Albumen, 2 7/8 × 4 1/4 inches, pasted in as a frontispiece for Mission to Fugitive Slaves

early photography was subject to mistakes, leading to

ment of 1867 about suffrage juxtaposing the paleness of

aberrant results: for instance the strange distortions

“woman” to the duskiness of the African race: “If we are

of coloration in an improperly varnished tintype led

to make any new partnership, let it be the fair hand of

in Canada: Being a Branch of the Operations of the Colonial Church and School Society . . . ([London]: Society’s Offices, 1859). Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

to uneven chemical changes (fig. 71). While the jacket,

woman instead of the dusky hand held out to us, no mat-

vest, collar, eyes, beard, and hair appear blonde in col-

ter how filled with bribes.”33 “Dusky” could also be iden-

oration, the man’s face has darkened (reversed) like the

tified with absolute blackness: “I can scarcely realize my

gray background.

feelings at my first sight of colored soldiers. It was all

No wonder customers were confused by photog-

new to me. Everywhere dusky faces were flitting about

raphy’s results, especially when racial identity was at

and they looked so black.”34 Although lighting condi-

stake. Newman’s Manual advised:

tions are quite unlike skin color, which was typically conceived as permanent, they were repeatedly conflated.

94

Chapter Five

figure 71. Damaged half-­plate tintype reversal, 6 3/8 × 8 1/2 inches, 1870s. Tintypes have layers of varnish added to them; this one apparently lost the top layer somehow, perhaps because it had not been applied properly. As a result, the image changed chemically over time.

The “dark brown” sitter who wanted to appear white

manipulations became commonplace in the 1870s and

in his photographic portrait was not alone. In a humor-

1880s but not in the 1860s, when Truth was having most

ous article, a photographer complained about sitters’

of her photographs made. Art historian Tanya Sheehan

increasingly unreasonable expectations that photogra-

has discussed the important role of retouching in the

phy could whiten the “darkey” : “I am . . . used to being

whitening of sitters in the late nineteenth century. As

asked to put new eyebrows on a woman. But the expecta-

evidence, Sheehan seizes the rare opportunity to com-

tions of people who get ‘took’ are growing to such a size

pare an untouched and retouched portrait of Mlle. Artot

that it wouldn’t surprise to me to have a darkey come

published by Hermann Vogel in 1875 (fig. 72).36 Accord-

in and ask to have his complexion made white.”35 This

ing to Sheehan:

(fictional) speaker is a retoucher, whose subsequent The retoucher . . . softened the heavy contrast of light and shade, probably caused by an improper diffusion of light at the time of exposure and exacerbated by the deep contours of the sitter’s face. The result is the appearance of smoother, blemish-­free skin with even pigmentation, fuller cheeks, a straighter mouth, and well-­rested eyes, which contribute to our reading of the subject as youthful, racially white, feminine, and middle class. In her retouched portrait Mlle. Artot becomes, quite simply, the picture of health, as it was defined in medical and popular discourses of the period.37

Sheehan is too confident. In fact retouching makes the young girl’s complexion smoother, but it also makes it slightly darker overall. In the untouched photo, whites likened Mlle. Artot’s cheek, locket, and collar as the lightest portions of the picture, while in the retouched figure 72. Portrait of Mlle. Artot, untouched and retouched, ca. 1875. Albumen print. In Hermann Vogel, The Chemistry of Light and Photography (New York: D. Appleton, 1875), p. 245.

96

Chapter Five

photograph the sitter’s even complexion is markedly darker than her white collar. This modification opens up the possibility that a race-­obsessed society could

question whether Mlle. Artot was of mixed race (is Ma-

the Caucasus Mountains, known to be the most desir-

demoiselle mulatta or creole, or is she perhaps Jewish?).

able women in harems. The card’s verso identifies the

Racial identity is unstable and depends on the viewer’s

photographer as RANDALL, FISHER BLOCK, DETROIT,

predisposition, as experiments have made clear. In the

MICHIGAN, likely James J. Randall, listed in the local di-

1950s, for instance, Kodak researchers showed viewers

rectories of 1864–­65, who was possibly one of Sojourner

a series of photographic prints of “a young lady” and

Truth’s photographers in those important years; he also

asked them “to accept or reject each on the basis of color

was the father of the photographer who made her late

alone. . . . The ‘exact reproduction’ [was] rejected almost

portraits in Detroit in the early 1880s, and after 1874 was

unanimously as ‘beefy.’ On the other hand, when the

the father-­in-­law of Truth’s friend Eliza Seaman Leg-

print of the highest acceptance is masked and compared

gett’s daughter Anne.40 Photographers were helping

with the original subject, it seems quite pale.”38

whites appear whiter in more ways than one; they also

What needs emphasizing here is that there is no objective standard by which to evaluate complexion and

well appreciated the imperative of maintaining racial difference.

racial identity in photographs—­all the more so, ironi-

How, then, would a photographer, possibly Randall,

cally, in black and white pictures. Appearance is entirely

the vendor of Circassian cream, produce a “true picture”

variable according to conditions of lighting. In photo-

of Sojourner Truth, a woman of African descent? How

graphs, backlit figures appear black; but they only ap-

would nineteenth-­century photographers, white men

pear to be of “African descent” when the viewer assumes

in Battle Creek and Detroit and Rochester, determine

this to be a possibility. Sheehan is far too secure about

the rightful appearance of a “clean,” “washed” black

the stability of the improved image. Did smoothness of

face? Here was a woman described as both “dusky” and

complexion signify race more than skin tone during this

“immaculate”;41 a woman who cajoled freedmen to “be

period, and for whom? Any provisional answer would

clean”; and whose Narrative underscored her tidiness:

require careful historical reconstruction of how dif-

“She especially deprecated their filthy habits, and strove

ferent groups (as well as individuals) may have “seen”

to inspire them with a love of neatness and order.”42

“race.”39

Certainly, exposure time in the 1860s, already at least

Photographers were in the complexion business.

thirty seconds, would need to be extended in order to

One photographer used the back of his cartes de vis-

register the subtle shifts in the dark values of her face.

ite to advertise his product: “Randall’s Circassian Cream

But the exposure that accurately registered the details of

Wash, for removing Freckles, Moth, Pimples, Salt Rheum,

Truth’s face would also entail bleaching or overexposure

and all diseases of the skin. For sale by Druggists generally.”

of lighter areas, such as her cap, her shawl, and the yarn

This whitening cream was named for the women of

she holds in her hands. All these objects, I remind you, Shadows and Chemistry

97

98

could have been unlike colors that “take white,” such as

too similar: tonal values in photographs rarely satisfied

“Violet, Blue, Pink, Purple and Magenta.” Overexposure

those hoping to “fix” racial difference. Real skin color

of these areas eliminated their details, reducing them to

confuses the opposition of black and white so funda-

unmodulated shapes of darkness on the negative, and

mental to both photography and received ideas about

unmodulated shapes of paper-­whiteness on the final

race in the United States.43 Black and white photography

print.

naturalizes an American conception of racial difference

Correctly photographing a dark person’s face thus

and can exaggerate and inscribe this simplified binary,

entails a loss of information about the light areas else-

but racial difference is an effect photographers must

where. And of course the inverse also holds true: ex-

work hard to achieve. Photography for all its purported

posing for a light-­skinned person entails loss of detail

indexicality is quite rudimentary in its capacity to make

throughout the dark areas. (Much of the strangeness of

distinctions. The overall chemical reaction entails a

Richard Avedon’s overly proximate view of William Cas-

leveling of registered information; compromises and

by’s face derives from the photographer’s decision to il-

losses are built into its procedures as well as its results.

luminate dramatically the sitter’s white hair, and then to

One must decide what to lose and what to preserve.

overexpose it in order to register distinctly the details of

We can now better appreciate the implications of

his dark face, thereby distorting the shape of his head.)

Truth’s reliance on the term shadow. The “shadow”

In all unmanipulated photographs, gaining informa-

evokes absence, unlike the word photo-­graph, which em-

tion about one tonal range necessarily entails sacrifice

phasizes inscription. Truth’s face and hands come into

about another. This is always the case, although some

view by sacrificing the modulated details of inanimate

complexions might more closely match their surround-

substances such as her clothing and the objects at her

ings in value (or tone). Indeed, this similarity between

side. And her caption, “I Sell the Shadow to Support

figure and ground seems to be the cause of Holmes’s

the Substance,” suggests a comfort with photography’s

anxieties about their potential merging.

limitations. Truth admits that she sells nothing more

In the terminology of Newman’s Manual, Sojourner

than a shadow—­her body’s interception of light and

Truth posed the challenge to photographers of an “un-

its consequent darkening of the positive print even at

usually great contrast” between her appearance and her

the cost of the potential disappearance—­or should I say

surroundings. Her photograph required an overexpo-

dematerialization?—­of the lighter objects surrounding

sure of lights in order to capture the subtleties of darks.

her, including the manual labor and craft attested by

Likewise, a sitter—­of whatever complexion—­who ap-

knit rows of yarn. The rows are gone; the yarn as phys-

proximated the tones of her setting offered the different

ical substance is gone; and the remaining blank white

challenge of insufficient contrast. Too dark, too light,

square and riveting, meandering line of thread, so much

Chapter Five

like script, are no more than their signs. For her face to appear in detail, Sojourner Truth’s labor must lose its materiality. Knitting is inscribed as an absence; the white of paper surrounded by the relative darkness of the world.

Shadows and Chemistry

99

6

Truth’s Illiteracy

He does my writing and wrote this

Sojourner Truth could not read or write. Nor was English her first language.

letter, if there is any mistakes please ex-

As a child and young woman, she spoke Dutch. Truth’s illiteracy was typical

cuse them as I cannot read writing. . . .

among slaves in her Upstate New York community. What distinguishes her

The lady that wrote my book . . . is an excellent woman. —sojourner truth, letter to William Still, January 4, 18761

is the fact that illiteracy did not stop her from having a prolific career as a speaker, correspondent, published author, and political activist. In 1866 suffragette Susan B. Anthony wrote Truth, “Dear Friend: I know that you will be glad to put your mark to the inclosed petition, and get a good many to join

My speeches in the Convention read

it, and send or take it to some member of Congress to present.”3 Sojourner

well. I should like to have the substance

Truth’s commitment to political activism was well known, and so too was

put together, improved a little,

her reliance on a crude and all but anonymous “mark” to register her beliefs.

and published in tract form, headed “Sojourner Truth on Suffrage.” —sojourner truth, “Sojourner Truth on the Press: To the Editor of the World”2

Slavery alone cannot account for Truth’s lifelong incapacity to read or write. According to Carleton Mabee, approximately half of New York’s black population had become literate by 1850, and about 80 percent by 1880.4 Exceptional slaves had taught themselves to read and write under adversity, even prohibition.5 Slave owners rightly linked literacy to resistance and loss of property, because slaves who learned to read and write were able to use their skills to escape.6 A newspaper ad of 1863 underscores the power of 103

writing to obtain freedom: “I have good reason to believe

power, as a touching photograph of an African Ameri-

that he has been passing on a permit written by him-

can school from a later period explicitly announces (fig.

self, fictitiously signed, and may attempt to pass himself

73). On the chalkboard, the lovely black teacher has writ-

off as free Negro.” And of course literacy was a form of

ten: “Knowledge is power. Miss E. M. Elliott, Teacher.”8

7

figure 73. Unknown photographer, “Knowledge is power,” ca. 1870s.

104

Chapter Six

Miss Elliott was modifying a caption on Civil War cartes

Wilson Chinn reading to three freed children. Especially

de visite: “Learning is Wealth.” Part of the fund-­raising

poignant is another paler, most likely later version, in

series devoted to the freed slaves of New Orleans (fig.

which the caption is misspelled as “Lerning is Wealth”

74), this carte de visite poses the formerly enslaved adult

(fig. 75).9

figure 74. Carte de visite, “learning is wealth. Wilson, Charley, Rebecca & Rosa, Slaves from New Orleans,” ca. 1864. Chas. Paxson, photographer, New York. figure 75. Carte de visite, “Lerning is Wealth,” ca. 1864. Chas. Paxson, photographer, New York.

Truth’s Illiteracy

105

For slaves, writing had a profound, nontextual out-

words. She immediately repeated it after me, without

come: escape into self-­possession. No wonder a contem-

missing a letter.”14 Illiterate slaves’ reliance on listening

porary noted that “contrabands had great awe and re-

and memorization, rather than writing and reading,

spect for ‘handwriting.’” And no wonder a slave named

may inform Truth’s scolding of “college students” for

Fisher was so very determined to learn how to write in

writing rather than listening to her lecture: “Noticing

order to escape: “I copied every scrap of writing I could

several of them taking notes while she was speaking, she

find, and thus learned to write a tolerable hand before I

stopped and looking scornfully around, advised to them

knew what the words were that I was copying.” Mim-

to ‘put their notes in their heads.’”15

10

11

icry here was visual, a matter of copying shapes without

Historian Carla Peterson has proposed that “Truth’s

knowing how or what they signified. This is writing in-

links to African and African-­American oral cultures” are

dependent of reading.

evidenced by “her belief in the primacy of the spoken

And there are oral equivalents: slaves who memo-

word, its importance as a mode of action rather than

rized letters spoken in sequence without knowing what

simply an articulation of thought, its magical power

they spelled. Elizabeth Hyde Botume, an early Northern

to create events, to make the past present, and vision

teacher of freed slaves in South Carolina, was amazed

reality.”16 Peterson emphasizes Truth’s “bodied voice,”

by the capacity of her students to memorize what they

her rhythmic embodiment of speech that could “evolve

heard. She recounted the tale of one young girl who as a

into song.”17 Experience of this aspect of Truth’s perfor-

slave memorized sounds in order to relay them to some-

mance is, of course, lost to us, ghosted only by highly

one who could read:

discrepant written accounts of her speeches and songs.

12

The most eloquent is perhaps the penciled sentence on I couldn’t read, but my uncle could. . . . I was waiting-­

the back of one of her cartes de visite: “I heard her” (see

maid, an’ used to help missis to dress in the morning.

figure 127b).

If massa wanted to tell her something he didn’t want

Yet Truth knew that speech disappeared into the air.

me to know, he used to spell it out. I could remember

Her “belief in the primacy of the spoken word” must be

the letters, an’ as soon as I got away, I ran to uncle an’

set against her determination to exploit the longevity

spelled them over to him, and he told me what they

and wider circulation of its printed counterpart.18 Like

meant.13

so many of her African American peers, she embraced publication as the means to support herself and also as

106

When Botume doubted the girl’s story, she said, “‘Try

a political tool.19 She knew that the printed word, like

me, missis! Try me, an’ see!’ So I spelled a long sentence

the photograph, could “represent a presence in absen-

as rapidly as possible, without stopping between the

tia.”20 As Frances Cody has argued concerning literacy

Chapter Six

campaigns in rural India, “Written language has been so

reversed lettering, mirror imaging, and poor small-­

attractive to progressive activism . . . precisely because

motor skills with the writing implement (figs. 76–­77),26

it has the capacity both to endure over time and to cir-

all the more marked given her expertise in knitting.

culate, and so transcend the interpretive constraints im-

Truth’s injury of her right hand at the age of twenty-­

posed by a single physical context of enunciation.” To

nine may have exacerbated matters. Sometime in the

which I would add that Truth especially appreciated the

winter or spring of 1826, while she was a slave, her hand

power of turning the singular handwritten statement

was hurt in an accident that cut off a portion of the in-

into the printed publication. As a woman who did not

dex finger and left the others misshapen. The Narrative

write, she held no special attachment to the handwrit-

refers only to her “badly diseased hand” without speci-

ten records of her own statements; they were never au-

fying the cause, but scholars assert that she had sliced

tographic for Truth. The handwritten letter was for her

her finger while working in the fields, perhaps with a

already an arbitrary instantiation of her speech, a ver-

scythe (the “disease” presumably followed that wound-

sion whose substance mattered but whose ever-­shifting

ing).27 As Nell Irvin Painter has pointed out, Susan B. An-

form did not. (In Nelson Goodman’s terms, Sojourner

thony in her speeches deceptively cast Truth’s mutilated

Truth, more fully than many authors, conceived of all

hand as the result of a beating: “One of her fingers was

her writings as allographic, not autographic.)

chopped off by her cruel master in a moment of anger.”28

21

22

Given Truth’s reliance on the circulation of her

Anthony was exaggerating; Truth’s injury was not due

printed words, it is all the more surprising that she

to slavery’s overt violence. Yet the maiming of her hand

remained illiterate. Early attempts had been made to

prolonged her enslavement. Insisting that the accident

instruct her. According to Gertrude Dumont, who was

entailed his loss of labor, her master, John Dumont, de-

a child when her father purchased thirteen-­year-­old

faulted on his agreement to emancipate her on July 4,

Isabella in 1810, she was “uncommonly smart,” but “it

1827 (six months before all slaves were to be freed in the

seemed almost impossible to teach her anything.” As a

state of New York).29 Whether the loss of normal move-

child, Truth had reportedly learned English with some

ment in her right hand contributed to her inability to

difficulty. As an adult, she was unable to learn how to

wield a pencil effectively is unclear, but surely it made

read or write despite efforts to teach her. Her Narrative

writing, perhaps knitting, more arduous.

23

24

includes a newspaper account in which she admitted

Historians have rightly emphasized the remarkable

that “when liberated, and an attempt was made to ed-

ways Truth overcame the challenges posed by her illit-

25

ucate her . . . she could never get beyond her a b, abs.”

eracy. She never hid the fact that she could not read or

It is possible that Truth was dyslexic, as Carleton Mabee

write; instead, she used her illiteracy to assert another

has suggested; her only two known signatures evidence

form of authority: “I tell you I can’t read a book, but I Truth’s Illiteracy

figure 76. Sojourner Truth’s signature in an autograph book, ca. 1876. Community Archives of Heritage Battle Creek, Michigan. figure 77. Sojourner Truth’s signature. Verso of carte de visite of Sojourner Truth standing (fig. 15), Indiana, ca. 1861. Chicago History Museum.

107

can read de people” (a claim which phrenologist Nelson

ically as an activist to large crowds, often anticipating

Sizer also made in his report of 1867). Truth claimed

the publication of her speeches in the press. By con-

that she could “read” what was important, and for this

trast, her frustrations were expressed in personal letters.

reason she could “do what is right better”:

­Illiteracy made Truth dependent; she had to work espe-

30

cially hard to communicate across distances, and she You know, children, I don’t read such small stuff as

could feel exasperated by her reliance on others. Listen

letters, I read men and nations. I can see through a

to her frustration in a letter of 1864, the year she copy-

millstone, though I can’t see through a spelling-­book.

righted her photographs: “Oh, if I could but write and

What a narrow idea a reading qualification is for a

answer [letters] myself !”35 In another letter of 1867, she

voter! I know and do what is right better than many

instructed her recipient to share the letter: “I want you

big men who read.31

to read this to Aunt Mary, tell her I would write to her, but I have hard work to get so many letters written.”36

Truth’s audacious refusal to be intimidated by her lack

Truth’s reference here to “get[ting] so many letters

of formal education irritated Frederick Douglass, who

written” reminds us how prolific she was as a correspon-

aspired to intellectual accomplishment. According to

dent. Letters announced her arrival, her departures, her

Douglass, Truth, “a genuine specimen of the uncultured

needed favors, her speaking schedule, the writings she

negro,” “seemed to feel it her duty to ridicule my efforts

wished to have published, the books and photographs

to speak and act like a person of cultivation and refine-

she wished to sell, even the blankets she required. And

ment.” Repeatedly, Truth targeted those who boasted

each of her letters had to be written by somebody other

of their formal learning—­not just Douglass, not just the

than herself. We know that another ex-­slave, Mattie

“many big men who read,” but the clergy, “big Greek-­

Jackson, complained that she had to pay twenty-­five

crammed mouthing men, who, for many a long century

cents per letter for such services in the 1860s.37 This was a

had been befogging the world, and getting its affairs

substantial outlay; Truth charged only twenty-­five cents

into the most terrible snarl and confusion, and then

for her book. While high costs motivated Mattie Jack-

when women came to their assistance cried ‘shame on

son to learn how to read and write, Truth relied all her

women!’”

life on friends and family, who did not charge her. Her

32

33

Still, it is wrong to conclude that Sojourner Truth was “unconcerned about her inability to read or write.”

108

grandson Samuel Banks served as her companion and

34

primary scribe until his tragic death in 1876; thereafter

Her boldest pronouncements about the advantages of

her younger grandson Willie Boyd attempted to fulfill

her illiteracy were made on the stump to stir audiences

that role.38 Her daughters, slaves until their adulthood,

on behalf of political change; she was speaking polem-

could not help; they too were illiterate.

Chapter Six

Truth depended on others not only to write for her

cial Advertiser, the World, the Times, the Herald, the

but also to read to her. A letter of 1865 informed her

Tribune, and the Sun, all passed in review. The World

friend Amy Post: “Miss Haviland is here on business

seemed to please Sojourner more than any other jour-

and will remain a week or ten days longer. She does the

nal. She said she liked the wit of the World’s reporter;

reading and writing for me while here.”39 Writing for

all the little texts running through the speeches, such

Truth must have been laborious given her continual

as “Sojourner on Popping Up,” “No Grumbling,”

letter-­writing, but reading to her would have been time-­

“Digging Stumps,” “Biz,” to show what is coming, so

consuming as well because she was an avid consumer

that one can get ready to cry or laugh, as the case may

of newspapers. Recall her dismissal of Stowe’s Libyan

be—­a kind of sign-­board, a milestone, to tell where

Sibyl in 1864: “Read me something that is going on now,

we are going, and how fast we can go. The readers then

something about this great war.”40 That same year, she

call her attention to the solid columns of the other

requested that a newspaper be mailed to the community

papers, and the versification of the World. She said she

of freedmen whose lives she wished to improve: “Ask Mr.

did not like the dead calm. She liked the breaking up

Oliver Johnson to please send me the Standard while I

into verses, like her songs.42

am here, as many of the colored people like to hear what is going on, and to know what is being done for them.

Eight newspapers “duly read and considered”! Stan-

Sammy, my grandson, reads for them.”

ton offers us evidence of Truth’s keen appetite for the

41

Truth was a sophisticated consumer of the news.

news as well as the seriousness of her analysis. She also

She had newspapers read to her, not solely for informa-

tells us that the opposition of literate and oral cultures

tion as to “what is going on,” but also to compare their

can be overstated. Because of Truth’s illiteracy, reading

different accounts of the news, including her speeches.

newspapers here becomes a communal but exacting

Elizabeth Cady Stanton described an afternoon Truth

oral event.43 Truth stated that she preferred children as

devoted to studying the press:

readers, because they “would re-­read the same sentence to her as often as she wished, and without comment.”44

Children, as there is no school to-­day, will you read

Truth expected to be able to do her own literary (and

Sojourner the reports of the Convention? I want to

political) analysis. Here, however, we also get a glimpse

see whether these young sprigs of the press do me

of communal discussion.

justice . . . Sojourner then gathered up her shawl, and

And because of Truth’s status as listener, the World’s

walked into the parlor in a stately manner, and there,

subtitles are redefined as helpful auditory punctuations

surrounded by the children, the papers were duly read

in the lengthy, continuous reading of prose—­eruptions

and considered. The Express, the Post, the Commer-

of wit, rhetorical exclamations preparing listeners, like Truth’s Illiteracy

109

the verses of her song, for “what is coming, so that one

suffrage,’ they would not be so afraid to handle the ques-

can get ready to cry or laugh, as the case may be.” But

tion.”46 The phrase “my speeches read well” attests to

Truth’s experience is not solely oral. Her readers show

her double consciousness of her speech as an oral and a

her what the different newspaper articles look like; they

textual utterance, as something she says and something

compare “the solid columns of the other papers, and the

friends read back to her and others read as texts. She

versification of the World,” the ways subheadings func-

anticipates the translation of the spoken word into the

tioned as “sign-­boards.” In his analysis of the modern

written, and she has a specific criterion for the written

shift from oral to print cultures, Walter Ong emphasizes

word. Because her speeches “read well,” they should be

that “texts are thing-­like, immobilized in visual space”

published as a tract that boldly incorporates her name,

and thus “subject to . . . ‘backward scanning.’” When

her authorship, into its very title: Sojourner Truth on

Truth evaluated the layout of the World, she analyzed the

Suffrage. And she imagines that title as a “heading”—­

text as a visual artifact even as she simultaneously, and

she knows what titles in publications look like and

independently, apprehended its implications: the way

where they go: at the top.

45

110

subtitles punctuate prose with witty exclamations; the

Again, the woman who could not read understood

way the article’s divisions produced shorter passages to

and appreciated the mechanics and appearance of pub-

be comprehended; the way subheadings allowed readers

lication. Such an appreciation inspired her to collect

and listeners to track shifts in argument. Truth offers an

newspaper articles in her scrapbooks, only the last of

analysis that is partly textual and partly visual; she dis-

which exists today (fig. 78). Here we see clippings as

likes “the dead calm” of uninterrupted columns—­one

physical things with a great variety of appearances,

imagines the impenetrable rectangle of type as inert and

torn and cut by scissors, glued and aged. But across the

deathly, a tombstone perhaps—­and prefers instead the

examples, in numerous fonts, the name “SOJOURNER

visible subdivision of the text by subheadings that rec-

TRUTH” (sometimes “Sojourner Truth”) stands out, cer-

reate the rhythmic breaks in her songs. She thereby an-

tainly as boldly as did the word Jesus to the illiterate Af-

alyzes published writing by criteria that are partly oral,

rican American woman who scanned the Bible looking

partly visual, partly rhetorical.

for it; she “would trace her finger through the scripture,

Truth also anticipated how her own speeches would

word by word, page by page, until she came upon the

translate into written form: “My speeches in the Conven-

sign for the Lord. ‘And oh!’ she said to the visitor, ‘how

tion read well. I should like to have the substance put to-

dat name started up like a light in the dark, and I say,

gether, improved a little, and published in tract form,

‘Dere’s de name of my Jesus!’ It was de on’y one word I

headed ‘Sojourner Truth on Suffrage’; for if these timid

knew . . . but dat one word made me hunger for more.’”47

men, like Greeley, knew that Truth was out for ‘universal

Surely for Truth, her name in capital letters also “started

Chapter Six

figure 78. Page from Sojourner Truth’s third and only remaining scrapbook. Berenice Bryant Lowe Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Photograph courtesy of the Bentley Historical Library.

up like a light in the dark”! Note too the discernment re-

mortgage my little house and with the expenses of my

quired to arrange her clippings, and finally, the addition

sickness I am between 3 and 400 dollars in debt, and

by a literate friend of the handwritten inscription: “The

the book was got up to pay my debts and to help in my

Liberator Nov 4th 1879.”

old age. . . .

Yet while Truth could exercise discernment regard-

If I should live I expect to come to Philadelphia

ing texts, she could not read. If dependency on others

to that great time. . . . I will have an opportunity to

to read and write could foster communal events such as

see all my old friends. And I can dispose of my books

the one described by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, illiteracy

and raise the mortgage of my house and have it free

also made Truth vulnerable. Without helpers, she was

from debt once more. I had it all paid for but sickness

far more isolated than her literate friends. Illiteracy

brought me in debt. Samuel’s funeral expenses costed

threatened to consign her to the physical space in which

me a great [deal] and I did not want him buried by the

she lived, the distances that she could traverse with her

town, and I have not paid them all yet.49

body and her speech. When she was ill and unable to travel, her world was very small unless others wrote and

Truth needed to sell her books in order to free herself

read for her. At the very end of Truth’s life, in July of

from debt. But the very process of having a letter writ-

1883, her devoted friend Frances Titus wrote a letter to

ten was trying, and she felt compelled to remind her ad-

Amy Post to which she added a quick note: “Am going

dressee of her reliance on a scribe and reader:

over to sit with Soj & read to her. She gets so lonely.”

48

An 1876 letter also offers a glimpse of the ramifi-

My friends have advised me to secure a place [because

cations of her illiteracy. Atypically, this missive is ad-

of ] the great rush of people. I have no one to send

dressed to a prosperous and respected black rather than

down to see about it. My grandson [Samuel] the one I

white recipient, the Philadelphia businessman and au-

depended on is dead. I have got another grandson Wil-

thor William Still, whom Truth had known since the

lie who is 14 years old, but he is too young to go down

1850s when he ran the Underground Railroad in that

there to see about a place as he has never be in a large

city. Now in her late seventies, Truth was writing to ask

city. He does my writing and wrote this letter, if there is

for help securing lodgings during the Centennial Ex-

any mistakes please excuse them as I cannot read writing.

hibition of 1876 where she hoped to sell her books. She

He must come with me down there to do my writing

opens by explaining frankly why she needed to raise

and reading, and his mother to see me. I am very anx-

money:

ious to come down there for I think I can sell my books fast and then I can pay my debts for I cannot do as I

My expenses in my sickness was heavy and I had to 112

Chapter Six

used to do for I cannot travel and brouse about. . . .

The lady that wrote my book will be down there

times uneducated, sometimes sophisticated, sometimes

too but she will provide a place for herself. She is

in southern dialect. All extant written texts attributed to

an excellent woman. I would send a book but it cost

Truth, whether handwritten or published, whether let-

something more than my limited means can afford.

ters or transcribed speeches, all leave us forever unsure:

But I will send a circular.50

how did Truth speak? The purported transcriptions of her most famous speeches famously differ not only in

Truth’s vulnerability is nowhere so evident as in this

style but in content.52 Remember Truth’s correction of

letter, written by her fourteen-­year-­old grandson, Wil-

Stowe’s account of their conversation: “I never make use

lie, the year after Samuel tragically died of a ruptured

of the word honey.”

aneurysm at the age of twenty-­three. In this letter to a

Most important, Truth’s reliance on “writing” by

respected and literate African American businessman,

others left her vulnerable to questions about her au-

Truth draws attention to her illiteracy, because she

thorship. The statement that Willie “does my writing

wishes to apologize in advance for the mistakes she an-

and wrote this letter” obviously refers to her grand-

ticipates Willie will make. Clearly, she did not want Wil-

son’s role as a scribe, but the same wording later in the

lie’s errors to be ascribed to her; she would not have said,

letter—­“ The lady that wrote my book”—­inadvertently

“he has never be in a large city”! or “My expenses . . . was

raises questions as to who should be deemed the author

heavy” or “if there is any mistakes”! She knew that if she

of Truth’s Narrative. In what sense did “the lady” “write”

were able to read, she could have checked her grandson’s

her book? Was this “excellent woman,” like Willie,

writing. But she was unable to correct his mistakes (nor

simply an amanuensis transcribing her oral dictation?

could his mother, for the same reason). She therefore

Or was “the lady” putting words in her book if not her

sent the missive in a state of blind trust.

mouth? Authorship is at issue here, and so too is power.

51

Throughout her life, over and over again, with each

An amanuensis, after all, means “a slave at hand [writ-

posted letter, Truth was forced to trust that her scribes

ing].”53 When Truth, the ex-­slave, relied on persons to

represented her as she wished to be represented. In fact

write for her, she was entirely dependent on them, but

a consequence of her illiteracy was the discrepant tran-

she also dictated to them, making them her “slaves at

scription of her utterances; not only did words change,

hand.” The question is, who dictated to whom?54 The

but so too did the handwriting itself. One reads Truth’s

verb to write fails to distinguish between transcription

letters in radically unlike script: the penmanship can be

and authorship.

elegant, refined, and neat, or hasty, crude, and childlike,

Truth was even more vulnerable as an author, be-

with cross-­outs and insertions (figs. 79–­80). In print too,

cause she had no (repeatable, legible) signature by which

she exists as an incoherent, contradictory voice: some-

to claim authorship of her texts. As Augusta Rohrbach Truth’s Illiteracy

113

figure 79. Sojourner Truth, letter to Mary Gale, February 25, 1864. Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

figure 80. Sojourner Truth, letter to Gerrit Smith written by grandson “Willie” Boyd, March 23, 1871. Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Libraries, Syracuse, New York. Photograph courtesy of Syracuse University Libraries.

has pointed out, nineteenth-­century African American

property. The curious nexus of presence and absence,

authors often featured their signatures beneath their

and of calculation and accord, known as the signature

engraved portraits facing their publications’ title pages

appears to represent, more than print, “the eccentric-

(figs. 81–­82).55 If these portraits defined former slaves as

ity of the individual whose steady or unsteady hand

authors, and also the inverse, defining authors as black

traces the marks . . . [,] marks the soul within itself, for

(producing “the black body with the black text”), the

the hand that scripts the text marks the frailty of all

supplementary signatures bound blackness to literacy.56

flesh in the very materiality of the text.”59

“Just as ‘written by him/herself ’ became a trademark of the genre [of slave narratives], a printed signature was

More than print, handwriting marks “the eccentricity of

the mark of successful authorship.” Signatures served

the individual” and his unique rights of property as well

to underscore not only the writers’ literacy but also their

as his physical vulnerability.

57

personal responsibility for the text and their bodily

Despite her illiteracy, despite her lack of a signature

identification with it. In Elizabeth Burns Coleman’s

of her own, Truth was an avid collector of autographs.

words, “The signature allows us to ascribe responsibil-

She asked her many acquaintances to write their names

ity to speech acts in a way that the name does not, as the

in her scrapbooks; sometimes they added a phrase or

signature is a different kind of creature to the name . . . a

two. Her impulse to collect signatures was shared by

signature is indexical, standing in for the word ‘I’” and

many of her contemporaries. Mid-­nineteenth-­century

also the writer’s hand, his or her embodiment.

letters and memoirs are frequently punctuated by the

58

The signature may impute responsibility for speech acts, but it also stands for the individual’s right to prop-

laments of officers, politicians, and celebrities besieged by requests for autographs:

erty. In Blackness and Value (1999), Lindon Barrett links signature, literacy, and the “self-­possessing subject”:

The crowd, chiefly ladies, rushed in and embarrassed the General with every possible outburst of affection,

As particularly assumed in the form of the signature,

to which he could only reply, “Thank you, you’re

literacy both becomes an instrumental redaction of

very kind.” He gave them his autographs in books and

“self-­interested contractual relations with others”

on scraps of paper, cut a button from his coat for a

and the visible and privileged sign of the possessive

little girl and then submitted patiently to an attack

human subject. The individual cursive script of the

by the others, who soon stripped the coat of nearly

signature, as a redaction of literacy—­which is in

all the remaining buttons. But when they looked

turn a redaction of the self-­possessing subject—­is a

beseechingly at his hair, which was thin, he drew

figure of special capacity in the service of the rights of

the line there.60 Truth’s Illiteracy

115

figure 81a, b. Frontispiece and title page for Frederick Doug­lass, My Bondage and My Freedom (New York: Miller, Orton and Mulligan, 1855). figure 82. Frontispiece and title page for Josiah Henson, Truth Stranger than Fiction (Boston: John P. Jewett; Cleveland: Henry P. B. Jewett, 1858).

In this passage, desire for autographs exists in a con-

or indices of revered persons coexisted with modern

tinuum with an urge to touch and collect relics from

technologies such as photography. A military officer

the body itself: buttons and hair. Sojourner Truth her-

complained, “About half Farragut’s letters are for au-

self had owned such a memento. Gerrit Smith had sent

tographs and what is I think a little impudent Cartes

her a note in 1868: “For Sojourner Truth. The immortal

de visite, the latter being an article which costs money

Thomas Clarkson sent locks of his hair to me. Attached

and can be bought currently.”62 Along with bodily rel-

to this paper is a single hair from one of those locks.”61

ics, collectors sought both autographs and cartes de

The long-­standing impulse to collect bodily relics

visite, but as this correspondent noted, autographs Truth’s Illiteracy

117

had the advantage of costing only time, and sometimes postage.63 Midcentury witnessed the rise in popularity of cheap autograph facsimile albums (they had once been prohibitively expensive luxury items) as well as autograph quilts. The authenticity of each signature incorporated by Adeline Harris Sears in her magnificent autograph quilt made between 1856 and 1863 heightened its value to its maker and also to today’s viewers at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (fig. 83).64 In 1841 Edgar Allan Poe had published a three-­part article entitled “A Chapter on Autography,” reproducing and interpreting the signatures of the “most noted among the living literati of the country.”65 He begins by asserting that the autograph functions as a substitute for the person, although it is less desirable than a portrait: “Next to the person of a distinguished man of letters, we desire to see his portrait—­next to his portrait, his autograph.”66 Poe analyzed written manuscripts as well as signatures, sometimes comparing the two, but his articles reproduced only the signatures. He offered precise and visually sensitive formal analysis of those he found revelatory—­the consistent exception being the autographs of editors. According to Poe, the writing of one such professional had “no marked characteristics, and like that of almost every editor in the country, has been so modified by the circumstances of his position, as to afford no certain

figure 83. Adeline Harris Sears, detail of autograph quilt, 1856–­63. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

118

Chapter Six

indication of the mental features.”67 Clerks suffered the same fate. Poe’s analysis dates from the 1840s. By mid-­century, voices were denouncing the fad. In 1869 an article entitled “Autograph-­omania” emphasized how annoying autograph seekers were to those famous enough to be solicited: “In how many biographies of statesmen and authors of modern times do we read of the troubles caused by autographic harpies! . . . ‘those musquitoes of literature’ as [Washington] Irving called them.”68 Harpies, mosquitoes, vampires: autograph seekers were the object of scorn. Yet the same author admits that “the paramount benefit arising from the prosecution of this hobby, is the familiarity the collector acquires with contemporaneous history. His souvenirs are valueless to him, unless he is thoroughly informed of the individuals they represent.”69 Truth cared about “contemporaneous history.” She was collecting the autographs of the many important activists, politicians, and thinkers with whom she was acquainted (fig. 84). A Boston newspaper article, included in the later editions of her Narrative, noted, “She carries with her three small books in which she has inscribed the autographs of nearly all the eminent people in America.”70 Her collection is therefore an index of her intimate relation with the men and women who were making history. Like her Narrative, her autograph collection comprises a form of autobiography. As figure 84. “Autographs of Distinguished Persons.” In Narrative of Sojourner Truth (1875), pp. 313–­15.

Jean Baudrillard has stated, “It is invariably oneself that one collects.”71 But the self so constructed was not private. Against those who interpret saving ephemera as Truth’s Illiteracy

119

“a means of preserving the secret self in the face of . . .

through which she journeyed. She returned to Mich-

growing technological exposure,” Lisa Reid Ricker

igan with scrolls of signatures as trophies of success,

has rightly argued that “autograph albums retained

over which she felt as jubilant as “great Caesar bring-

a semi-­public status, both as a result of their circula-

ing captives home to Rome.”75

tion within communities and the nature of what was written within them.”72 An autograph collection could

According to this journalist, Truth had turned the

function as auto­biography because it constructed a pub-

­tables, making the elite of her time her subjects. By col-

lic life. Even in the sixteenth century, the collecting of

lecting, she exercised power.

commonplaces was “collective instead of individualist,

Still, it is worth pausing over an illiterate woman’s

published instead of private, [and] inscriptive instead of

decision to collect signatures that she could not read,

voice-­centered.”

perhaps especially given that she had no signature of

73

Truth was gathering a community and construct-

her own. More specifically, what did Truth see when she

ing a public self through her collection of signatures,

looked at the handwritten signs of individuality that

as attested by the newspaper coverage of her accom­

were inscribed in her three small books? Did she cor-

plishment:

relate persons with the overall shapes of their names? Was Lincoln’s signature distinctive enough that she

To all calling upon her, she asks the question, “Don’t

might remember it in its entirety as a sign, just as she

you want to write your name in de Book of Life?” . . .

could recognize her own printed name in newspaper

and Truth is usually gratified by the chirography of

clippings? Or did Truth rely on others to read her au-

her visitor, in some manner, according to the pleasure

tographs as they read the letters from her friends? Did

of the writer. The book in question contains scores

she imagine the autographs less as distinctive signs—­

of names, of different individuals throughout the

individual portraits—­and more as a collection, a com-

country, including many persons of note, senators,

munity of sorts, whose value resided in the assembly,

authors, politicians, etc.74

not in any given entry? To what extent did she value handwriting as such? She certainly valued the collection

A Kansas paper went so far as to link Truth’s collecting

itself: “This she proposes sometime to have printed in

with military triumph, even the seizure of “captives”:

facsimiles. She calls them the ‘Book of Life.’”76 The word facsimiles suggests she cared about what her collected

Her “Book of Life,” which she always carries with her,

120

autographs looked like.

contains autograph letters from the most influen-

But Truth conceived of her autographs, her “Book

tial and intelligent people residing in those places

of Life,” as reproducible in print form. Appended to

Chapter Six

later editions of her Narrative, this section is entitled “Autographs of Distinguished Persons, WHO HAVE BEFRIENDED SOJOURNER TRUTH BY WORDS OF SYMPATHY AND MATERIAL AID.” As we know, there were plenty of precedents for the publication of signatures. Poe’s three articles of 1841 were popular because they offered readers inexpensive facsimiles; and those facsimiles were essential to his essay, permitting the reader to compare the signatures with his visual analyses. Autographs were also reproduced photographically: a handwritten letter by President Lincoln to an old friend was reproduced on a carte de visite and copyrighted, presumably by the photographer (fig. 85). Truth, like Poe and like this photographer, collected the autograph, ultimate emblem of the uniqueness of handwriting, only to imagine turning it into mechanically reproduced publication. How odd given that autographs were valued as indexical signs of the individual, registrations of the hand’s unique actions in applying pen to paper. Authentic autographs had begun to accrue value in the 1850s, but the nineteenth century nonetheless witnessed their repeated mechanical r­ eproduction.77 At about that time, a frustrated observer juxtaposed

There is something furtive about a true autograph. We should come by it obliquely, and not by direct

the value of truly personal script to the machine-­made.

attack. A name written at the request of a stranger is

According to this commentator, signatures written

only about as valuable as the same name stamped by

without forethought were more authentic and revela-

machinery. To have any character, it should have been

tory of inner character; those made on demand might as

written in a careless or confidential moment, with-

well have been mechanically printed, because they were

out the recollection that there was a collection in the

as bereft of individuality as the human face emptied by

world. As the iron grasp of the daguerreotype-­chair

the daguerreotype:

magnetically empties the face of all human expres-

Truth’s Illiteracy

figure 85a, b. Carte de visite, “Autograph Letter, President Lincoln to John Hanks.” Copyright 1865, presumably by the photographer, John D. Bradlee.

121

sion, so does the vise-­like compulsion of an abrupt

torture slaves. Yet Truth’s history demonstrates that

demand turn one’s patronymic, with its baptismal

an illiterate person could be more dependent on the

additions, into a mere row of soulless letters, from

machine-­made, not less. If the illiterate’s hand could

which no sane clairvoyant could deduce anything.78

make only an anonymous mark, the printing of her name could ascribe authorship. And the publication of

The nineteenth century has been characterized as

Truth’s collected autographs turned other people’s liter-

a century “marked by a memory crisis” that fostered a

acy into her possession, an autobiography of her polit-

belief “that memory needed to be ‘housed outside the

ical activism and her ever-­growing network of eminent

mind—­elsewhere, in things.’” Both autographs and

supporters. Unpublished, the autographs would have

photographs promised to keep in view those persons

recorded her expansive network, but Truth’s deeply po-

who were now absent or lost; both offered vivid indices

litical inclinations, ambition, and illiteracy would have

of a physical presence long past. But these mementos

made a strictly private memento hold little value for her.

also violently redefined persons as portable, collectible

Truth had no reason to fetishize the handwritten.

things: whether “a mere row of soulless letters” pro-

Her illiteracy made her a greater, not a lesser, advocate

duced under the duress of a “vise-­like” grip, or a face

of the modern technology of printing. For this reason,

emptied of expression by “the iron grasp” of the photo-

a printed claim of property rights would be especially

graphic studio’s imprisoning chair.

useful to her. Given that she had no (handwritten) signa-

79

This critic denounces the nineteenth-­century taste for photographs and autographs by likening both to a repression by iron instruments akin to those used to

122

Chapter Six

ture, she relied on a legal copyright to assert her authorial and proprietary rights to her creations.

7

Truth’s Copyright

Nothing can be an object of property

“I Sell the Shadow to Support the Substance. Sojourner Truth.” Truth’s

which has not a corporal substance.

cartes de visite, made one hundred years before Avedon’s photograph of

—justice smith thompson in

William Casby, are meditations by a former slave on value and authorship.

Wheaton v. Peters, 18341

The caption alone makes this abundantly clear. While Avedon’s photograph

No one has a copyright on his own face. —british copyright commissioner, 18792

depends on a title that must be appended to the photograph by publishers, the majority of Truth’s portrait cards incorporate text into the photographic object. Her cartes de visite concede the need for a textual mooring. And with her caption, the illiterate orator instantiates herself as author as well as named sitter. Sojourner Truth chose to caption her cards with a first-­person, transitive (active) sentence: “I sell the shadow.” The first person positions her as author, the person who speaks. The first person, James W. Pennebaker has argued, is used more frequently when the speaker is aware of her relative weakness: people “tend to pay more attention to themselves in settings where they are subordinate to more powerful others.”3 In the simplest way, “I” instantiates a (nominative) subject position against those who would conceive of Sojourner Truth as an object. For a slave (or former slave), it holds nothing less 123

than the power of turning her status as property into an

and submission.”8 But Sojourner Truth, runaway slave,

abrogation of subjecthood. Moreover, Truth’s caption

renamed herself and asserts her right to establish “an

emphasizes her agency in the present tense. Unlike Dave

autobiographical pact” with the readers and viewers of

the potter, who inscribed his clay jars with first-­person

her cartes de visite.9 Her chosen proper name imprinted

statements in the past tense, “I made this,” Sojourner

on every card following her caption insists on the one-­

Truth insists on an ongoing first-­person present—­an

to-­one identification of author (proper name), person

enduring “I who act,” I who sell. Against photography’s

(I), and person portrayed.

powerful memorialization—­its fixing of that which

Peter Dorsey has emphasized that white abolitionists

“has been”—­Truth insists on a perpetual present in

“instructed” Frederick Douglass “to stick to ‘the facts’

which she as subject speaks and in which she as subject

while speaking publicly, so that they could ‘take care of

acts. She authors her utterance forever now.

the philosophy.’” Defining Douglass as “better fitted to

But while “pronouns stand for particulars, [they]

speak than to write,” the Garrisonians also “preferred

are ambiguous: it is only by the context or the circum-

Douglass to be a metaphor rather than to make meta-

4

stances that we know what particulars they stand for.”

phors, to be an object of slavery rather than an originat-

Thus Truth’s need to include her (self-­chosen) proper

ing subject.”10 Sojourner Truth had fewer claims to the

name as author of her first-­person statement: “I Sell the

right to deploy language metaphorically, yet her caption

Shadow to Support the Substance. Sojourner Truth.”

not only asserted her authorial voice in print—­“I sell”—­

According to Philippe Lejeune’s analysis of the “contrac-

but also underscored her authorship of metaphor: “the

tual obligation” specific to the genre of autobiography,

shadow to support the substance.”

the proper name of the author “refers not to a person

Besides aggregating multiple inscriptions of self in

[but to] a person who writes and publishes.” He notes,

the first and third person on the front of her cartes de

“The name on the text’s cover, which is also the name

visite, Truth inserts herself on the back as object of the

behind the ‘I’ of the autobiographical narrative, seals a

copyright’s prepositional phrase: “Entered according

6

contractual obligation between the writer and reader.”

to the Act of Congress in the year 1864 by SOJOURNER

Yet slave narratives “repeatedly refuse” this contractual

TRUTH, In the Clerk’s Office of the U.S. District Court,

agreement, because the name on the cover, the proper

for the Eastern District of Mich.” Truth was compound-

name itself, may not be that of the slave but that of the

ing claims to her position as subject from what we might

slave master, and thus a lingering sign of his power.

7

call a variety of points of view: her self-­chosen name,

Rather than “the name of the text’s ‘I,’” the proper name

her caption’s inscription of “I who act,” and her name

of the slave is “the site of contest, or the moment of

yet again on the card’s back, as she who acted in the

conflict, which is only resolved . . . through violence

past by having entered her claim in the Clerk’s Office

5

124

Chapter Seven

in 1864. Truth was claiming not just legal rights and

stantly reiterate in an object of representation what is al-

authorship but personhood’s complexity, its multiple

legedly natural for any self-­possessed person ‘upsets the

­positionalities.

foundational divide between subject and thing.’ These

Her caption also makes her the proprietor: she is

photographs [of Douglass] blur the divide between pro-

able to sell because she possesses. But what is it that she

prietor and property; Douglass’s own self-­possession is

sells? A shadow, she tells us, a shadow that can be sold.

visually asserted most when others own and recognize

Truth seems fully to have understood the implications

this image.”13 Photography provides the autonomous,

of her sale of her image. According to an 1870 issue of

self-­contained individual with “a new, quotidian pre-

the New York World, she said that she herself “used to be

sentation of self-­containment” and the power “to differ-

sold for other people’s benefit, but now she sold herself

entiate self from others.”14 The medium offers a means

for her own.”11 In the 1860s, the decade of the Civil War,

to control the presentation of self, but this exercise in

the word selling inexorably conjured slavery, especially

self-­scrutiny coexists with the need to be recognized by

when the status of black persons was at issue. Indeed,

others. As cultural historian Jane Gaines has argued,

this statement implies that the photographic image of

the right to personhood as private property secures the

her self can be conflated with a self that was formerly

“right to publicity.”15

defined as property.

The role of photography in a former slave’s claims to

Some thinkers are inclined to interpret Truth’s re-

personhood requires an examination of copyright law.

course to the sale of photographic images of herself as

Copyright decisions were as contradictory during the

a negative consequence of her enslavement. Accord-

nineteenth century as they are now; the borders between

ing to this line of reasoning, Truth knew in her bones

privacy and publicity were ultimately contradictory as

that persons could be treated as commodities, and thus

well, leading Gaines to entitle an article “The Absurdity

presumed that she needed to find a way to commod-

of Property in the Person.” But Gaines also recognizes

ify her self, or her body. Trademarking herself, some

the stakes at issue. The fact of slavery forces her to argue

have argued, is analogous to the branding of slaves; her

that although

copyright can be likened to the letters burned into the forehead of Wilson Chinn (fig. 89). But I resist this neg-

it may seem a long distance between, on the one hand,

ative (to my mind belittling) interpretation of Truth’s

celebrity image litigation and, on the other, right

captioned cartes de visite.12 As Ginger Hill has argued

of privacy disputes and the systematic treatment of

in her probing analysis of Frederick Douglass’s lectures

human beings as fungible property. . . . [The] right to

on photography, self-­mastery, even self-­objectification,

property in ourselves as a legal defense stands at one

was an imperative for former slaves: “The need to con-

end of a continuum, with the transfer of property in Truth’s Copyright

125

ourselves and ultimately the loss of property in our-

Truth’s caption refuses to conflate image and body.

selves in the middle. At the other end of the contin-

Instead, her statement insists that shadow and sub-

uum stands “no right to property in ourselves,” which

stance are incommensurate. The power of the phrase

in its most extreme form is human enslavement.16

nevertheless derives from the condition of slavery that is its foil. Here the woman who once was a fugitive slave

It may have been absurd, in Gaines’s words, for So-

and who renamed herself Sojourner, the peripatetic

journer Truth to claim property in her person, to claim

wanderer, proposes the sale of the shadow her body has

her right to copyright her image; but her quixotic at-

left behind. The cast shadow is by definition noniden-

tempt was part of her refusal as a former slave to be-

tical with the person who causes it. Likewise, the pho-

lieve that she had “no right to property” in herself, the

tographic shadow optically (and chemically) fixes a

condition of slavery. Yet for Truth to define possession

self that is not oneself. It is the vestige, or residue, of a

of personhood solely as a private right would be to

body’s encounter with a camera, and that encounter is

“threaten to remove her image from the public domain

over; that body is gone. Sojourner Truth has moved on.

of history.” Here the word image flags the crucial fact

The carte de visite, like the letters that often enclosed

that this form of self-­objectification occurs in represen-

it, was a manifestation of mobility across distances; the

tation. To liken Truth’s photographs to slavery’s com-

fragile phantom substitute for the presence of persons

modification of persons is to conflate—­yet again—­

exercising their freedom of movement.18

17

things and slaves.

:::

In Sojourner Truth’s cartes de visite, the word shadow

126

is decisive, dividing the image from the body and also

The nineteenth century was pervaded by questions

disassociating the photograph from the first-­person

about the legal status of the immaterial. Take, for in-

singular: the “I” of Truth’s utterance. She sells not her

stance, justice Smith Thompson’s statement in a key

substance, not her self, not her “I” but her shadow, a

nineteenth-­century copyright case: “Nothing can be an

substitute so elusive as to thwart bodily violation. Here

object of property which has not a substance.” Thomp-

the commodified self is redefined as part of the image

son was in fact rehearsing the majority opinion in

world, of representation, not embodiment. Value has

Wheaton v. Peters of 1834 that he adamantly opposed. His

shifted from the corporeal to mere representation, but

paraphrase still informs us that Truth’s combination of

representation that can serve, like money, as a token of

caption and copyright on the front and back of her carte

exchange. Truth’s shadow is not an intan­gible image; it

de visite relied on metaphorical language permeating

is a thing, and she possesses that thing, that piece of pa-

legal as well as economic debates in nineteenth-­century

per, before she sells it.

America.

Chapter Seven

When Sojourner Truth chose to have her photo-

“Copyright doctrine is informed by a commonly per-

graphs bear a copyright in her name, she was innovating

ceived, seemingly basic contradiction of purpose. On

in more ways than one. To begin, she was relying on a

the one hand, copyright aims to promote public disclo-

copyright law that predated the invention of photogra-

sure and dissemination of works of ‘authorship’; on the

phy. This mattered, because the law made distinctions

other hand, it seeks to confer on the creators the power

among the kinds of publications and media it protected.

to restrict or deny distribution of their works. This con-

When a copyright was filed in her name in 1864, Truth

flict is reflected in the tension between public benefit

was ignoring the fact that photography was not, in fact,

and private reward.”20

legally covered by the “act of Congress” so prominently

Relative to France and England, the United States’

inscribed on the back of her image. She was also enter-

approach to copyright is generally characterized as

ing a debate as to how one could claim rights to personal

pragmatic, committed to promoting the public good

property that was intended to circulate publicly, in a

and the progress of science and the “useful” arts. For

sense to be published.

these reasons, decisions in US courts were often against

Reconstructing the context for her decision is not

the inherent rights of authors.21 In the most significant

easy. The early history of the copyright of photography

nineteenth-­century ruling about copyright, Wheaton v.

in the United States has received scant scholarly atten-

Peters of 1834, court reporter Henry Wheaton contested

tion. Instead, historians of US copyright have focused

Richard Peters’s rights to reproduce his published syn-

on critical disputes about books, specifically the legal

opses of Supreme Court decisions and writings. The

cases of Wheaton v. Peters of 1834 and Stowe v. Thomas of

case therefore concerned the very procedures by which

1853. In the decades before Truth’s precocious decision

judicial decisions became known to a wider public.

to copyright her cartes de visite, jurists and lawyers de-

Wheaton’s lawyers turned to the precedent of a key

bated whether publication in and of itself entailed the

British ruling that rights of authors derived from “com-

author’s relinquishment of his or her creations.

mon law” or private right.22 “An author’s property in his

At stake in these arguments was nothing less than

productions” rests on “the foundation of natural right;

the boundary between the private and the public, spe-

recognized by the laws . . . from the first introduction of

cifically the definition of property as “a private right,”

printing.”23

or, conversely, as “a right of public origin, granted at the

Ultimately, however, the American court justices

discretion and for the benefit of the state.” Did authors

rejected the British precedent and voted against the

hold a fundamental “common-­law,” or “private,” right

common-­law rights of the author. According to the

to their works, or did the state alone grant the individ-

majority, copyright is not a natural right but the result

ual’s right to his or her work? As Peter Jaszi has argued,

of specific acts made by authors in conformity with

19

Truth’s Copyright

127

government requirements. After all, copyright had

possession—­nothing that can sustain any one of

come into existence only with the “first introduction

the qualities or incidents of property. Their whole

of printing.” There could be no “natural right” to pub-

existence is in the mind alone. . . . Yet these are the

lished writing. Moreover, the United States could not

phantoms which the author would grasp and confine

even claim to have a “common law,” because the law

to himself.” . . . [Yeates (sic) asks], “Can sentiments

“might vary in every state in the union from the rest.”24

themselves (apart from the paper on which they are

Only federal law could produce uniformity; recourse to

contained) be taken in execution for a debt . . . ? Can

a common law could not. (Herein lay the fundamental

sentiments be seized . . . ? If they cannot be seized,

tension between federal legislation and state rights lead-

the sole right of publishing them cannot be confined

ing to the Civil War.)

to the author.”27

The American justices thus repudiated the majority decision in the British case and relied instead on the

The dissenting British judge had defined property as that

dissenting opinion of British justice Joseph Yates, cit-

which is visible, has a corporal substance, can be pos-

ing him at length. Renouncing authors’ common-­law

sessed, and can be relinquished as payment for a debt;

rights, Yates had argued that copyright does not protect

on all counts, he found an author’s “style” and “compo-

the “ideal” or “mere ideas” but only “substance,” the

sition” to fall short of the definition of property.

25

specific book itself. He had contested the common-­law

Writing for the majority in Wheaton v. Peters, Amer-

right of authors to their published writing for two rea-

ican justice John McLean agreed with Yates. McLean

sons: first, the nonconformity of their work to defini-

argued that the author relinquished his property claim

tions of property; and second, writers’ forfeiture of their

when he sold the manuscript to the publisher:

right to their texts once published. While the majority 26

of American justices agreed with Yates, Justice Thomp-

The argument that a literary man is as much entitled

son dissented. Surprisingly, he still devoted a great por-

to the product of his labour as any other member of

tion of his opinion to paraphrasing the argument with

society, cannot be controverted. And the answer is,

which he disagreed. Here is Justice Thompson quoting

that he realises this product by the transfer of his

Yates’s skepticism about textual “property”:

manuscripts, or in the sale of his works, when first published.28

“Nothing can be an object of property which has

128

not a corporal substance. The property claimed

According to the majority decision, publication en-

is all ideal; a set of ideas which have no bounds or

tails the author’s surrender of common-­law right in

marks whatever—­nothing that is capable of visible

exchange for legal protection. As copyright scholar

Chapter Seven

Meredith McGill has pointed out, the ruling not only

urges that it is impossible to appropriate ideas [any]

aligned handwriting with personal property and print

more than the light or air . . . ; forgetting that books

with public property, but also “provide[d] for state in-

are not made up of ideas alone, but are, and necessar-

tervention at the point of transfer from one medium to

ily must be clothed in a language, and embodied in a

the other—­the point at which the manuscript becomes

form, which give them an individuality and identity,

potentially profitable.”29 By attributing authors’ prop-

that make them more distinguishable than any other

erty rights solely to their unpublished manuscripts, the

personal property can be. A watch, a table, a guinea, it

Wheaton v. Peters decision oddly foregrounded a distinc-

might be difficult to identify; but a book never.32

tion between the handwritten and the printed. Yates recognized “writing” as private property even as he dis-

According to Wheaton’s lawyers, books are easier to dis-

qualified books from copyright protection because they

tinguish as “form” than furniture.

were “mere ideas.” Thompson pointed out the irony

This rhetorical reliance on the opposition of the im-

here: how can writing be defined as an author’s property

material and the material, language and form, clothing

solely if he does not publish it? According to Thomp-

and body, reappeared almost twenty years later in Stowe

son, “Property without the right to use it is empty

v. Thomas of 1853, as Stephen Best has so brilliantly eluci-

sound. . . . It would seem a mere mockery for the law to

dated.33 Once again the American justices ruled against

recognize any thing as property, which the owner could

the common-­law right of authors. In so doing, they de-

not use safely and securely for the purposes for which it

cided against Harriet Beecher Stowe, who was suing

was ­intended.”

F. W. Thomas for publishing a German translation of her

30

Dissenting Justice Thompson was taking the side of

novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin in his German-­language US pe-

Wheaton’s lawyers, but they offered a more resounding

riodical aptly entitled Die Freie Presse. Deciding against

renunciation of Yates’s argument by challenging Yates’s

Stowe, judge Robert Grier argued that once an author

claim, as paraphrased by Thompson, that “nothing can

published his work, “giving” “his thoughts, sentiments,

be an object of property which has not a corporal sub-

knowledge or discoveries to the world, he can have no

stance.” Books, they argued, are not “phantoms” or

longer an exclusive possession of them.”34

31

“sentiments” or “mere ideas” or “all ideal.” Nor are they “light” or “air.” Instead, books are embodied in a “form”

By the publication of Mrs. Stowe’s book, the creations

that is “more distinguishable than any other personal

of the genius and imagination of the author have

property”:

become as much public property as those of Homer and Cervantes. Uncle Tom and Topsy are as much

Mr. J. Yates, the great opponent of literary property, . . .

publici juris as Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. All her Truth’s Copyright

129

conceptions and inventions may be used and abused

right a photograph of a sitter? Had sitters like authors

by imitators, play-­rights and poetasters. They are no

relinquished their rights when they agreed to be “pub-

longer her own—­those who have purchased her book,

lished”? Were they “public property” like Uncle Tom and

may clothe them in English doggerel, in German or

Topsy, differently clothed by various itinerant shadow-­

Chinese prose. Her absolute dominion and property in

catchers? Or were sitters the owners of their own form?

the creations of her genius and imagination have been

Still unwritten is a history of photography and US copyright law in the decades leading up to and imme-

voluntarily relinquished.35

diately following 1865 when photography was finally Again, publication constitutes relinquishment: Stowe’s

granted copyright protection. The key contribution to

conceptions “are no longer her own” but have become

our understanding of early US copyright law and pho-

“public property” subject to anyone’s “use and abuse.”

tography is an article and book chapter by scholar Jane

Having published her memorable characters, Stowe no

Gaines, but she focuses on the late nineteenth century,

longer owned them. Topsy can be “used and abused”

specifically the 1884 rulings concerning photographer

in English, German, or Chinese; she can be differently

Napoleon Sarony’s rights to his photograph of Oscar

“clothed” by anyone. Translations—­“the same concep-

Wilde in Burrow-­Giles Lithographic Co. v. [Napoleon] Sa-

tions clothed in another language”—­cannot be called

rony (fig. 86).38 Many important scholars of American

a “‘copy’ of the same ‘book.’”36 What Stowe owned was

photography, such as Alan Trachtenberg, make no

only the right to print copies of her published book—­

mention of copyright or treat it perfunctorily.39 Anthony

the thing, not the conceptions, not the slave characters

Lee has emphasized the increasing professionalization

that she had once owned in manuscript form.

of photography during the Civil War era, but he only

37

::: The opposition between “things” and “light,” between

figure 86. Carte de visite, “Oscar Wilde, Copyright 1882 by N. Sarony, 27 Union Square, N.Y.” ca. 1882. Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

130

briefly refers to Alexander Gardner’s copyrighting of his published views, stereoviews, and album cards.40 The most extensive analyses of the legal rulings on

“forms” and “phantoms,” permeated nineteenth-­

photography have focused on England and France. Ber-

century debates about copyright. How, then, would pho-

nard Edelman and Anne McCauley have emphasized the

tography fare in the courts? Were such humble, optical

difference between the French and the English copy-

records “light” and “phantoms,” or were they “things”

righting of photography during the nineteenth cen-

and “forms”? Were photographs private property like

tury.41 The English easily accommodated photography

manuscripts, or public property like published books?

under copyright law, because their pragmatic goal was

Who, if anyone, owned mass-­produced, publicly circu-

to protect the right of printers to make copies, not to

lating, photographic portraits? And who could copy-

ensure creators’ rights to their own unique creations. By

Chapter Seven

contrast, the French were preoccupied with entrenched

copies of those that they liked; the decision was not up to

ideas about “genius” and artistic creation, and therefore

the artists. But history reveals just as many examples of

hostile to a medium that seemed merely mechanical and

the failure of those in power to control their image. Eliz-

bereft of a maker’s personality. To incorporate photog-

abeth I, for example, quickly realized that she needed to

raphy into French copyright protection meant having

oversee her representation if it was significantly to en-

to redefine photography as something other than a me-

hance her authority. Five years after her accession to the

chanical and transparent reproduction of the real, lead-

throne in 1558, a proclamation was drafted, “prohibiting

ing to what Edelman has called the “subjectivisation” of

all persons drawing Queen Elizabeth’s picture until such

the machine. Photography in France was invested, like

time as a pattern for that purpose hath been drawn from

other arts, with the personality of the individual maker

life by some skilled painter by her majesty’s order.” Also

whom the French continued to call “the author.”

banned was “the showing or publication of existing rep-

42

In the United States too, photographs had to carry

resentations.”46 Here was a powerful ruler attempting

“in some way the imprint of the personality.”43 What

to control her portraits by exerting control over artists;

goes unexamined in such formulations was whose iden-

there are many such tales, often with mixed results.

tity was so imprinted. Not only was nineteenth-­century

Reproductive technologies complicated matters

photography a collective business involving more than

even before the invention of photography. Rights to

one person’s labor, but in its early days, one of photog-

reproduction were subject to numerous competing

raphy’s primary purposes was to supply clients with

claims—­the commissioner, artist, owner, engraver, and

portraits. Photographic portraits of sitters—­often in-

publisher of a given picture could all make viable as-

expensive, quickly produced, and formulaic represen-

sertions of their rights to reproduce an image. If Queen

tations of a sitter in stock poses—­raised questions as to

Elizabeth granted a single artist the monopoly to en-

who owned the right to duplicate such pictures. After

grave her portraits on copper or wood, the early modern

all, whose identity determined the individuality of the

artist could also seek copyright protection in advance of

given photographic portrait: the photographer’s or the

the use of the term.47 Witness Peter Paul Rubens, writing

sitter’s? Which “subject” should be granted a copyright?

in 1619: “I should like information about how I ought to

Curiously, art history has not yet reconstructed the

proceed to obtain a privilege from the States General of

history of the shifting legal rights of artists and sitters

the United Provinces, authorizing me to publish certain

to their portraits. We know that the powerful—­whether

copper engravings which were done in my house, in or-

kings, queens, or popes—­often decided the destinies of

der to prevent their being copied in those provinces.”48

portraits commissioned by them.45 Rulers such as Na-

In a subsequent letter “soliciting the privilege,” Rubens

poleon could reject a given portrait or order numerous

lists “some portraits of eminent men of various sorts”

44

Truth’s Copyright

131

among the artworks he plans to have engraved.49 There

son to his or her own image fell under the protections of

is no indication that he felt the need to obtain the per-

private property.”52 As examples, McCauley cites French

mission of those eminent men. By contrast, one such

court cases from 1858 and 1860 that uphold the sitter’s

public man in Revolutionary France tried unsuccess-

rights, but she also offers several counterexamples. In

fully to stop an engraver from publishing his portrait

1867, for example, the French court decided against Alexandre Dumas père, who sought to stop a photographer

without his consent: “I had,” he said, “already forbid-

from selling compromising cartes de visite; the court

den this citizen to engrave my portrait; I even offered

ruled that Dumas had no right to the pictures because

to reimburse him for the cost of his plate if he would

he had not paid for them.53 In the Dumas case, payment,

destroy it; but, despite my insistence, I saw in the

not ownership of one’s self, was decisive. Equal confu-

Petites Affiches, to my chagrin, that he had put my face

sion reigned in England. According to Patrizia Di Bello,

up for sale, without my consent.”50

“The 1862 Copyright Act had failed to clarify the rights of persons portrayed in relation to the sale of their photo-

“He had put my face up for sale, without my consent.”

graphs to the general public.” And while the Copyright

Not surprisingly, the French Revolution offers us a

Commissioner conceded that “no one has a copyright on

glimpse of a struggle to redefine personal rights: To

his own face,” he wondered if “the person whose por-

whom does an image of an individual’s face belong?

traits are taken” should perhaps be given “control over

Does an artist enjoy rights to the portrait he made?

the multiplication of copies.”54

And who profits from reproductions of a portrait? The

In the United States, the respective rights of pho-

French politician wished to regulate the proliferation

tographers and sitters to photographic portraits were

and sale of his face. Only destruction of the engraver’s

similarly ambiguous.55 Photographers were generally

plate could guarantee his control over his own image.

granted authorial rights to their products: the case of the

Subsequent buyers of artworks could also claim the

lithographer Burrow-­Giles versus the photographer Sa-

right to reproduce a picture regardless of the wishes of

rony of 1884 never concerned the rights of Oscar Wilde,

the artist, original patron, or sitter.

for example. At stake in the debate about the relative

Anne McCauley, addressing the copyright of photog-

rights of photographer and sitter was the artistic or au-

raphy in nineteenth-­century France, has argued that “it

thorial status of the photographer. If a photograph was

was accepted within law that persons owned their own

the property or creation of the sitter, photography be-

images, which meant that portraitists in any medium

came nothing more than a mechanical transcription of a

could not publish a work without permission of the sit-

sitter’s self-­fashioning, a sitter’s creation of self-­image.

ter.” She confidently concludes that “the right of a per-

The judge in an 1894 case involving the photographic

51

132

Chapter Seven

portrait of an actress (Falk v. Donaldson) highlighted the

ter” loses “her [own] personality.” There is a parallel here

essential question:

with the Stowe v. Thomas decision of 1853 in which Topsy was deemed a public character and consequently could

An examination of the photograph shows that it is the

not be protected as private property. According to these

work of an artist. The question is whether the artist

rulings, author and actress created fictional characters

was [the actress] Miss Marlowe, or the [photographer]

so successfully that their creations no longer belonged

complainant. How far the artistic contributions are

to them.58

to be attributed to the talent of Miss Marlowe, it is impossible to say.56

In the United States, early copyright cases “suppressed the ‘authorship’ claims of photographic subjects [sitters], emphasizing instead the ‘artistry,’ ‘per-

Ultimately, the judge decided that the portrait was cre-

sonality,’ and creative choices of the photographer.”59

ated by the photographer Falk, not the actress, because

So too have more recent decisions. In 1989 a court de-

Miss Marlowe could not have produced (or anticipated)

cided against an argument that sitters were “joint au-

her side view, wherein “the lights and shadows might

thors” of photographs and consequently “entitled to

best reveal the beauties of face and figure.” Moreover,

authorize the copying of those photographs. The judge

comparison to another photographer’s picture of Miss

hearing the case determined that ‘[t]he simple fact that

Marlowe proved Falk’s artistic difference: “In the one, a

an individual brings his own image to the studio is not

pretty woman is standing for her picture; in the other

enough to give that person a protectable interest in the

[by Falk], she has lost her personality in the character

portrait.’”60 Stunning here is the judge’s recourse to the

she has assumed, as interpreted in the pose chosen

language of representation: the individual brings his or

by [him].”

her “image” into the photographer’s studio. In his de-

57

“She has lost her personality in the character she has

cision, the judge conflates photographic portraits with

assumed, as interpreted in the pose chosen by [Falk]”:

the appearance of persons as “images.” Clients provide

the tension between photographer and sitter every-

photographers with “images” already oddly divorced

where underwrites this judicial assertion. Even here the

from their own persons and therefore, so the reasoning

agency of each is in question. On the one hand, the ac-

goes, not protectable as private property.

tress “loses her personality” “in the pose chosen by the

By contrast, Edelman has argued that “the right of

photographer”; on the other, she “assume[s]” a “charac-

the photographer over his photo produces the right of

ter,” thereby exercising her art. Yet the talented artistic

the photographed over his image.”61 In Edelman’s theori-

creator is deemed the photographer, not the actress, be-

zation, “because both photographer and photographed

cause the actress in gaining a (photographic) “charac-

are in possession of themselves (and can sell their labor Truth’s Copyright

133

power), each can claim property in the image that con-

no longer required the work’s title in the declaration of

tains ‘personality.’” This may be theoretically true, but

copyright. Photographs could therefore bear an imprint

copyright cases required the attribution of exclusive

of copyright without drawing attention to their noncon-

rights to one or the other, photographer or sitter. If “in

formity to the stipulated media. An Act of 1831 added

re-­producing the real, the photographer re-­produces

musical compositions to protected creations (although

‘private property’ as the ‘essence’ of man,’” photographic

they had been implicitly covered by the protection of

portraits functioned as the nexus of a conflict in which

publications) and disposed of the requirement that the

personhood and property were conflated—­the very

copyright record be published in newspapers. The Act

conflation of slavery. The self was photographically

of 1831 continued to refer to “author or proprietor,”66

concentrated in a single image yet subject to multiple

thereby leaving ambiguous the relative rights of either.

62

63

competing claims.

Cartes de visite were not maps, charts, books, en-

When Truth had a copyright appended to her pho-

graved or etched prints, or musical compositions. Nor

tographs, she was relying on a law stemming from the

did publication in and of itself ensure the right to copy-

end of the eighteenth century. The first American copy-

right protection. The acts of 1790, 1802, and 1831 did not

right act of May 31, 1790, titled “An Act for the Encour-

grant copyright to ephemera such as newspapers and

agement of Learning,” secured the right of “authors

pamphlets, because they were deemed too short-­lived

and proprietors” to “copies of maps, charts, book or

to warrant legal protection.67 Where cartes de visite fell

books . . . for a period of fourteen years.”64 To establish

along such a spectrum was not clear. On the one hand,

a copyright, the “author or proprietor” was required to

they could be likened to artworks, especially reproduc-

deposit a printed copy of the title of a given work at the

tive media such as engravings. On the other, they were

clerk’s office of the district court; to publish a copy of

not published like engravings, which typically bore the

that record in one or more newspapers; and to submit

names of numerous makers: the artist, the engraver, and

a copy of the work itself to the secretary of state within

the publisher. Indeed, most cartes de visite during this

six months of publication. According to this Copyright

period bore no printed words at all.

Act of 1790, a statement of copyright, including the title,

Was the photographic production of multiple im-

had to be imprinted on the work itself. The act thereby

ages pasted to cardboard mounts similar to the publi-

bound copyright to the title of specific kinds of works:

cation of a series of prints or the publication of news-

maps, charts, books. An amendment in 1802 extended

papers? Should the new medium be assimilated to

“the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, engrav-

ephemera, over which authors had no privilege of copy-

ing, and etching historical and other prints.” The 1802

right? Or should a photograph be defined as an artwork?

law proved more flexible, if only by omission, because it

Photography’s status was unclear. Even in the 1884 rul-

65

134

Chapter Seven

ing in favor of the photographer Sarony’s rights to his

publicized their capacity to rephotograph unique pho-

portrait of Oscar Wilde, the justices rehearsed the argu-

tographic images such as daguerreotypes, turning them

ment that most photography entailed “mere mechanical

into negatives capable of producing an endless stream

reproduction of physical features,” not “original intel-

of duplicate cartes de visite. This service was valuable

lectual conception.” In this most famous nineteenth-­

both to clients and to photographers, who were always

century deliberation on the legal status of photography,

seeking work.

68

the justices refused to make a decision about “ordinary”

Copyright was intended to halt the flow of copies,

photographs (“On this question we decide nothing”).

or at least to regulate it. But to whose benefit? Truth’s

They retreated instead to those exceptional photo-

claim to copyright depended on the 1790 copyright law

graphs that evidence “the intellectual conception of the

amended in 1802 and 1831; all three failed to clarify such

author.” This phrasing is all but a capitulation to those

rights by referring to “author or proprietor.” The distinc-

who defined photography as a mechanical procedure, a

tion here is crucial: authorship versus ownership. The

technological invention worthy of a patent, but not an

law leaves a fundamental question undecided: When

art warranting copyright. Note moreover that the ruling

are the author and the proprietor not one and the same?

of 1884 only concerned the rights of the photographer,

And how capacious is the term proprietor? Could it refer

not those of the sitter.

to the sitter who paid for the photograph? Could it re-

And photography was especially conducive to repro-

fer to the commissioner of a photograph, for instance a

duction, a susceptibility that was advantageous to cir-

publisher or a spouse, who was neither the cameraman

culation and disadvantageous to authorial control. As

nor the sitter?

Abraham Lincoln told someone requesting one of his

During the Civil War, in the years before the official

many cartes de visite in 1860, “I have not a single one

addition of photography to copyright law, the cartes de

now at my control; . . . I suppose they got my shadow and

visite most consistently featuring copyrights were those

can multiply copies indefinitely.” Lincoln was resigned

intended to raise funds on behalf of causes, for instance

to the fact that the shadow could be copied. Any photo-

the welfare of amputees, orphans, or emancipated slaves

graphic image could easily be rephotographed by any-

(see figs. 21–­23).70 Because such cards were intended to

one with a camera; the resulting negative permitted the

raise money, publishers insisted that they should not be

production of thousands of (slightly deteriorated) im-

copied by others. Yet a card such as the portrait of the

ages, further escalating dissemination and the sitter’s

orphans Frank, Frederick, and Alice (fig. 87a, b) was in

loss of control. Every photograph could be reproduced

itself a photographic copy of a picture first found the

ad infinitum by anyone with the means or the cash.

corpse of an unidentified soldier. That portrait had ini-

Indeed, photographers advertised this service. Many

tially been used to identify a fallen father. Copies were

69

Truth’s Copyright

135

not the problem; wrongfully deriving profits from them was. The back of the portrait of the three children reads: This is a copy of the Ferrotype found in the hands of Sergeant Humiston. . . . The copies are sold in furtherance of the National Sabbath School effort to found in Pennsylvania an Asylum for dependent Orphans of Soldiers; in memorial of our Perpetuated Union. This Picture is private property and can not be copied without wronging the Soldier’s Orphans for whom it is published.

Here is an unofficial assertion of copyright that simply states that the photograph is “private property” and reminds future owners that making a copy would entail “wronging” the orphans themselves but not, in this case, the photographer. More typically, fund-­raising cartes relied on legal declarations of copyright. The back of the card captioned “learning is wealth. Wilson, Charley, Rebecca & figure 87a. Carte de visite. “Frank, Frederick, Alice,” ca. 1865.

Rosa, Slaves from New Orleans” abounds with textual inscriptions (fig. 88). On its face, four former slaves are

figure 87b. Verso: “The Children of the Battle Field. This is a copy of the Ferrotype found in the hands of Segeant Humiston of the 154th N.Y. Volunteers as he lay dead on the Battle Field of Gettysburg. The copies are sold in furtherance

listed. On its back, imprinted statements name four

of the National Sabbath School effort to found in Pennsylvania an Asylum for dependent Orphans of Soldiers; in memorial of our Perpetual Union. Wenderoth, Taylor & Brown, 912–­ 914 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia. This picture is private property, and can not be copied without wronging the Soldier’s Orphans for whom it is published. Philadelphia, Sept. 23, 1865. J. Frances Bourns.”

“s. tackaberry,” who filed in 1864 in the Southern

136

Chapter Seven

other individuals: (1) the photographer, “chas. paxson, photographer, n.y.”; (2) the copyright holder, District of New York; (3) the man in charge of applying “proceeds from the sale of these Photographs . . . to the education of colored people,” Major General Banks; and finally (4) the person to whom to address further orders: “h.n. bent No. 1, Mercer Street, N.Y.” This proliferation

of proper names on the back of this diminutive piece of cardboard attests to how numerous and ill-­defined were the competing claims to it. Copyright laws certainly invited such uncertainty; they repeatedly referred to the rights of “authors and proprietors” as if these were one and the same when often they were not.71 Wasn’t copyright intended to clarify the relative rights of competing interests? Wasn’t its very purpose to distinguish between rival claims? On the back of “learning is wealth,” Paxson, Tackaberry, Banks, and Bent jostle for possession. And we cannot glean how these individuals relate to one another. Does the photographer Paxson or the fund-­raiser Major General Banks benefit from the copyright filed by Tackaberry? For whom did Tackaberry work? Was Bent an employee of Daxson or of a publisher, perhaps Tackaberry? In either case, wouldn’t those “further orders” of photographs addressed to Bent compromise Banks’s control over the funds raised by their sale? Or would Bent ensure that new copies still included the statement regarding the “proceeds from the sale of these photo-

figure 88. Verso of carte de visite, “learning is wealth. Wilson, Charley, Rebecca & Rosa, Slaves from New Orleans,” by Chas. Paxson, photographer, New York, ca. 1864 (fig. 74).

graphs” when copies made and sold by other photographers might not? The proper names on the back of the card contrast

economy, into students who are fully assimilated into

with the first names printed on its front: Wilson, Char-

a democratic (and literate) civil society. What a far cry

ley, Rebecca, and Rosa. The “Slaves from New Orleans”

from other cartes de visite of Wilson Chinn that empha-

are afforded no last names, nor do they compete for

size his abuse under slavery (fig. 89)! Such cards not only

legal possession of their image or profit from its sale.

display menacing chains at his feet but another form of

They are meant to stand for a cause: “the education of

textual inscription: the branding of letters on his fore-

colored people.” The Northern abolitionist rhetoric here

head, his former owner’s initials: “V. B. M.” (This card

pretends to turn slaves, once property within a slave

is also notably copyrighted on its recto by yet another Truth’s Copyright

137

of the children look to the alternative printing on his forehead. “Learning is wealth,” the card declares. Wealth, the caption proposes, derives from literacy, not slavery. Learning, not bodies, is made into a kind of property. The flip side of that redefinition of the slave as literate citizen is the card’s back, where (presumably white) protagonists vie for economic control over the marketing of its political promise. The competing claims of Paxson, Tackaberry, Banks, and Bent are predicated on the rule of law, the mediation of the state, and also their remarkable faith in the printed word. The four different inscriptions on the back of the card attest to a competition among protagonists, but also to figure 89. Carte de visite, “Wilson Chinn, a Branded Slave from Louisiana Photographed by Kimball, 477 Broadway, N.Y. Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1863 by Geo. H. Banks in the Clerk’s Office of the United States for the Southern District of New York,” ca. 1863. Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania.

a shared conviction that textual imprints bore material consequences. The claims to possession in the carte de visite of the “redeemed slave child” Fannie Virginia Casseopia Lawrence are far simpler (and more discomfiting for adoptive parents), because the copyright of 1863 is in the name of her “redeemer,” Catherine S. Lawrence, who gave the lavishly dressed, fair-­skinned little girl her surname (and had her baptized by Harriet Beecher Stowe’s person claiming property rights: Geo. H. Hanks.) Unlike

minister brother, Henry Ward Beecher) (see fig. 23). Like

the former slave Gordon, whose photograph displays

the word redeem itself, this carte de visite combines

scars on his back (see fig. 22), Wilson Chinn is violently

Christian, economic, and legal claims. Its extremely un-

inscribed not by the lash but by the printing press of the

usual copyright betrays the financial transaction that

brand. The letters on his forehead turn him into a sur-

redefined the “redeemed” slave child as adoptee.

face on which is inscribed the literacy of others.72

138

The year after Truth had copyrighted her photo-

In the card “learning is wealth,” Wilson’s head

graph in her name in 1864, photography was added to

is carefully turned so we do not see that the man who

copyright law in an amendment making it explicit that

reads from a book is likewise inscribed as a text; none

copyright belonged to “authors,” not “proprietors”

Chapter Seven

or sitters. The right earlier enjoyed by “the authors of

The majority of Sojourner Truth’s captioned cards

prints and engravings” was now extended to “authors”

eclipse the photographer altogether. She had relied on

who created “photographs and the negatives thereof.”

73

many over the years—­she refers to them as “artists”

Photographers did not rush to exercise their new legal

who are “so slow.” (The fact that S. C. Wright listed him-

prerogative, however. Even after 1865, few cartes de vis-

self as a “photographic artist” may have contributed to

ite bear copyrights. But when the rare carte de visite in-

her frequent use of the term.) Artists could claim copy-

cludes a copyright, it typically names the photographer.

right, but most photographers who made her captioned

Celebrity portraits rarely include copyrights, but if they

cartes de visite agreed to relinquish their claims to the

do, they also declare the rights of the photographer,

photographs, even their authorship of them, and only

not the well-­known sitter: for instance the prominent

to imprint the copyright in Truth’s name on the back of

photographer Mathew Brady, not the even more famous

each card. Against law, convention, and general prac-

Abraham Lincoln.

tice, Truth was claiming legal rights to her image and

Truth’s most famous cartes de visite, captioned “I

the right to sell her body’s shadow as property.

Sell the Shadow to Support the Substance,” excise all

There is, however, one important exception among

such competing claims. Indeed, only two of her many

the photographs taken of Sojourner Truth after 1864, a

captioned cartes de visite made in the 1860s name the

card without her copyright and also without her caption

photographer: the single card by Sheldon C. Wright

and name (session J, fig. 90a, b). At the end of Septem-

in Battle Creek, Michigan, and the single photograph

ber on her way to meet Abraham Lincoln to express her

by N. Byron Baker in Rochester, New York. Both bear

support of the war and acquire his autograph, Truth had

the photographer’s imprint on their versos along with

a photograph made in Mathew Brady’s celebrated pho-

Truth’s copyright and her caption on their rectos.

tographic studio in New York City.74 In this portrait, the

(Truth’s late photographs from the 1880s add C. C. Ran-

woman who could not read holds a book, perhaps her

dall to her identified photographers, as I will discuss

“Book of Life,” where she gathered autographs. There is

later.)

no evidence that Truth ever circulated the Brady carte de

For her cartes de visite, Truth consistently de-

visite, which is extremely rare. We can see why: the stu-

manded the printing of her name on both the front and

dio captioned the front of her card as it captioned oth-

the back. This is highly unusual: very few cartes de visite

ers at the time, in a typeface resembling script: “Brady

are imprinted with the sitter’s name or captions, and as

New York.” On the back is Brady’s studio imprint, but no

far as I know, none have copyrights in the sitter’s name.

copyright in either Brady’s or Truth’s name. Truth’s de-

This bears repeating: I have found no other card from the

cision to hold a book, or dossier of papers, bleached like

period that features a copyright in the name of the sitter.

her head scarf and collar into blank-­paper whiteness, Truth’s Copyright

139

figure 90a. Carte de visite of Sojourner Truth by Brady & Co., New York, 1864–­65? Seated pose from session J. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. Photograph: National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution / Art Resource, NY. figure 90b. Verso: photographer’s imprint, “BRADY’S National Photographic Portrait Galleries, Broadway & Tenth Street, New York, & No. 352 Pennsylvania Av. Washington, D.C.”

140

makes a claim to literacy. Yet the card itself deprives her

photographs. See for example the signature of Truth’s

of her characteristic claims to authorship and posses-

Quaker friend Lucretia Mott on her carte de visite (fig. 91).

sion. Missing are her name, the first-­person assertion

Jefferson Davis even wrote his signature over Brady’s

that she sells, and her copyright.

printed inscription. When Brady & Co. changed its recto

When other famous sitters had their photographs

imprint after 1865 to declarations of legal copyright, sit-

taken by established photographers such as Brady,

ters such as Ulysses S. Grant again relied on their auto-

they sometimes subsequently asserted their identity

graphs to identify themselves and to claim their right

by scrawling their autographs across the bottom of the

to authorize their portraits, signing their names below

Chapter Seven

their portraits. Grant, like Davis before him, sometimes wrote his name over the printed copyright, obscuring Brady’s claims with his own. In such examples, the legibility of Brady’s authorship is visible only on the card’s back, where his studio’s trademark is imprinted. Sojourner Truth had no such socially acceptable and literate signature with which to assert her identity and rights. She could not write her name over Brady’s imprint, as did so many powerful men. Perhaps for this reason she never circulated Brady’s carte de visite, and also found less famous, more cooperative provincial photographers who were willing to erase their personhood and authorial claims in favor of her own. While we know the names of at least thirteen different photographers who photographed Frederick Douglass, including Brady, we can securely identify only four who created portraits of Truth during her lifetime (Wright, Baker, Brady, and, later in her life, C. C. Randall), and two figure 91. Carte de visite of Lucretia Mott, by Broadbent and Phillips, ca. 1870. On its verso: The photographer’s imprint, “Broadbent and Phillips, 1206 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia.”

others who likely reprinted her image immediately after her death in 1883 (C. C. Packard and F. E. Perry).75 Truth’s other photographers have disappeared from the historical record because she insisted that her own authorship and legal claims to self-­possession would not. In Wheaton v. Peters of 1834, the justices restricted

property.”76 Unlike Douglass, Sojourner Truth wished to

authors’ property rights to their unpublished manu-

claim her right to possess and to profit from her por-

scripts. Only the handwritten manuscript belonged to

trait, but she had to make such a claim in mechanically

the individual; once printed, published texts no lon-

produced, published text. She was relying on machines

ger constituted private property. Frederick Douglass

to assert her right to her self and to her image, not on

described photographic author portraits published on

handwriting or a signature, those signs of the unique

title pages in much the same terms: “Once fairly in the

individual so valued by Poe and others then and now.

book and the man may be considered a fixed fact, public Truth’s Copyright

141

8

Money and the Civil War

For finance, issue Greenbacks,

The caption of Sojourner Truth’s cartes de visite tells us that substance is

for war, Blackbacks.

external to the picture. Sojourner Truth is selling the shadow buyers hold in

—Atlas and Argus, January 19, 18631

their hands in order to support a substance that is elsewhere. She is, as I said,

I reached in my pocket, and to her big surprise There was Lincoln staring her dead in the eyes.

already gone. And yet the shadow is also the site of value; it is exchangeable for money. Truth’s sale of her shadows supported her in daily ways; they paid for food, repaid debts, and even allowed her to procure needed loans. As we have seen, they helped her buy other forms of property, including her house

On a greenback, greenback dollar bill

in Battle Creek, Michigan. Due to her and her grandson’s serious illnesses,

Just a little piece of paper,

she had to refinance that house in 1874.2 She sold cartes de visite to help her

coated with chlorophyll.

pay off that new debt.

—ray charles, “Greenbacks,” recorded between 1953 and 1959

Here is a glimpse of the Substance external to Sojourner Truth’s Shadow: property owned and lost, a strong if aged body which also succumbs, like her grandson’s, to illness. Substances, like shadows, are subject to perpetual fluctuation. Yet Truth’s shadows surprisingly served as a relatively consistent form of currency. Certainly, their prices went up: Truth notified her correspondents and readers of their rising cost due to the escalating prices of

143

paper and stamps, but her small, modest cartes de visite

zation, within a very recent period.”6 Greenbacks were

continued to function as an exchangeable form of paper

the first federally issued banknotes in American history;

value.3

they had been authorized in 1862, only a year before

When Truth turned paper multiples into monetary

Holmes wrote his essay, by a Republican government

value in 1863 and 1864 (and thereafter throughout the

desperate to finance and win the Civil War (fig. 92a, b;

late 1860s and 1870s), she was precociously embracing

see also fig. 9).7

new technologies that enabled mass production, mass

In their analysis of Holmes’s identification of cartes

circulation, standardization, and photographic inno-

de visite as greenbacks, Sekula and Trachtenberg em-

vation.4 But most significantly, her decision to caption

phasize early photography’s imbrication with the rise

her cartes de visite “I Sell the Shadow to Support the

of capitalism and commodity fetishism. What they do

Substance” knowingly aligned her photographs with

not address is the specific history of currency during the

paper money. Photographic historians Allan Sekula and

period in which Holmes wrote. Not only were Civil War

Alan Trachtenberg have pointed out that Oliver Wendell

debates about money intense and contentious, but they

Holmes assimilated stereographic views to banknotes,

explicitly expressed pro-­slavery and anti-­slavery com-

which turned “substance” into “form.”5 As we have seen,

mitments.

Holmes also likened cartes de visite to paper money:

The Civil War had brought the chaotic regional-

“As everybody knows, [card-­portraits] have become the

ism of US currency to a crisis. Previously, thousands of

social currency, the sentimental ‘green-­backs’ of civili-

banks issued different kinds of bills, but they were not

figure 92a. Ten-­cent fractional currency note (also called postage currency note and “greenback”) with a portrait of George Washington, third issue, 1863. 1.85 × 3.18 inches. figure 92b. Verso.

144

Chapter Eight

necessarily recognized elsewhere, and they were easily

that money was not a representation but a “substance.”

counterfeited. One memoirist recounted that during the

Hard-­money advocates (naively) believed that gold was

war, people were easily deceived into believing that any

value, not its representation. Thomas Nast’s illustra-

piece of printed paper was money: “The boss butchers

tion to ­David Wells’s famous anti-­greenback tract of

and the keepers of drinking houses actually took the lead

1876 parodies the government’s assertion that paper

in issuing ‘money.’ The current joke was that you could

was substance (fig. 93). No matter what Congress de-

pass the label of an olive-­oil bottle, because it was greasy,

clared, paper is not milk or a cow or a house, and dolls,

smelt bad, and bore an autograph—­Plagniol Freres.”8

thank goodness, are not hungry babies.12 And paper is

When the US government first replaced coin with

not money. How very easy it was to mock the tiny, flimsy

paper greenbacks, it relied on people’s familiarity

pieces of paper that Congress had declared to have value,

with federally issued postal stamps. The first national

as if naming made it so! The conflict about money was

banknotes, called “fractional currency” because the

complex and shifting, but its politics can be general-

bills were worth only a fraction of a dollar, were entirely

ized: invented to win the Civil War, paper currency was

indebted to the precedent of federal postage; their is-

Republican and abolitionist; coin was upheld by those in

suers made that association explicit by placing images

the North and the South who opposed the war and sup-

of postal stamps at the center of the notes’ engravings.9

ported slavery. In 1863 a newspaper editor identified the

Thus, familiar and revered faces were centrally framed

recruitment of black soldiers with the creation of paper

in the new fractional bills for, say, three or five cents. The

money, both of which he opposed: “For finance, issue

term greenbacks derived from the green backs on many

Greenbacks, for war, Blackbacks.”13 Remember that the

but not all federally issued notes. Such bills were a paper

allied Northern merchants, financiers, cotton manufac-

representation of value: the fiction required faith and

turers, and Southern slaveholders who wished to sus-

consensus, precisely the qualities in low supply during

tain slavery were called Copperheads. A pro-­Union carte

the strife of the Civil War. In 1874 a congressman contin-

de visite pastes the photographic heads of key Copper-

ued to insist that “all that is necessary for a government

head politicians, including Jefferson Davis at far left,

to do to create money is to stamp upon what it would

onto a drawing of serpents and adds the caption “A Nest

change into money ‘its image and superscription,’ and

of Copperheads” (fig. 94). The National Anti-­Slavery Stan-

it will be money.”10 As soon as the bills were issued in

dard was filled with articles against Copperheads such as

1862, inflation, as predicted, drove their value down. The

“Copperhead Horror of Negro Soldiers,” published on

hoarding of gold was widespread, leading in one case to

December 5, 1863.

the utter collapse of a hoarder’s house in New York City.11

During the Civil War, paper proliferated and metal

Greenbacks were attacked by those who believed

signified; Copperhead connoted both vipers and copMoney and the Civil War

145

figure 93. Thomas Nast, “Milk Tickets for Babies, in Place of Milk,” illustration in David Wells, Robinson Crusoe’s Money; or, The Remarkable Fortunes and Misfortunes of a Remote Island Community (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1876), p. 97. figure 94. Carte de visite, “A Nest of Copperheads,” ca. 1864. On the verso, handwritten: “1–­Jefferson Davis 2–­Charles J. Biddle, Philada 3–­William P. Reed, Ex-­Minister to China 4–­James Buchanan 5–­Fernando Wood, Mayor of New York 6–­Rev. John Chambers, Philada 7–­Clement C. Vallandigham 8–­J.P.B. Wilmer, [illegible] Bishop.”

146

per itself. Both paper and metal could stand for causes,

York City company, began performing “How Are You

sides in a war. A Southern loyalist reported that “the

Green-­Backs!” (fig. 95). In blackface, the singer parodied

spirit is still indomitable among the Baltimore women.

a popular recruiting song authored by a well-­known

Their last fashion was to wear cents as brooches which

Quaker and abolitionist, “We’re Coming, Father Abram,

as soon as the Federals found meant ‘Copperheads’ they

Three Hundred Thousand More.”15 Written by troupe

were ­arrested.”14

member Dan Emmett, “How Are You Green-­Backs!”

Attacks on greenbacks took many forms, including

turned the earlier song’s patriotic volunteers into paper

blackface. In March 1863, Dan Bryant’s Minstrels, a New

currency. Emmett, purportedly author of “Dixie” (1859),

Chapter Eight

now paired Lincoln and Treasury secretary Salmon Chase as the devious men who fought a wrongful war with the printing press: We’re coming, Father Abram, one hundred thousand more, Five hundred presses printing us from morn till night is o’er Like magic, you will see us start and scatter thro’ the land, To pay the soldiers or release the border contraband, With our promise to pay, “How are you, Secretary Chase?” Promise to pay, Oh! dat’s what de matter.16

Paper could “scatter thro’ the land” like magic; greenbacks promised to pay the “nine hundred thousand darkies.” So too did earlier improvised currency, greenbacks’ poor “cousins,” the postage stamp (“With your promise to pay, how are you, ‘Cousin Postage Stamps?’”). The cover of the published song—­“As sung by him with immense success at Bryant’s minstrels”—­prominently displays fictional ten-­dollar bills with Dan Bryant’s profile portrait and signature at left and publisher Wm. A.

figure 95. Song sheet, “Dan Bryant’s Popular Comic Song How Are You Green-­Backs? As Sung by Him with Immense Success at Bryant’s Minstrels . . . Published by Wm. A. Pond & Co., 547 Broadway [N.Y.],” 1863. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

Money and the Civil War

147

Pond’s signature at right. The fine, multicolored engrav-

an interrogative—­prominently features a printing

ing and the large size of the bills draw attention to the

press and an inset portrait of Salmon Chase, the father

ease with which individuals could produce paper that

of the greenback (fig. 96). And an anti-­Republican print

resembled money.

of 1864, aptly entitled “Running the ‘Machine,’” shows

No wonder the printing press itself came to stand for

William Pitt Fessenden, Treasury secretary after Chase,

the Republican cause. A different song sheet for “How

cranking out greenbacks from “Chase’s Patent Green-

Are you Green-­Backs?”—­turning the exclamation into

back Mill” (fig. 97).17 While several men call out for

figure 96. Song sheet, “How Are You Green-­Backs?” Wm. A. Pond & Co., New York, 1863. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC. figure 97. “Running the ‘Machine.’” Published by Currier & Ives, 152 Nassau St., New York, ca. 1864. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

148

Chapter Eight

“more greenbacks” and Lincoln throws back his head in laughter, the Treasury secretary exclaims, “These are the greediest fellows I ever saw. With all my exertions I can’t satisfy their pocket, though I keep the Mill going day and night.” The cartoon rebukes the Lincoln administration for its ineptitude with numbers as well as its fabrication of money. The naval secretary seated at far right, his pen to paper, speaks mathematical nonsense: “They say the Tallahassee sails 24 miles an hour!—­Well then, we’ll send 4 Gunboats after her that can sail 6 miles an hour, and that will just make enough to catch her.” Circulating newspaper; circulating postage stamps; circulating autographs; circulating cartes de visite; circulating newly printed greenbacks: the Civil War catalyzed a flood of paper. There were even circulating cartes de visite of greenbacks, two at least. One example of 1864 features a single bill inscribed “Twenty Dollar Bill. The

figure 98a. Carte de visite, “Twenty Dollar Bill. The New York National Exchange Bank,” ca. 1864. figure 98b. Recto.

New York National Exchange Bank” (fig. 98a, b). Rightly paranoid that his paper reproduction could be mistaken for a counterfeit bill despite its smaller size, the printer fills the card’s back with text establishing its credentials as an authorized—­and copyrighted—­“souvenir.” Another carte de visite of the same year features greenbacks as its subject (fig. 99). Four photographically reproduced, wrinkled one-­dollar bills and one two-­dollar bill rotate around the mirroring heads of Salmon Chase—­secretary of the Treasury, Republican, and abolitionist—­and Abraham Lincoln. The president is seen upside down, directly below Chase. Between the two men’s heads and at the center of the card is a barely comprehensible poem entitled “The Northern Star” Money and the Civil War

149

figure 99. Carte de visite, ca. 1864. On the recto: “The Northern Star / The Polar Star by which we steer / A Friend in need and ever dear / ’Tis money that makes the mare to go / And Chase the money makes you know.” Blank verso. figure 100a. Salmon P. Chase one-­dollar bill issued in New York on August 1, 1862. Signed by Chittenden/Spinner. 3.1 × 7.4 inches. figure 100b. Verso.

that ends with the line “And Chase the money makes

far rarer ten-­dollar bills. Greenbacks could be described

you know.” In the spatial configuration of the image,

therefore as cheap, circulating portraits of important

Chase is the Northern Star, the moneymaker, yet the in-

men.

verse is true as well: the money makes you know Chase.

150

18

Then and now, many have seen Chase’s decision as

Each one-­dollar bill spinning around the central axis

part of his ploy to win the presidency in the election of

features Chase’s profile portrait. When serving as sec-

1864.19 Eager to take credit for the greenbacks, Chase

retary of the United States Treasury, he had in fact cho-

recounted that he wished “to be among the people.” In

sen to put his face on the ubiquitous one-­dollar green-

Going Home to Vote, a pamphlet of 1863, he also argued

backs (fig. 100a, b), while placing Lincoln’s face on the

that greenbacks were “based” on the property, credit,

Chapter Eight

and very persons of “the country itself,” its fine, upstanding farmers, mechanics, and merchants: The next question was, “Will you borrow the paper of the banks and give six per cent interest for it, and then pay that to the soldiers in place of gold?” . . . Have you not heard somewhat of revulsions and panics and crashes? . . . Would you not have said to me: “here am I, Smith, a farmer; here am I, Jones, a mechanic; here am I, Robinson, a merchant. Take our property and our credit and us, and make a currency for the country based on the country itself. In other words, go to work and make ‘greenbacks.’”20

figure 101. Carte de visite with engraved portrait of Salmon Chase based on the engraving of his likeness on the one-­dollar bill (fig. 100a). Recto: handwritten autograph, “Feb 11, 1864.” Treasury Department, Washington, DC.

The parable is lofty, but as soon as Chase proceeds to describe the manufacture of greenbacks, his tone shifts to humorous self-­promotion: I know that is what you would have advised me to do;

bills as his calling cards, assuming the role, that is, of

and therefore, as my business was to interpret your

cartes de visite. At a hotel, he left a torn bill, presumably

will—­to know what you would have me do, and then

with his picture, for a woman he was courting.22 And he

do it—­I went to work and made “greenbacks,” and a good

placed the engraved portrait from the one-­dollar bills

many of them. I had some handsome pictures put on them;

on his own cartes de visite (fig. 101). According to Bruce

and as I like to be among the people, and was kept too

Baryla, who discovered the autographed version of this

close to visit them in any other way, and as the engravers

carte de visite, “The date, February 11, 1864, lies at the

thought me rather good looking, I told them they might put

precise watershed of Chase’s presidential ambitions.”23

me on the end of the one-­dollar bills. [cheers and laughter]21

Notable here is the slippage between photography and currency: photographic portraits on cartes de visite are

Vain, Chase was known to be. But the placement of his

engraved as portraits on dollar bills, and those engrav-

good-­looking head on one-­dollar bills was also free po-

ings in turn are photographed and made into cartes

litical advertisement. He seems to have used federal

de visite. Money and the Civil War

151

Chase campaigned for president on dollar bills. This

ing question of portraits on Treasury notes. Why should

was controversial enough, but a bigger scandal erupted

the face of a miscellaneous bureaucrat preside over pa-

when Spencer Morton Clark, first chief of the National

per bills?

Currency Bureau, decided to place his own portrait on

Clark was, moreover, under investigation for em­

the five-­cent note in 1863; the first fractional notes with

bezzlement, fraud, and sexual harassment when he put

his portrait appeared in 1864 (fig. 102a, b) and continued

his face on the five-­cent note. In the fall of 1863, his wife

to be issued until 1869. As secretary of the Treasury,

had warned him that the United States Treasury had

24

Chase had exceeded his power when he had placed his

come to be associated with scandalous behavior.25 To

figure 102a. Five-­cent fractional currency note with a portrait of Spencer Clark, superintendent of the National Currency Bureau, 1865. 1.8 × 2.5 inches.

own face on dollar bills, but he at least was a member

preempt a congressional investigation, Salmon Chase

of Lincoln’s cabinet and wielded considerable power.

commissioned Lafayette Baker to investigate the Trea-

Clark was a low-­level bureaucrat who overstepped his

sury in December of that year.26 The public scandal that

figure 102b. Verso.

authority and thereby drew attention to the embarrass-

ensued combined “immorality and profligacy.”27 Spen-

152

Chapter Eight

cer Clark was sleazy, hiring young girls and requiring

States, while the original of such a portrait is living.”31

their sexual favors, even their cross-­dressing as men

Four years earlier, in 1862, Congress had forbidden “the

in order that they could frequent spaces forbidden to

use of any [other] items intended to circulate as money

women:

in amounts of less than $1” in order to secure the status of fractional currency.32

A Treasury Bureau, where is printed the money repre-

Sojourner Truth was making cheap paper notes,

sentative or expressive of all the property and all the

printed and reproduced in multiples, featuring her por-

industry of the country . . .—­there where . . . depends,

trait. This was no insignificant achievement. Like Chase

more or less, every man’s prosperity—­is converted

she had put her face on paper that stood for economic

into a place for debauchery and drinking.28

value; like Chase she was publicizing her self and her politics with her portrait. In 1864 Truth elevated the

But sexual impropriety was only one of Clark’s weak-

cost of her cartes de visite to three for a dollar or one

nesses; he was equally irresponsible in his enthusiasm

for thirty-­five cents.33 She was therefore circulating her

for problematic inventions intended to thwart counter-

carte de visite not only as a form of currency but as an

feiting. He recklessly supported Stuart Gwynn’s newly

illegal fractional currency worth less than a dollar. She

invented “membrane paper.” Investigator Baker de-

had invented her own kind of paper money, and for the

scribed Gwynn as “an erratic, eccentric, and visionary

same reasons as the Republican government: in order

individual, and a monomaniac on the subject of inven-

to produce wealth dependent on a consensus that rep-

tions”; he added that Gwynn had once been committed

resentation produces material results, to make money

to “a lunatic asylum.” At great cost to the government,

where there was none, and to do so partly in order to

Clark had recklessly given Gwynn everything he re-

abolish slavery.

29

quested in the way of funding, space, and autonomy.

Paper, whether greenbacks or cartes de visite, abun-

Ultimately, Clark became the subject of two congressio-

dantly and freely circulated. Herein lay the special

nal committee reports: one blunt, the other whitewash.

frightening power of paper money: here was value, at

Shockingly, he was not removed from office, but “Trea-

once paper thin, unstable, fluctuating, elusive, and dif-

sury woman” became a euphemism for prostitute.

ficult to control. Anxieties about counterfeiting imme-

30

The most significant outcome of the Treasury de­

diately accompanied the manufacture of the first green-

bacle was Congress’s prohibition in 1866 of the place-

backs.34 At first the Treasury secretary himself had been

ment of a portrait of any living person on US currency:

authorized to sign each monetary bill, a task so time-­

“No portrait shall be placed upon any of the bonds, secu-

consuming that nineteen days later President Lincoln

rities, notes, fractional or postal currency of the United

hired seventy clerks to sign the notes with their own Money and the Civil War

153

names. Six months later, Spencer Clark decided that

Copperhead blackfacing of Lincoln on the carte de visite

signatures should be mechanically printed.

included in this book’s introduction (fig. 104; see fig. 5)?

35

figure 103. Five-­cent fractional currency note with “bronzing” around the image of George Washington, 1863. 1.85 × 2.57 inches. figure 104. Twenty-­five-­cent fractional currency note with off-­center bronzing around the image of George Washington, second issue, 1863. 1.85 × 2.57 inches.

154

Designs and printing methods were invented to

Significantly, it was photography, the strange new me-

thwart counterfeiters (thus Gwynn’s sway over Clark).

dium capable of turning valuable metals into paper, that

The very first fractional bills of 1863 featured a bronze

had compelled this strange ghosting of coin: the bronz-

oval encircling the portrait face—­as if paper money

ing technique was devised to prevent the photographic

needed to recall the precious metal coin, the substance,

counterfeiting of paper money.36 Because a photograph

it had sacrificed and turned into an image (fig. 103). How

is sensitive only to tone, it could not produce a negative

menacing was this brown ring, all that is left of gold

capable of distinguishing the brown (and reflective) me-

coin, encircling the white forefather’s face in the year

tallic circle from the engraved lines that lay beneath it.

of the Emancipation Proclamation? How offensive was

Compared to photography, engraving was a more com-

the occasional misplacement of the overlaid circle of

plex form of representation, because it could overlay

bronze, obscuring half the president’s face, recalling the

images created by different inks and different colors.

Chapter Eight

Monochromatic photography was, as we have seen, a

very well that cartes de visite, despite the claims to copy-

crudely leveling instrument. Criminals were overcon-

right, were infinitely reproducible. When she herself ran

fident about photography’s reproductive capacity; the

out of cards, she either had more cards made from nega-

federal government rightly believed it could outwit the

tives that she had saved, or she had photographers make

medium. Paper money was designed to prevent unau-

negatives from the cards themselves. Anyone could have

thorized duplication. Not so photographs, even after

done this, of course. Own a carte de visite, photograph

their copyright was made into law in 1865. Lincoln had

it, and you can make a hundred more.

accepted the infinite reproduction of his shadow in

Truth’s copyright was a textual inscription that at-

1860 (“I have not a single one now at my control; . . . I

tempted to convince others that her shadow was ulti-

suppose they got my shadow and can multiply copies

mately her property; her substance to sell. She did not

indefinitely”), but he attempted two years later to exert

need to pretend that the carte de visite was gold, or her

control over the printing of federal banknotes.

body, or more than her body’s interception of light, but

37

Sojourner Truth’s photographs were her currency,

she did want to make herself the proprietor of an image

and for these reasons she was far more troubled than

that was at once a humble substance and a represen-

Lincoln. In 1867 she told the New York World:

tation of value. But historian Nell Irvin Painter rightly reminds us, “Enslaved black people were not simply

Speaking of shadows, . . . I wish the World to know

likened to money, they were a kind of money.”39 Against

that when I go among fashionable people in the Church

scholars who would define the stakes of the Civil War

of Puritans, I do not carry ‘rations’ in my bag; I keep

abstractly, that is, as a discursive battle, Painter insists

my shadow there. I have good friends enough to give

that we remember that slaves were not only defined but

me clothes and rations. I stand on principle, always in

treated as fungible property; racial difference was not

one place, so everybody knows where to find Truth,

simply a metaphor. Sojourner Truth, as a free black

and I don’t want my shadow even to be dogging about

woman, a former slave, was savvily turning substance

here and there and everywhere, so I keep it in this bag.38

into shadow, matter into metaphor. If she herself had once been a form of money, she now embraced the sub-

Startling here is how the potential loss of control over

stitution of paper for flesh; the promise of representa-

her cartes de visite leads Truth to redefine herself as fixed

tion to leave the body untouched.

rather than wandering. And she imbues her shadow with

A print from a Copperhead, anti-­greenback tract

its own volition: it needs to be sequestered in her large

from the 1870s tells us that substance and shadow, Truth’s

bag to ensure that it would not be sojourning, “dogging

very terms, were economic as well as photographic

about here and there and everywhere.” But Truth knew

metaphors in the latter half of the nineteenth century Money and the Civil War

155

(fig. 105).40 In the debates about money, shadow was aligned with the abolition of slavery, substance with pro­slavery and anti-­black sentiment. Truth knew this opposition very well; she had been attacked by Copperheads chanting racial slurs in Indiana in 1861.41 At another point, she purportedly joked about her shift from “scouring brass door knobs” to “scouring copperheads.”42 When she captioned her carte de visite “I Sell the Shadow to Support the Substance,” Truth at once exploited the resonance of the terminology and embraced the shadow—­the paper representation that was not substance, not body, not gold but capable, like greenbacks, of being exchanged among the politically like-­minded to finance the end of slavery. Photography, like paper currency, was alchemy in reverse; it turned silver and gold into paper. Remember Holmes’s postulation that the new medium required ten tons of silver and half a ton of gold per year. Photography devoured precious metals on behalf of a representation with different, quite fragile, claims to value. The dark-­brown leather binding of the 1875 edition of Truth’s Narrative features an oval bust-­length portrait of Truth that duplicates the often reproduced engraving based on her most ubiquitous carte de visite (figs. 106–­7). That engraving appears on the title page, but a cropped version of it is also embossed on the figure 105. Thomas Nast, “A Shadow Is Not a Substance,” illustration in David Wells, Robinson Crusoe’s Money; or, The Remarkable Fortunes and Misfortunes of a Remote Island Community (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1876), p. 58.

156

Chapter Eight

book’s cover in sparkling gold. It is surprising to see this advocate of paper turn from photographic shadow to line engraving with the appearance of precious metal. This is the closest a representation of Truth comes to

figure 106a, b. Front cover, Narrative of Sojourner Truth (1875).

figure 107a, b. Back cover, Narrative of Sojourner Truth (1875).

resembling coin rather than paper currency. Of course, the gold portrait is only an embossed and engraved surface, not a coin. And the back of her book underscores how illusory is its resemblance to precious metal. On the verso appears the same imprinted oval with her figure, but it has been left startlingly empty. No gold ink fills the emptied grooves. Instead, we see an empty imprint of the front cover’s portrait, a silhouette. Not mimesis but absence as shape. Take away the gold, and representation—­even an emptied outline—­still has value. Truth understood this.

Money and the Civil War

159

9

Album Politics

bought by

In an 1864 speech to the Women’s Loyal National League in New York City,

Ann Heald

Susan B. Anthony eloquently argued that “the anti-­slavery question” should

at West Branch

be decided not by war but by “knowledge”:

Iowa 1870 at the lecture

The decision of the anti-­slavery question should not be left to the “stern

by

logic of events” which is wrought by the bullet and bayonet. More knowl-

Sojourner Truth

edge is needed. The eyes and the ears of the whole public are now open.

—Verso of a carte de visite

It should be the earnest work of every lover of freedom to give those eyes the right thing to see and those ears the right thing to hear.1

Anthony used this very speech to demonstrate the truth of her thesis: give your audience the right words to hear and the right pictures to see, and they will be empowered with the knowledge needed to end slavery. In order to secure the passing of an abolitionist resolution, she displayed two “right things” to her audience. Not surprisingly, they were photographs, specifically cartes de visite:

163

Miss Anthony held up two photographs to the view

sumed to be indexically imprinted by that oppression.

of the audience. One represented “Sojourner Truth,”

After ostensibly proving the reality of slavery, Anthony

the heroine of one of Mrs. H. B. Stowe’s tales, and the

is confident that she can script a fictional narrative and

other the bare back of a Louisiana slave [Gordon; see

invites her audience’s members to do the same.3 Here is

fig. 22]. Many of the audience were affected to tears.

a couple; now imagine that Gordon and Truth are your

“Sojourner Truth” had lost three fingers of one hand,

parents. Won’t you vote in favor of a resolution to end

and the Louisiana slave’s back bore scars of whipping.

slavery? Appearance and narrative, reality and fiction,

She asked everyone to suppose that woman was her

tears and votes, are summoned by two cartes de visite,

mother, and that man her father. In that case would

and they produce real consequences: a unanimous vote,

they think the time past for discussion and petition?

a new petition.

The resolutions were at once unanimously passed. The meeting adjourned.2

Sojourner Truth’s cartes de visite were sold, and they were bought. She sold her photographs to those who were willing to pay, and they did what they wished with

164

What an astonishing piece of theater and storytell-

them. Truth may have hoped to control the dissemina-

ing on the feminist’s part! Casting Truth once again as

tion of her likenesses, but that control was relinquished

the protagonist in Stowe’s “tale,” Anthony introduces

for payment. Purchased cartes de visite could be repro-

her fellow abolitionist and moving speaker as a literary

duced; they could be sold; they could be placed in narra-

figure, yet she uses photography, not writing, as a form

tives, theatrical performances, or albums; they could be

of evidence validating her own argument against slav-

marshaled on behalf of political causes by sympathetic

ery. She shows the audience a portrait of Truth and tells

activists such as Susan B. Anthony but also by political

them that slavery maims and disfigures. Not only does

opponents; they could be made into clandestine or de-

she suggest that Truth’s portrait shows her to be miss-

nunciatory objects also for sale. People could do what-

ing three fingers (when this would have been difficult

ever they wished with the cartes de visite they acquired.

to see), but she implies their amputation was the conse-

Remember the cartes de visite of Confederate generals

quence of her master’s violence rather than an accident

hung in effigy from a devil’s pitchfork with which this

while working in the fields. Absence is, of course, easily

book began. Remember also Lincoln in blackface (see

implied but not proved. What we do not see may be ab-

figs. 2, 5).

sent, or it may simply be overlapped or cast in shadow

Cartes de visite were circulating everywhere during

or too diminutive to discern. Still, Anthony relies on

the Civil War. In 1864 an imprisoned Union officer wryly

photographs to register the ways black bodies register

noted the exchange of cartes de visite even in the des-

the violence of slavery: medium and victim are both as-

perate circumstances of a Confederate prison. Union

Chapter Nine

prisoners were visited by

you distinctly see the perfect portraits of our nine generals! The Baltimore ladies wear them. Five were

colored women with coarse eatables to sell or ex-

brought here for sale and I sent for one I wished to

change for notions or photographs. I traded a photo-

give sister, but I was too sick to go myself and am very

graph of Gen. Grant for a little cooked rice, the first

much afraid I won’t get it.6

rations received from Grant in a long time. . . . One

Confederates were not alone in their transforma-

fellow traded a likeness of a lady, representing it to

tion of photographs into other kinds of things. After

be Queen Victoria.4

the war, a former Union general found his own photoIn the South, “colored” women were collecting photo-

graphic portrait made into a commodity without his

graphs, probably for their exchange value. And prison-

knowing. He wrote his wife: “I found in the passageway

ers were shrewd enough to pretend that a photographed

between the Senate and House a woman selling photo-

lady, perhaps a family member, was Queen Victoria.

graphs pasted to the bottom of the ordinary globular

Only public figures would be worth something. Cartes

glass paper weights—­among them was mine, which I

de visite were functioning as currency and also as clan-

bought and will send you by express. It is the one you

destine political tokens.

liked best, and which, as it is through the glass, is a very

Ingeniously, Confederates in Union states created

good ­picture.”7

surreptitious expressions of loyalty to their cause, be-

Buyers of cartes de visite, or their descendants, occa-

cause more direct displays were subject to confiscation.

sionally inscribed the backs of cards. Many of the versos

An 1863 diary tells us that in Baltimore, “an exhibitor of

of Truth’s photographs are blank except for the copy-

portraits [was] arrested and put in jail, after a loss of his

right, but others include handwritten texts:

pictures, for exhibiting Stonewall Jackson and Lee.” In 5

response to such censorship, Baltimore ladies not only

“I heard her”

wore pennies as Copperhead brooches, they turned pho-

“an ex-­slave entertained by Uncle & Aunt Campbell”

tographs into much-­sought-­after jewelry. An 1863 letter

“bought by Ann Heald at West Branch Iowa 1870 at the

from a Confederate describes one such desired object:

lecture by Sojourner Truth” “Bought of Sojourner Truth in a caboose car near

The most curious article I have seen lately is a small trumpet that hangs to the watch chain[;] inside there is a glass about as large as the head of a big pin with nine little specks—­in looking through the end

Lansing Mar 5/78” “Aug 30th 1878 / Met her at Mrs. Arnold’s Friday ­Afternoon” “Battle Creek, Died [torn paper] 1883 Funeral Presbyt. Album Politics

165

walls. Here is Lucretia Mott’s saintly face, beautiful with

Church Nov 28”

eternal youth; there Mary Wollstonecraft looking into

and, incorrectly, “Nurse in Merritt Household before

futurity with earnest eyes.”11

the Civil War.”

People conceived of collections of cartes de visite On the back of another carte de visite, above one of her

as communities. During the Civil War, a naval captain,

only two known attempts to sign her name, we find:

Percival Drayton, was accustomed to the numerous re-

“Written by Sojourner Truth, April 23d 1880.”

quests for autographs and cartes de visite received by

Sometimes purchasers put the pictures in scrapbooks or albums, a use anticipated by Truth as early

his admiral, but he was surprised when a general’s wife requested one of his own photographs:

as June 25, 1863, when her letter to Gerrit Smith ended: “Please accept she says her shadow. . . . If any desire her

Even I do not entirely escape, and a few days since

8

picture for albums she’d like to send these for 50 cts.”

received a very polite note from Mrs. General McClel-

Albums created communities, sometimes narratives.

lan requesting a signed Carte de visite, which having,

When eighteen-­year-­old Fanny Seward received two

I of course sent, telling her that although I could not

new cartes de visite in the mail in 1863, one of Lucretia

well see how the likeness of a person so little known

Mott, feminist and friend of Truth, and the other of the

as myself could aid in the very laudable object she had

writer and editor George William Curtis, she decided

in view, still I could not otherwise than feel glad at an

that the two cards should be placed side by side in her

opportunity being offered me, of not only appearing in good

album: “I have put Curtis’s card beside that of Lucretia

company but at the same time of obliging the wife of

Mott. He is the friend of woman as well as humanity.

Genl McClellan.12

She is the friend of charity and progress.”9 Albums were not the only way cartes de visite were displayed and ar-

“Appearing in good company” while serving in the mil-

ranged in relationships. Advice not to hang cartes de

itary during the Civil War was an opportunity not to be

visite on walls because of their small size indicates that

passed up. Drayton generally resented the public’s re-

some people did. A letter of 1868 explains another con-

quests for cartes de visite, which, after all, cost money,

sidered placement of Lucretia Mott, in this case next to

and he admired the admiral’s “prudent” decision simply

Mary Wollstonecraft. The writer describes the interior

not to have them on hand; yet he was gratified by an in-

in which the photographs, most likely cartes de visite,

vitation to join the community assembled by a gener-

were hung on walls: “actually a neat carpet on the floor,

al’s wife.

10

166

a substantial round table covered by a pretty cloth, en-

Collections were seen as explicitly political by cre-

gravings and photographs hung thickly over clear white

ators and viewers alike. Portraits were conceived as allies

Chapter Nine

or foes. In 1862 an upper-­class Southern woman made

Perhaps Truth had this portrait of herself made before

the mistake of showing a boy her photograph album,

the others, and after seeing the pictures side by side de-

which contained a portrait of an enemy: “To amuse the

cided to make new portraits that included the portrait

child I gave him a photograph album to look over. ‘You

of her grandson. According to a descendant, Truth “was

have Lincoln in your book!’ said he. “I am astonished

often a guest of my great-­great-­grandparents, John and

at you. I hate him!’ And he placed the book on the floor

Angelina Deming, who were abolitionists.”14 The Dem-

and struck Old Abe in the face with his fist.”13 The child

ings were followers of William Lloyd Garrison, pub-

simply did what adults might wish to do—­assault op-

lisher of the anti-­slavery newspaper the Liberator, and

ponents in effigy. And as we have seen, this wish some-

active in the Underground Railroad. In an interview at

times was realized by cutting and pasting (see figs. 2–­4).

the end of his life, John Deming spoke of the dedication

I have located only four family albums that include a

of his father-­in-­law, Benjamin Bown, who helped “in the

carte de visite of Sojourner Truth; they were compiled in

neighborhood of three hundred slaves.”15 Deming twice

West Branch, Iowa; Salem, Ohio; Massachusetts, perhaps

mentioned that “Mrs. Bown was an even worker with

Boston; and either Battle Creek, Michigan, or Aurelius,

him” and “a good anti-­slavery woman.”16 In one case, his

New York. The albums from Iowa and Ohio belonged to

mother-­in-­law hid a runaway female slave for two weeks

families, the Healds and the Demings respectively, who

and made “a good dress” and “Quaker bonnet and veil”

were active in the Underground Railroad. The album

to help her escape.17

holding the earliest card of Truth belonged to John and

The Heald album included a carte de visite of Truth

Angelina Deming of Salem, Ohio, and is still owned by

acquired by Ann Heald in 1870, according to an inscrip-

their descendants. The Demings were the closest of the

tion on its back (see fig. 52). Born in 1842, Ann Minthorn

three families to Truth herself, and their album reflects

Heald (also called Anna) was the eldest of eight children

this. The early, uncaptioned carte de visite bears a hand-

in a Quaker family that moved from Canada to West

written inscription on its front: “Your friend, Sojourner

Branch, Iowa, around 1857.18 Two of Ann’s four sisters

Truth” (obviously written by another). This portrait is

became Quaker ministers; one of her two brothers,

related to the 1863 photographs in which she holds the

Henry John Minthorn, a physician, worked on behalf of

picture of her grandson James Caldwell, but here she

the Underground Railroad and in the late 1870s became

wears a different, boldly striped blouse and does not

an Indian School administrator on the Ponca Reserva-

display his picture. Instead, the Deming album places

tion; the other brother was a surveyor. Ann married an-

a carte de visite of Caldwell beside hers (see fig. 40). On

other Quaker, Hiel Heald, at the age of eighteen and bore

the album page beneath their photographs, someone

eleven children. According to their descendant William

wrote “Sojourner Truth” and “Grandson of S. Truth.”

Heald: “Not only were both [Heald and Minthorn] famiAlbum Politics

167

lies Quakers, but they were active during the Civil War in

portraits of Union officers. The former album, made

the Underground Railway, one branch of which passed

in Boston and compiled by a Mrs. Tuckerman, places

through the West Branch area. In fact [Ann’s brother]

the carte de visite of Truth in its first pages, before a

Henry John Minthorn was a driver on the Underground

portrait of Captain William Paddock which bears a tax

Railway when he ran away and enlisted in the Union

stamp and thus dates from 1864 to 1866 (figs. 108–­10).

Army, but he became ill and was sent home.”

The placement of Truth’s card on the album’s sixth page

19

Ann was, therefore, a member of a Quaker commu-

implies that it was acquired early, but the owner could

nity that supported the abolition of slavery and the es-

also have arranged the album all at once after acquir-

cape of African Americans from slavery. Like Mrs. Bown,

ing a pile of cartes de visite. Mrs. Tuckerman carefully

mother-­in-­law of John Deming, she may have been an

wrote names on the index page provided at the back,

abolitionist herself. She was twenty-­eight years old

but she relied on the titles Mrs. and Mr., often omitting

when she heard Truth lecture in West Branch in 1870 and

first names (even for herself !), making identification

purchased a carte de visite. She probably was the person

more difficult. Uniquely, Sojourner Truth was listed by

who inscribed the back in blue ink: “Ann Heald at West

her full name.

20

Branch Iowa,” around which someone else later wrote

The Michigan or New York album includes a Truth

in black ink “bought by” and “1870 at the lecture by So-

photograph of the latest date. Belonging to Laura Yawger

journer Truth.” Conversely, it is possible that someone

of Aurelius, New York, whose last known residence was

at the event itself prepared the cards in advance, writ-

Battle Creek, Michigan, the album contains forty-­five

ing “bought by” and “1870 at the lecture by Sojourner

cartes de visite and tintypes, most of which were iden-

Truth,” leaving a blank where buyers could write their

tified in pencil on the album pages. Among them was

names. The carte de visite of Truth was placed at the

a portrait of Laura and a newspaper obituary identi-

very end of a Heald family photograph album dating

fying her as the widow of Daniel Yawger. The album’s

from the 1860s, but including many pictures from later

earliest pictures stemmed from the Civil War: a carte de

in the century. The album was devoted to family por-

visite shows her brother-­in-­law Peter Yawger posed in

traits; Truth’s card was the sole exception, and it ap-

uniform with his sword; he had joined Battery A, Third

peared at the very end. Her inclusion as the album’s only

New York Light Artillery, on April 21, 1865.22 But the pho-

public figure indicates the extent to which the Healds

tograph of Truth was bought at a later date, likely when

identified with the cause that she represented.

Laura resided in Battle Creek. The verso reads: “Aug 30th

21

I have far less information about the albums com-

168

1878 / Met her at Mrs. Arnold’s Friday Afternoon.”

piled in Massachusetts and in either Michigan or New

The four albums nicely demonstrate the different

York. What they have in common is the inclusion of

ways individuals acquired Truth’s cards: as friends, as

Chapter Nine

figure 108. Cover of Mrs. Tuckerman’s carte de visite album, ca. 1865–­70. figure 109. Index page from Mrs. Tuckerman’s carte de visite album, ca. 1865–­70. figure 110. Page from Mrs. Tuckerman’s carte de visite album, ca. 1865–­70.

audience members at lectures, and through mutual

to the very dramatic white man directly across from her

acquaintances (Mrs. Arnold). Only Truth’s card in the

on the facing page: John Brown, the radical abolitionist

album of Mrs. Tuckerman is likely to have been pur-

also examined by phrenologist Nelson Sizer and exe-

chased by mail, although Truth’s friends the Demings

cuted in 1859 (fig. 111). Scott McCorkhill, the Demings’

may also have received theirs that way. But the design of

descendant who has kindly shared his family album, has

albums masked the purchase of Sojourner Truth’s cartes

begun one such “retelling”: “I guess I shouldn’t be sur-

de visite. The provided frames cropped them, excising

prised that John Brown’s photograph is in my old fam-

her name and caption. “I sell” is thereby buried, and

ily album! . . . One of John Brown’s raiders, Edwin Cop-

Truth is incorporated as a portrait like so many others.

pock, was from Winona, Ohio, which is a small village

We could say that she joins the album’s community as

just southwest of Salem. Coppock was also executed in

an equal, but such inclusion occurs at the price of her

1859 after the trial and is buried here in Salem’s Hope

own self-­authoring in prose and law. In albums, others

Cemetery.”24

handwrote her identity, whether in the index or beneath

carte de visite of Truth were white; at least two were ab-

the image.

170

All four families who owned albums containing a

Placed in albums, Truth’s card would have invited

olitionists; and two had family who fought in the Civil

storytelling as to how it was acquired and what Truth

War on behalf of the Union. Historians have noted the

was like—­the owners were invited to compensate for

extent to which Sojourner Truth moved in white aboli-

the loss of mooring text and to supply another narrative.

tionist and suffragette circles. While generally true, it

Indeed, Martha Langford has argued that albums incite

is important to remember her relationship to African

speech, oral rather than textual communication: “It

American businessman and author William Still of Phil-

may at first seem preposterous to argue that a product

adelphia, also active in the Underground Railroad; her

of the industrial revolution . . . could perpetuate the oral

choice to visit Abraham Lincoln with her African Amer-

condition. [But] the accumulation of photographic mo-

ican friend Lucy Colman; her decision in her late sixties

ments does not replace memory; rather it overburdens

to live among freed slaves in Washington, DC, for three

recall with visual data that explodes in the retelling.”

23

difficult years (from the winter of 1864 to the winter of

Albums situated Truth’s card within different narrative

1867), during which she worked tirelessly on their be-

contexts. Even within a single album, such as the Dem-

half; and her ties, perhaps especially in her last decades,

ings’, one could tell different stories concerning Truth’s

to her own family, including her love for and reliance on

relationship to her grandson at her right, whom she

her grandsons.

loved and who served in the Civil War. Or one could talk

We do have one precious piece of evidence that at

about the longer history of abolitionism, linking Truth

least a few African Americans collected Truth’s cartes de

Chapter Nine

figure 111. Two facing pages from the Demings’ family photograph album including cartes de visite of Sojourner Truth and her grandson James Caldwell, and a carte de visite with an engraving of John Brown. Handwritten inscription: “Sojourner Truth” and “Grandson of S. Truth.” Photograph courtesy of Scott McCorkhill, descendant of the Demings.

visite. Josephine R. Franklin wrote a letter dated May 31,

thirdly the greatest warrior that ever was or will be

1864, to Truth in Battle Creek:

was a Coloured man although crushed and enslaved, kept back and rejected their talents will shine and in

Dear Mother of Truth. This is the second epistle I

some way show their superiority, but I must haste on

have addresed to you, I answered yours dated March

least I weary your patience.25

8th and sent return stamp; but not receiving any

172

answer from You, I thought I would write again to

Despite her “poverty,” Josephine seems to have sold pho-

You before I sent the money for Your Photographs.

tographs on Truth’s behalf, and she also bought them

I have sold them retaining one for myself; the one

for herself and sold or gave them to her sister and niece.

in the sitting posture I reserved for myself, and as

(The letter is ambiguous, referring to both selling and

soon as you answer this I will send the price wich I

giving.) All her transactions with Truth also appear to

believe is $1, would I were rich that it might be $10,

have occurred through the postal service. Letters are

returned instead of one, but the small mite if only

not explicitly marked by skin color, unless purposely,

willingly given is better than much given grudgingly;

but something made Truth ask Josephine if she shared

I bought them myself and gave one to my Sister, Mrs.

her “race”; this is our only evidence that Truth ever

Charles H. Lee, in the City of Poughkeepsie and the

used the word. Josephine replied: “I am proud to say

other to my Niece Mrs. Stephen Hansible[?] in the

I am the same race that you are, I am Coloured thank

city of Brooklyn. So you see I would willingly have

God for that; I have not the curse of God upon me for

given more but poverty restrained me, but my heart

enslaving human beings.” Moreover, God made Adam

is willing, and it is my prayer that everyone may have

after his own image, and since “Our Colour was the first

the same feelings that I do and do their part willingly.

to inhabit the Earth,” God must be colored—­“had not I

You asked me if I was of your race. I am proud to say

ought to be proud[?]” I quote Franklin’s letter at length

I am the same race that you are, I am Coloured thank

as a corrective to histories that emphasize Sojourner

God for that; I have not the curse of God upon me for

Truth’s appeal primarily to white elites. Josephine’s

enslaving human beings, did I say I was proud yes

was another point of view, one she confided to Truth.

thrice proud of my race, perhaps You ask me why?

Yet Franklin shared with many whites the desire to own

my pen fails to tell You, but I will mention one or two

Truth’s cartes de visite, and she wished “that everyone

reasons. first, Our Colour was the first to inhabit the

may have the same feelings that I do and do their part

Earth and we are told that God made Adam after his

willingly.” To buy a photograph of Truth was to support

own image. had not I ought to be proud. and Secondly

a cause, but for Josephine, the portrait of Truth also cel-

the greatest men of the age were Colored Men, and

ebrated the race they shared.

Chapter Nine

Could Josephine Franklin afford a photograph album? Did she and her sister and her niece have carte de visite portraits made of themselves? A dollar was enough to buy three of Truth’s photographs, but not generally enough to have portraits made of oneself. Amy Post had paid for Truth’s sitting for two dozen portraits in Battle Creek. Could the family of the big-­eyed little girl photographed standing next to a table purchase the carte de visite album advertised on the card’s back (fig. 112a, b)? Her fancy shoes suggest that this African American family could perhaps, but most could not. The cost of a single carte de visite was lower than Truth’s price, but photographers insisted on the purchase of multiples. Perhaps we should think of portraits of sitters holding photographs as poor people’s improvised alternatives to family albums—­not only Truth’s cartes de visite with her grandson in her lap but a framed ambrotype of a sailor holding a double portrait in one hand and a cigar in the other (fig. 113). Even a touching tintype portrait of two young men, perhaps brothers, in military uniform strikes me as an attempt to situate oneself in a family group rather than alone (fig. 114). Poor people could afford tintypes when even cartes de visite were out of their reach, and like these brothers they could squeeze together, two for one. Only the upper and middle classes

figure 112a. Carte de visite portrait of an unnamed African American girl standing next to a draped table with folded fan, ca. 1860. figure 112b. Verso: “Photographed by Bruce & Hall, 304 Pennsylvania Av. Washington D.C.”

could afford to assemble an album of discrete individuals, a collection of solitary persons, each accorded a separate page with large margins. Sojourner Truth’s cartes de visite were also inserted into scrapbooks. The pages of the 1872 scrapbook of the son of Truth’s friend Eliza Seaman Leggett differ Album Politics

173

figure 113. Sixth-­plate ambrotype portrait of an unidentified African American sailor with cigar in hand, holding a double-­case image of Confederate soldiers, ca. 1863–64. Library of Congress, Washington, DC. figure 114. Quarter-­plate tintype portrait of unidentified men, perhaps brothers, in Union uniform, ca. 1863–­64. Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

greatly from the isolating blank pages of premanufac-

board mount. The year 1872 is written on a photograph

tured carte de visite albums (fig. 115). Here, photographs

first taken in the late 1860s, likely attesting to the date it

are placed randomly on larger pages and surrounded by

was acquired (but also possibly to the date when it was

newspaper clippings. Images and words jostle for space

reshot and/or reprinted). Beneath the picture is written

and our attention; their content and dates of origin can

“1871,” probably dating the newspaper clipping that

be entirely discontinuous, requiring the examiner’s

­begins:

analysis. As in albums, scrapbooks sometimes replace

174

Truth’s printed name and caption with other texts. In

Sojourner Truth, on the Saturday before the recent

this example, dates are handwritten both beneath and

election, appeared before the Board of Registration in

on a photographic print that has been cut out of its card-

Battle Creek, where she resides, and claimed the right

Chapter Nine

figure 115. Two pages from Percival Leggett’s scrapbook dating from 1872. Leggett Family Papers, Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library. Photograph courtesy of the Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library.

to have her name entered upon the list of electors.

when inserted into a frame (whether that of a scrapbook

Upon being refused, she repaired to the polls on

or album or even a picture frame).

election day in the same ward, and again asserted her right to the ballot.26

Although Truth may also have inserted photographs in her scrapbooks, the only one that now exists holds no such pictures. Significantly, there is no evidence that

176

We see the 1860s and read 1872 and 1871. And we see

Truth herself ever compiled a photograph album. Nor

Sojourner Truth posing with her knitting in an inte-

did she have a family portrait taken of her adult chil-

rior and read about her impressive perseverance and

dren and their children. She seems never to have col-

political activism at age seventy-­four as she traverses

lected the cartes de visite of others; we have no letters

space, moving from city office to polling station. On the

by her that include a request for someone else’s photo-

page, she thereby acquires some personal complexity

graph. Exceptionally, the pictures of her grandson in

and agency, a layer of history. But she is also deprived

her lap suggest she owned his portrait. These cartes de

of her own authorship of (printed) text, words that had

visite are also the closest she came to assembling an al-

asserted her self-­possession, self-­representation, and

bum or making a group portrait. Instead, she collected

right to commerce: “I sell.” And her legal right to copy-

signatures—­autographs had the great advantage of

right on the card’s back was always hidden from view

usually being free.

Chapter Nine

10

Truth’s Last Portraits 1881–83

Sojourner is very different from an

Throughout the late 1860s and 1870s, Sojourner Truth relied on the sale of

ordinary poor person. She has been so

her photographs to sustain herself and to manage her debt. A letter from

much & done so much & suffered so

Truth to Amy Post dated November 4, 1867, complained: “It is so cold I can’t

much, it gives me a [illegible] feeling for her & whilst I have a living & she needs one I hope to continue in my care

go around and sell my photographs. I want you to come but bring something along to eat for I am to poor to get anything to eat.”2 Another letter

for her.

from Truth to Post dated February 8, 1869, expressed her happiness and relief

—frances titus, letter to Amy

that an acquaintance, Sam Mumfred, had arranged for her to lecture in the

Post, Battle Creek, Michigan, July 21,

basement of a Unitarian church in Detroit. To her surprise, she drew such an

18831

immense crowd that she spoke upstairs in the sanctuary instead, and “filled the pulpit for an evening.” She added, “He was very kind and succeeded in raising $60 by collection and selling Photo’s for me.”3 Despite illness, Truth continued to lecture and to sell photographs until the end of her life. In a letter of 1883, Titus claimed to have supported her since the winter of 1876, partly using her private resources, partly “by taking her to hotel meetings” where Truth likely spoke and sold her cartes de visite.4 Not only did Truth continue to sell her portraits, she chose to sit for new photographs at least three times during her very last years—­a decision all 177

the more remarkable given that Truth, now in her eight-

Truth’s orders deviates from his ordinary business

ies, remained poor and was often ill (she had long suf-

transactions: moving down the the column labeled “No.

fered from an open sore on her leg: “The pain, at times,

Pictures,” we read: “12—­12—­12—­12—­1 —­100—­12—­6 —

is intense”).5 Yet Truth, according to her steadfast friend

­2 — ­12— ­6 — ­12— ­3” for August 8, 1881, and “4— ­6 — ­1 —­

Frances Titus, “keeps cheerful & patient through it all”

1— ­50— ­50— ­6 — ­1 — ­12— ­6” for April 11, 1882. The out-

and “her mind seems just as bright as ever.”6 In those

size numbers are Sojourner Truth’s orders. Despite

years, Truth was relying on Amy Post’s gifts to pay for

­being in her eighties, she not only chose to sit for por-

the fuel she needed in order to sit by a fire all year long.

traits three times between the summer of 1881 and the

As always, she relied on friends to read to her. But some-

spring of 1882, she ordered 100 photographs at one ses-

how in her eighties, she arranged to sit for photographic

sion and 50 each of two different formats at the other

portraits at least three times in the city of Detroit, 120

(the first entry on June 13, 1881, does not specify the num-

miles away.

ber of prints made). She paid five dollars on August 8,

The majority of Truth’s final photographs bear a

1881, for 100 pictures; each therefore cost only five cents.

Randall imprint and date from the 1880s (sessions K,

A hundred photographs is an astonishingly large order

L, M, figs. 116–­21, 127). They were made by Corydon C.

for a woman in her eighties; either she believed that she

Randall, a Detroit photographer who took over his

had many years ahead of her, or she was thinking about

father James Randall’s business in 1866.7 Each bears

photographs as posthumous mementos.

Truth’s name below her caption as well as the Randall

These late portraits bear the same caption, name,

studio imprint, which appears on the back of the cartes

and copyright as her cartes de visite from the 1860s, but

de visite along with her copyright (figs. 116–­17) and on

they differ in iconography. In the seated poses, Truth

the front of the increasingly popular, larger cabinet

still appears the proper, well-­attired lady, but Randall’s

cards (figs. 118–­19). There are also two slight variants

studio setting is far more crowded and ornate than the

from this series with a seated pose, but no Randall in-

blank backdrop and small table in her most famous se-

scription on the recto (figs. 120–­21).8 While the similarity in poses, appearance, and settings suggests that

(figs. 1­ 22–­24). Conscientiously, Randall transcribed the

figure 116a. Captioned carte de visite of Sojourner Truth by Corydon C. Randall, Monday, June 13, 1881? Standing pose from session K? Two copies: Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, Northhampton, Massachusetts; George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film, Rochester, New York. Photograph: George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film.

number of pictures ordered by his clients. The size of

figure 116b. Verso.

all the photographs had been taken at the same session, Randall’s logbook from 1872 to 1882 tells us that Truth sat for him three different times in a span of ten months: June 13, 1881; August 8, 1881; and April 11, 1882

178

Chapter Ten

figure 118. Captioned cabinet card of Sojourner Truth by Corydon C. Randall, Monday August 8, 1881? Standing pose from session L? The “Corner Williams and Madison Aves” is the same location as “East Grand Circus Park” in figure 119. On the verso: copyright only. National Museum of African American History and Culture, Smithsonian.

figure 117. Captioned carte de visite of Sojourner Truth by Corydon C. Randall, Monday, June 13, 1881? Standing pose from session K?

figure 119. Captioned cabinet card of Sojourner Truth by Corydon C. Randall, “East Grand Circus Park, detroit,” Monday, April 11, 1882? Seated pose from session M? National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. Photograph: National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution / Art Resource, NY.

figure 120. Captioned cabinet card of Sojourner Truth by Corydon C. Randall, Monday, April 11, 1882? Seated pose from session M? Location unknown. American History Live Salesroom Auction, November 15, 2013, Cincinnati.

figure 121. Captioned cabinet card of Sojourner Truth by Corydon C. Randall, Monday, April 11, 1882? Seated pose from session M? Location unknown. Chicago History Museum, ICHi-­22022.

figure 122. Corydon C. Randall logbook, entry for June 13, 1881, session K? There is no indication of number ordered (Kf ?) or cost. Detroit Public Library. Photograph courtesy of the Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library.

figure 123. Corydon C. Randall logbook, entry for Monday August 8, 1881, session L? Order of one hundred copies. Detroit Public Library. Photograph courtesy of the Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library. figure 124. Corydon C. Randall logbook, entry for April 11, 1882, session M? Order of fifty copies each of two types of photographs, likely cartes de visite and cabinet cards (listed here as K and C); no indication of cost. Detroit Public Library. Photograph courtesy of the Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library.

184

pia images. Here, she is crowded in from all sides: by the

here Truth appears to rest on it, not to use it to plow

ornate heavy chair, the patterned carpet, the elaborate

through the world; no longer does it connote forward

wainscoting, the tasseled mantle, and the shelves bear-

movement, certitude, even the potential to serve as a de-

ing trinkets up to the very top of the picture.

fensive weapon if need be. In these late seaside portraits,

Her standing poses, by contrast, stage her leaning

there is a soft, winsome quality, intensified when we re-

against a pedestal in front of a painted seaside backdrop.

alize that she is in her eighties and at the very end of a

The effect is unique among her portraits. She stands in

long, arduous life of personal and political struggle. The

what purports to be a natural scene; her figure is smaller

seaside pictures evacuate reference to that struggle and

relative to the background, suggesting a vastness of

to the Civil War; they replace activism with pastoralism,

space we have not seen heretofore. Of course, the out-

as if Truth had retired to a seaside resort.

door scene is as artificial and conventional as the stu-

Yet the quantity of photographs ordered by Truth

dio setting used for seated poses. The seaside backdrop

refutes the assumption that she turned to photography

was standardized, sold to photographers literally by the

in her old age for reasons resembling those of Randall’s

yard; but even as we recognize its artifice we indulge in

other clients: to conserve a personal likeness for loved

the illusion of space and air and natural light that it so

ones. The octogenarian still imagined a public role for

economically suggests.

the two-­hundred-­plus copies she ordered, and she still

In none of these portraits does Truth hold her knit-

insisted that these portraits of the 1880s bear her tex-

ting. Nor does she wear glasses. Seated, she appears

tual inscriptions: name, caption, and copyright. But the

prim but also dazed and glassy-­eyed, perhaps short-­

world had changed, and so too had photography. For the

sighted. Without the knitting and the call to productiv-

first time, Truth ordered the newer, larger cabinet cards

ity that her handicraft represented, Truth appears bereft

in addition to cartes de visite. Featuring photographers’

of purpose: all she does is sit passively in an ugly bour-

names and trademarks on their fronts rather than backs,

geois setting that is not her own. The loss of purpose is

cabinet cards drew more attention to the photographer.

felt less acutely in the standing poses, where she appears

While Randall capitulated to her requirement that her

far more relaxed, gentle, or perhaps weak. Leaning on a

name and caption be printed directly below her image,

cane must have been very familiar to her; she had leaned

he diminished their size in order to fit them in the small

on one in her very first carte de visite in Indiana, and had

space above his own flamboyant, oversized signature.

also carried it in her bold, forthright standing portraits

After Truth’s death on November 26, 1883, F. E. Perry,

from the mid-­1860s, along with her bag of shadows (not

a photographer from Battle Creek, used one of Randall’s

rations! as she was sure to tell us). The cane also signaled

photographs to make a cabinet card that goes a step

the mobility that she had claimed as her very name. Still,

further, rudely excising Truth’s name and caption alto-

Chapter Ten

gether and leaving only his studio’s imprint on the front (fig. 125).9 Below her image, he prominently inserted his own name in large, florid script and also his location, “Battle Creek, Mich.,” in block letters. Another card from this period, like that by Perry, displays solely the name and city of the photographer on its recto: “Packard, Kalamazoo,” referring most likely to Callen Channing Packard, who was active from 1866 or 1867 to 1898 (posthumous or session N?, fig. 126).10 So conscientious and consistent was Truth’s inclusion of her name, caption, and copyright on all her portraits made after 1864 (with the sole exception of the Brady card) that we are justified in surmising that Perry and Packard were taking advantage of her death when they eliminated her text and replaced it with their own advertisement and claim to authorship.11 Both photographers were capitalizing on the renewed interest in Truth after her death, especially in Battle Creek, and also the opportunity to circulate such an image without the permission of Truth herself. Given the absence of name, caption, and copyright, the Packard photograph, like the Perry cabinet card, was likely reshot from another photographer’s portrait. These photographs by Perry and Packard are two of the six exceptional portraits of Truth that identify the photographer—­partly because at this later date they

figure 125. Posthumous remounted captioned cabinet card of Sojourner Truth by F. E. Perry, reprinting a photograph by Corydon C. Randall, 1883. Standing pose. Location unknown. figure 126. Carte de visite of Sojourner Truth by Cullen Channing Packard, Kalamazoo, 1883–­84? Posthumous (?) or session N? in Kalamazoo. Battle Creek Historical Society, Battle Creek, Michigan.

were making cabinet cards and partly because they used their standard mounts, and chose not to add her name and caption as did Randall. The iconography of Truth’s final photographs is, in fact, entirely deceptive. Truth had not retired to a seaTruth’s Last Portraits

185

side resort or become complacent in an ostentatious

to Kansas, “the land of John Brown.”15 She returned to

bourgeois interior. The last years of her life were as po-

the road again in 1880, her travels taking her across the

litically active as the mid-­1860s, when she had made her

Midwest, including Chicago. And she still had a public

earlier cartes de visite. The 1870s were, according to his-

profile: her speeches on behalf of different causes were

torian Nell Irvin Painter, “cruel.” The depression of 1873

reprinted in newspapers. Truth’s very last speech oc-

had cooled interest in African Americans’ rights, and

curred on June 8, 1881, at the Michigan state legislature

only a watered-­down Civil Rights Act made it through

in Lansing, where she denounced a bill to institute cap-

Congress in 1875 as a last act of radical Reconstruction

ital punishment. The Wykoff Hanging Bill was defeated,

policy. In 1879 tens of thousands of rural blacks fled the

and Truth’s strategically conciliatory, perhaps sincerely

South, fearing a reinstatement of slavery by the Demo-

hopeful speech was published in a Battle Creek newspa-

crats, who had won back control over state governments

per: “He who sanctions the crime of hanging will have to

in Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, and Tennessee. Ac-

answer for it. I  believe that God has spared me to do good

cording to Painter, the spontaneous “Exodus to Kansas

to this white population, which has done so much good

of 1879 revived Truth’s ‘crowning work.’” Having long

to the black race. How wonderful God turns things.”16

campaigned for the resettlement of freed slaves in the

Within five days, the octogenarian had traveled almost

Midwest, Truth enthusiastically supported the move-

a hundred miles from Lansing to Detroit, where she sat

ment, hoping that in Kansas her “people” would “get the

for the first of the three photographic portrait sessions

Northern spirit in them” and grow prosperous, perhaps

at Randall’s studio.

12

13

even returning to the South one day to instruct poor

Whether tactical or sincere, Truth’s last speech casts

whites! At the end of her life, she was also angry, vehe-

too positive a light on black-­white relations in post-­

mently denouncing Southern Christians’ hypocrisy and

Reconstruction America. In fact the “white population”

violence against blacks as a “disgrace to the present cen-

was failing the “black race.” On October 15, 1883, the Su-

tury.” Not since the grim 1850s had Truth been reported

preme Court declared the tepid Civil Rights Act of 1875

to use such a rhetoric of vengeance and fury: “God still

unconstitutional, rejecting its declaration that

lives and means to see the black people in full possession of their rights, even if the entire white population has to

all persons within the jurisdiction of the United States

be annihilated in the accomplishment of His purpose.”

shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the

14

186

Despite her old age and her infirmities, Truth was

accommodations, advantages, facilities, and privi-

traveling extensively in the late 1870s and early 1880s,

leges of inns, public conveyances on land or water,

giving lectures. She toured in 1878, and in 1879 traveled

theaters, and other places of public amusement;

(along with Frances Titus) in support of the Exodus

subject only to the conditions and limitations estab-

Chapter Ten

lished by law, and applicable alike to citizens of every race and color, regardless of any previous condition of servitude.17

The court decision ushered in the widespread segregation of blacks in housing, employment, and public life that historian Douglas Blockman has called “slavery by another name.”18 That ruling’s sanction of segregation would be overturned only some eighty years later in legislation hard won by the civil rights movement in the 1960s. ::: On November 26, 1883, six weeks after the Supreme Court had overturned the Civil Rights Act, Sojourner Truth died at her home in Battle Creek. Among her very last photographic portraits are two cartes de visite prominently featuring her face. One bears her caption and copyright (fig. 127a, b); the other is the card by Packard. In neither portrait does Truth wear eyeglasses. The frontal view is intimate and soft; we see a woman who looks older and more fragile, but also tender. In the portrait in which she turns to the left, likely derived from the “seaside” session with Randall, she appears somewhat distant and sad. We see her eyes, yet she seems

figure 127a. Carte de visite of Sojourner Truth by Corydon C. Randall, April 11, 1882? Session M? figure 127b. Verso to a card identical to figure 127a. Handwritten: “I heard her.” Location unknown.

absorbed in thought, perhaps unseeing. She does not look much older than almost two decades earlier, but she appears tired. Sojourner Truth’s eldest daughter, Diana Corbin, the mother of James, most resembled her mother in appearance and strength. Like Truth, she had been a slave as Truth’s Last Portraits

187

of her eyes by glasses; sometimes she seems demure; sometimes the photographs, repeatedly copied, are extremely pale, and so we wrongly see the woman, not the photograph, as vague. Of course, there are also wonderfully decisive portraits of Truth in which she appears alert and focused. Notable is the extent to which photographers make a difference, even when the genre is as conventional as cartes de visite. The photograph of Diana is excellent: focused and up close. Witnesses tell us that her speaking voice was not as deep and powerful as Truth’s, but the commanding face in this picture makes us believe otherwise. We have many portraits of Sojourner, and for these enduring Truths I am grateful. But the photographic images register only her appearance, not her command­ ing presence. They are shadows, and some are more elusive and mute than others. Yet the printed words—­ figure 128. Carte de visite of Diana Corbin (Sojourner Truth’s eldest daughter) by “Perry, Photo Artist, Battle Creek, Mich.,” 1880s. Location unknown.

name, caption, and copyright—­remain forthright. Diana allowed the photographer Perry to imprint his identity below her face, but Sojourner Truth did not. Her only photograph with Perry’s imprint was made after her death. Truth’s name, first-­person enunciation, and copyright—­her speech, authorship, and recourse to law—­coexist with her image. Those printed words force

188

an adult and was illiterate. In her later years, Diana also

us to acknowledge the illiterate woman’s authorship, as

chose to have several photographs taken in Battle Creek.

well as her eloquence, her agency, and her legal claim

One portrait is a stunning close-­up of her face (fig. 128).

to property, even as we value the humble object we hold

Bold and forthright, this portrait makes us suddenly

in our hands. That fragile paper object, continually ac-

aware of how remote Truth appears in so many of her

cruing value, can continue to be exchanged, whether to

cartes de visite. Sometimes that sense of remoteness

support our finances, our loved ones, or our attempt to

is due to the small size of her head and the obscuring

rewrite history.

Chapter Ten

Notes

Introduction 1. In Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Matilda Joslyn Gage, and Ida Harper, eds., History of Woman Suffrage (New York: Fowler and Wells, 1882; reprint, Salem, NH: Ayer, 1985), 2:898. 2. Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., “Doings of the Sunbeam,” Atlantic Monthly 12 (July 1863 [written in 1862]), pp. 1–­13; quotation is from p. 8. 3. Ibid. 4. See Alexander Gardner, Gardner’s Photographic Sketch Book of the Civil War (Washington, DC: Philp and Solomons, 1866; reprint, New York: Dover, 1959); Anthony W. Lee and Elizabeth Young, On Alexander Gardner’s Photographic Sketch Book of the Civil War (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007); Alan Trachtenberg, Reading American Photographs: Images as History; Mathew Brady to Walker Evans (New York: Hill and Wang, 1989), chap. 2, pp. 71–­118; Timothy Sweet, Traces of War: Poetry, Photography and the Crisis of the Union (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990), chaps. 3–­4, pp. 78–­137. 5. On cartes de visite in the European context, see Elizabeth Anne McCauley, A. A. E. Disdéri and the Carte-­de-­visite Portrait Photograph (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985); and her Likenesses: Portrait Photography in Europe, 1850–­1870, exhibition catalogue, Art Museum, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, November 14, 1980–­January 11, 1981 (Albuquerque: Art Museum/University of New Mexico, 1980); Geoffrey Batchen, “Dreams of Ordinary Life: Cartes-­de-­visite and the Bourgeois Imagination,” in Photography: Theoretical Snapshots, ed. J. J. Long, Andrea Noble, and Edward Welch (London: Routledge, 2009), pp. 80–­97. 189

6. On cartes de visite in the United States, see Robert Taft, Photography and the American Scene (New York: Dover, 1964), pp. 138–­52; William C. Darrah, Cartes de visite in Nineteenth-­ Century Photography (Pittsburgh: W. C. Darrah, 1981); Keith F. Davis, The Origins of American Photography 1839–­1885: From Daguerreotype to Dry-­Plate, exhibition catalogue (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-­Atkins Museum of Art, 2007), pp. 170–­71; Lou W. McCulloch, Card Photographs: A Guide to Their History and Value (Atglen, PA: Schiffer, 1981); Andrea Volpe, “Cartes de visite Portrait Photographs and the Culture of Class Formation,” in The Middling Sorts: Explorations in the History of the American Middle Class, ed. Burton J. Bledstein and Robert D. Johnston (New York: Routledge, 2001), pp. 157–­69; Barbara McCandless, “The Portrait Studio and the Celebrity,” in Photography in Nineteenth-­Century America, ed. Martha A. Sandweiss (Fort Worth, TX: Amon Carter Museum, 1991), pp. 48–­75. 7. Quoted in “The Photographic Art a Blessing to the World—­Cartes-­de-­visite,” American Journal of Photography 5, no. 4 (August 15, 1862), p. 77; cited in Elizabeth Siegel, Galleries of Friendship and Fame: A History of Nineteenth-­Century American Photograph Albums (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010), p. 27. 8. Jeff L. Rosenheim, Photography and the American Civil War (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2013), p. 147. 9. Blanche Butler Ames, letter to Adelbert Ames, November 3, 1872; online in The American Civil War: Letters and Diaries, Alexander Street Press database (http://alexanderstreet.com /products/american-­civil-­war-­letters-­and-­diaries, accessed August 4, 2014): “I had tintypes instead of photographs, because if the latter are taken to suit, one is expected to order a dozen or more, and we do not want so many. He can have his tintype taken every two or three months, and in that way we can keep a perfect record of his growth and change.” 10. Milton Sawyer diary, 1863, American Civil War; original housed in collection A-­118, the Archives and Regional History Collections, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo. 11. Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Touched with Fire: Civil War Letters and Diary of Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. 1861–­1864, ed. Mark De Wolfe Howe (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1946), p. 80: “Please send me by mail 6 of the best kind of photog [sic] of me.” 190

Notes to pages 2–7

12. Ibid., p. 52. Holmes Jr. also asked, p. 152: “Do you think I could get a place for my nagur boy if brought him with me? Answer this by the next mail after getting this.” 13. On cartes de visite during the Civil War, see Rosenheim, Photography and the American Civil War, pp. 23–­24, 147–­72; Keith F. Davis, “‘A Terrible Distinctness’: Photography of the Civil War Era,” in Sandweiss, Photography in Nineteenth-­Century America, pp. 130–­35; and Davis, The Origins of American Photography 1839–­1885, pp. 173–­75; Mary Niall Mitchell, “‘Rosebloom and Pure White,’ or So I Seemed,” American Quarterly 54, no. 3 (2002): 369–­410. See the important articles by Kathleen Collins: “Photographic Fundraising: Civil War Philanthropy,” History of Photography 11, no. 3 (July–­September 1987): 173–­87; “Living Skeletons: Carte de visite Propaganda in the American Civil War,” History of Photography 12 (April–­June 1988): 103–­20; “The Scourged Back,” History of Photography 9, no. 1 (January–­March 1985): 43–­45. 14. Taft, Photography and the American Scene, p. 149: “It is difficult at the present day to realize the tremendous volume of business done; card photographs could be found ‘piled up by the bushel in the print stores, offered by the gross at book stands.’ At one time the Anthony firm was making thirty-­six hundred cartes de visite of celebrities a day.” 15. The phrase derives, of course, from Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography (New York: Hill and Wang, 1981). 16. Holmes, “Doings of the Sunbeam,” p. 12. 17. See Trachtenberg, Reading American Photographs. 18. On Sojourner Truth there is a vast bibliography, but the key books are as follows, listed in chronological order: Carle­ ton Mabee, Sojourner Truth—­Slave, Prophet, Legend (New York: New York University Press, 1993); Carla Peterson, Doers of the Word: African-­American Women Speakers and Writers in the North (1830–­1880) (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995); Nell Irvin Painter, Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol (New York: W. W. Norton, 1996); Suzanne Pullon Fitch and Roseann M. Mandziuk, Sojourner Truth as Orator: Wit, Story and Song (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1997); Margaret Washington, Sojourner Truth’s America (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009). 19. Washington, Sojourner Truth’s America, pp. 32–­35. 20. Ibid., p. 55; Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A Bondswoman of Olden Time, with a History of Her Labors and Correspondence Drawn

from Her “Book of Life”: Also, a Memorial Chapter, Giving the Particulars of Her Last Illness and Death, comp. Olive Gilbert and Frances Titus (Battle Creek, MI, 1884; reprint, ed. Nell Irvin Painter, New York: Penguin, 1998), p. 26; New York Times, September 7, 1853. According to Painter, Sojourner Truth, pp. 14–­15, Sojourner had been badly beaten at the age of nine by John Neely, and also by John Dumont, to whom she was very attached; she may also have been sexually abused by Dumont’s wife. Painter describes her as “an abused child.” Matthias also treated her brutally; ibid., pp.  59–­60. 21. Painter, Sojourner Truth, pp. 23–­25. 22. Ibid., pp. 38–­45. 23. Ibid., pp. 45–­61; Mabee, Sojourner Truth, pp. 25–­42; Washington, Sojourner Truth’s America, pp. 99–­126. See also G[ilbert] Vale, Fanaticism: Its Source and Influence; Illustrated by the Simple Narrative of Isabella, in the Case of Matthias, Mr. and Mrs. B. Folger, Mr. Pierson, Mr. Mills, Catherine, Isabella, &c., 2 vols. (New York: G. Vale, 1835). 24. On the lawsuits see Mabee, Sojourner Truth, pp. 16–­21, 23, 37, 40, 134–­35, 138; Washington, Sojourner Truth’s America, pp. 62–­ 68, 78, 118–­26, 142, 145, 277; Painter, Sojourner Truth, pp. 16, 33–­34, 58, 75, 227. 25. On the publishing and reprinting of her Narrative, see Painter, Sojourner Truth, pp. 110–­11; Mabee, Sojourner Truth, pp. 52, 203, 212; Washington, Sojourner Truth’s America, pp. 206, 232, 250, 251, 258, 369, 374, 378. 26. Mabee, Sojourner Truth, p. 64. 27. Washington, Sojourner Truth’s America, p. 173. 28. Ibid., pp. 317–­33, 372–­75; Painter, Sojourner Truth, pp. 209–­ 19, 243–­46. 29. The report is held at the Kimball House Museum, Battle Creek, Michigan. 30. Sojourner Truth, letter of Florence, Massachusetts, February 18, 1871. “P.S. I should have said that the Rev. Gilbert Haven of Boston is kindly aiding me in getting petitions signed, and will receive all petitions signed in Massachusetts and send them to Congress. S.T.” New York Tribune; cited in Painter, Narrative of Sojourner Truth, pp. 159–­60. The petition is cited in Painter, Sojourner Truth, p. 238; it was originally published in the National Anti-­Slavery Standard, December 25, 1867. 31. Painter, Sojourner Truth, p. 232.

32. The only extant scrapbook is held by the Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. 33. Eliza Seaman Leggett, letter to Walt Whitman, June 22, 1881; cited in Thomas C. Donaldson, Walt Whitman: The Man (New York: Frances P. Harper, 1896), p. 244. Leggett also declared, “Her great brain accepts many truths.” At the art history lecture on Raphael’s School of Athens in which Socrates and Plato were discussed, Sojourner responded, “He who said it, tis good, tis God—­how good, how simple.” According to Leggett, when Truth heard Whitman’s Leaves of Grass read, she asked who wrote it and then added, “Never mind the man’s name—­it was God who wrote it, he chose the man—­to give his message.” Cited in David S. Reynolds, Walt Whitman’s America: A Cultural Biography (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995), p. 148. 34. According to Berenice Lowe, a copy of the National Anti-­ Slavery Standard of May 2, 1868, in the Charles Merritt Collection (no location given) was addressed to “S. Truth, Bx 815”; Berenice Bryant Lowe Papers, 1880s–­1980s, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. Mabee, Sojourner Truth, p. 215, states that Truth in 1876 “was so poor that for months she could not pay for a subscription to a Battle Creek newspaper, and asked the editor to continue sending her the paper anyway, promising to pay later after she had a better opportunity to sell her books.” He cites the Battle Creek (Michigan) Daily Journal, February 18, 1876. 35. Caroline F. Putnam in an article called “The National Situation,” in the National Anti-­Slavery Standard, January 4, 1868. 36. Chicago Tribune, December 22, 1881; Mabee, Sojourner Truth, p. 68. 37. See, for instance, Eliza Seaman Leggett’s letter to Walt Whitman, June 22, 1881; cited in Donaldson, Walt Whitman, p. 244. 38. On Sojourner Truth’s use of photography, see, in chronological order: Kathleen Collins, “Shadow and Substance: Sojourner Truth,” History of Photography 7, no. 3 (July–­September 1983): 183–­205; Painter, Sojourner Truth, pp. 185–­99; Peterson, Doers of the Word, pp. 40–­44; Nicholas Mirzoeff, “The Shadow and the Substance: Race, Photography, and the Index,” in Only Skin Deep: Changing Visions of the American Self, ed. Coco Fusco and Brian Wallis (New York: International Center of Photography, 2003), pp. 111–­28; Teresa Zackodnik, “The ‘Green-­Backs of Civilization’: Sojourner Truth and Portrait Photography,” Notes to pages 7–10

191

American Studies 46, no. 2 (Summer 2005): 117–­43; Mandy Reid, “Selling Shadows and Substance: Photographing Race in the United States, 1850s–­1870s,” Early Popular Visual Culture 4, no. 3 (November 2006): 285–­305; Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw, Portraits of a People: Picturing African Americans in the Nineteenth Century (Se­attle: University of Washington Press, 2006), pp. 48, 168–­69; Darcy Grimaldo Grigsby, “Negative-­Positive Truths,” Representations 113 (Winter 2011): 16–­38; Augusta Rohrbach, “Shadow and Substance: Sojourner Truth in Black and White,” in Pictures and Progress: Early Photography and the Making of African American Identity, ed. Maurice O. Wallace and Shawn Michelle Smith (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2012), pp. 83–­100. Regarding her marketing strategies more generally, see Augusta Rohrbach, “Profits of Protest: The Market Strategies of Sojourner Truth and Louisa May Alcott,” in Prophets of Protest: Reconsidering the History of American Abolitionism, ed. Timothy Patrick McCarthy and John Stauffer (New York: New Press, 2006), pp.  235–­55. 39. Chicago Tribune, December 22, 1881; cited in Mabee, Sojourner Truth, p. 68. 40. Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A Northern Slave Emancipated from Bodily Servitude by the State of New York, in 1828, with a Portrait; first 1850 edition, written in collaboration with Olive Gilbert and reprinted in later editions of 1875, 1878, 1881, and 1884, which were significantly expanded by Frances Titus, who, for instance, added the “Book of Life,” a collection of press reports, letters, and autographs. The later editions were retitled Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A Bondswoman of Olden Time, with a History of Her Labors and Correspondence Drawn from Her “Book of Life”: Also, a Memorial Chapter, Giving the Particulars of Her Last Illness and Death, comp. Olive Gilbert and Frances Titus (Battle Creek, MI, 1884; reprint, ed. Nell Irvin Painter, New York: Penguin, 1998); the quotations from Olive Gilbert are from p. 31. 41. See Jean M. Humez, “Reading ‘The Narrative of Sojourner Truth’ as a Collaborative Text,” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 16, no. 1 (1996): 29–­52. 42. The hostile description is from a pro-­slavery New Jersey newspaper cited in her Narrative of Sojourner Truth, ed. Painter, p. 137; also cited in Karlyn Kohrs Campbell, Women Public Speakers in the United States, 1800–­1925: A Bio-­Critical Sourcebook (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1994), p. 428. “Sojourner Truth—­. . . . She 192

Notes to pages 10–14

is a crazy, ignorant, repelling [sic] negress, and her guardians would do a Christian act to restrict her entirely to private life.” 43. Collins, “Shadow and Substance”; Painter, Sojourner Truth, pp. 185–­99. 44. See Mirzoeff, “The Shadow and the Substance”; Zackodnik, “The ‘Green-­Backs of Civilization’”; Reid, “Selling Shadows and Substance”; and my “Negative-­Positive Truths.” 45. A number of recent books attend to the technological skills of slaves, often, however, overlooking photography; see, for example, Carroll Pursell, ed., A Hammer in Their Hands: A Documentary History of Technology and the African-­American Experience (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005). 46. Eliza Seaman Leggett, letter to Walt Whitman, June 22, 1881; cited in Donaldson, Walt Whitman, p. 244. 47. Laura Wexler, “‘A More Perfect Likeness’: Frederick Douglass and the Image of the Nation,” in Wallace and Smith, Pictures and Progress, pp. 18–­40; quotation is from p. 24. 48. Frederick Douglass, “Pictures and Progress,” a public lecture in Boston, December 3, 1861, in The Frederick Douglass Papers, ed. John W. Blassingame, ser. 1 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press 1985), 3:452–­73. On Frederick Douglass’s speech, see Ginger Hill, “‘Rightly Viewed’: Theorizations of Self in Frederick Douglass’s Lectures on Pictures,” in Wallace and Smith, Pictures and Progress, pp. 41–­82; and Wexler, “‘A More Perfect Likeness.’” See also Jessica Morgan-­Owens, “Black and White: Photographic Writing in the Literature of Abolition” (PhD diss., New York University, 2009), chap. 4, pp. 173–­232. 49. Hill, “Rightly Viewed,” p. 53. 50. Jane M. Gaines, “The Absurdity of Property in the Person,” Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities 10, no. 2 (1998): 537–­48; quotation is from p. 545. 51. Ibid., p. 547. 52. Quoted in Hill, “Rightly Viewed,” p. 53. 53. Phrenological Journal 38, no. 2 (August 1863): 54; cited in Madeleine B. Stern, Heads and Headlines: The Phrenological Fowlers (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1971), p. 204. 54. Nelson Sizer, letter to John Brown Jr., New York, October 14, 1850; cited in Stern, Heads and Headlines, p. 176. 55. The report is held at the Kimball House Museum, Battle Creek, Michigan. The rest reads:

You are cautious: always on your guard. You are hopeful: always expecting something favorable in the future. You have the love of praise, a strong desire to be approved. Your self-­reliance enables you to do your own thinking and planning: gives you confidence in your own judgment. Hence whatever you have to do, you take hold with confidence; and do not feel the necessity of asking advice or help from others. You have very strong parental affection—­you have the motherly feeling, and children and pets like you. You have strong friendship and naturally very strong love. You have courage, but you are not quarrelsome. You are more persistent, preservering and steadfast; more thorough, than noisy, or quarrelsome, or disagreeable. You have an excellent memory of faces; and you remember places well; and facts; you seldom forget anything that is important. You have naturally a good talent for figures–­can reckon money and do it very straight and correctly. 56. Nelson Sizer, Forty Years in Phrenology, Embracing Recollections of History, Anecdote, and Experience (New York: Fowler and Wells, 1882), p. 309; cited in Stern, Heads and Headlines, p. 134. 57. Allan Sekula, “The Body and the Archive,” October 39 (Winter 1986): 3–­64. 58. Brian Wallis, “Black Bodies, White Science: Louis Agassiz’s Slave Daguerreotypes,” American Art 9, no. 2 (Summer 1995): 3­ 8–­61. 59. Of course, this resistance has not been shared by the major scholars of her life, Carleton Mabee, Nell Irvin Painter, and Margaret Washington; exceptional too is Rohrbach, “Profits of Protest.” 60. Wallace and Smith, introduction to Pictures and Progress, p. 4. 61. Barthes, Camera Lucida, refers to Avedon’s photograph twice: pp. 34, 79. On p. 34: “Since every photograph is contingent (and thereby outside meaning), Photography cannot signify (aim at generality) except by assuming a mask. It is this word which Calvino correctly uses to designate what makes a face into the product of a society and of its history. As in the portraits of William Casby, photographed by Avedon: the essence of slavery is

laid bare; the mask is the meaning, insofar as it is absolutely pure (as it was in the ancient theater). This is why the great portrait photographers are great mythologists (the French bourgeoisie); Sander (the Germans of pre-­Nazi Germany), Avedon (New York’s ‘upper crust’).” Barthes’s recourse to Avedon’s photograph of William Casby has been discussed by Carol Mavor, “Black and Blue: The Shadows of Camera Lucida,” in Photography Degree Zero: Reflections on Roland Barthes’s “Camera Lucida,” ed. Geoffrey Batchen (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009), pp. 211–­42; Shawn Michelle Smith, “Race and Reproduction in Camera Lucida,” in Batchen, Photography Degree Zero, pp. 243–­58; and in J. J. Long, Andrea Noble, and Edward Welch, eds., Photography: Theoretical Snapshots (London: Routledge, 2009), pp. 98–­111, and also my “Negative-­Positive Truths.” On Barthes’s misremembering of James Van der Zee’s portrait of an African American family (1926), see Margaret Olin, “Touching Photographs: Roland Barthes’s ‘Mistaken’ Identification,” Representations 80 (Fall 2002): 99–­118. 62. Barthes, Camera Lucida, pp. 79–­80. Barthes describes Casby’s face alternately as “a mask” and as a demonstration of photography’s power as proof, as a generality, and as a record of a reality “that has been.” 63. Douglass, “Pictures and Progress,” p. 461. 64. For another analysis of the circulation of ephemeral media during political crisis, see Richard Taws, The Politics of the Provisional: Art and Ephemera in Revolutionary France (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2013).

Chapter One 1. Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A Bondswoman of Olden Time, with a History of Her Labors and Correspondence Drawn from Her “Book of Life”: Also, a Memorial Chapter, Giving the Particulars of Her Last Illness and Death, comp. Olive Gilbert and Frances Titus (Battle Creek, MI, 1884; reprint, ed. Nell Irvin Painter, New York: Penguin, 1998), p. 96. Subsequent references are to the Painter edition. 2. Nell Irvin Painter, Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol (New York: W. W. Norton, 1996), p. 103. 3. Ibid., p. 110.

Notes to pages 14–25

193

4. Painter assumes that the engraving is based on a photograph; this may or may not be the case. Ibid., p. 109. 5. On the common nineteenth-­century practice of translating daguerreotypes into engravings, see Michael Leja, “Fortified Images for the Masses,” Art Journal 70, no. 4 (Winter 2011): 60–­83. 6. Frederick Douglass, “Pictures and Progress,” a public lecture in Boston, December 3, 1861, in The Frederick Douglass Papers, ed. John W. Blassingame, ser. 1 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press 1985), p. 454. 7. This amazing carte de visite in the Chicago History Museum was first located and published by Margaret Washington, Sojourner Truth’s America (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009), facing p. 9. 8. On Copperheads, see Irwin Unger, The Greenback Era: A Social and Political History of American Finance, 1865–­1879 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1964), pp. 72–­73. 9. National Anti-­Slavery Standard, January 31, 1863: “Negrophobia in Indiana. The great expectations of thousands of ‘god’s own image carved in ebony,’ will be forever denied a happy realization by the Indiana Legislature this Winter. Like poor Toughey in ‘Bleak House,’ Sambo will be told to keep moving on, because he ‘knows nothink’ and ‘never done nothink.’” 10. Narrative of Sojourner Truth, pp. 95–­98. 11. Josephine Griffing, “Treason in Disguise: Angola, Steuben Co., Ind., June 8th, 1861,” Boston Liberator, June 21, 1861, p. 98. 12. On the cartes de visite of New Orleans slave children, see Mary Niall Mitchell, “‘Rosebloom and Pure White,’ or So I Seemed,” American Quarterly 54, no. 3 (2002): 369–410; Kathleen Collins, “Photographic Fundraising: Civil War Philanthropy,” History of Photography 11, no. 3 (July–­September 1987): 173–87; and Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw, Portraits of a People: Picturing African Americans in the Nineteenth Century (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2006), pp. 154–­61. 13. Anon., “The Carte de visite,” in All the Year Round (1862), pp. 165–­68; cited in Patrizia Di Bello, Women’s Albums and Photography in Victorian England: Ladies, Mothers and Flirts (Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 2007), p. 110. The 1862 writer adds, “If we are public characters . . . we are actually obliged . . . to get accustomed to the sight of ourselves at the shop windows.” 14. Benjamin Reiss, The Showman and the Slave: Race, Death,

194

Notes to pages 27–38

and Memory in Barnum’s America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001). 15. See Kathleen Collins, “Photographic Fundraising: Civil War Philanthropy,” History of Photography 11, no. 3 (July–­ September 1987), and her “Living Skeletons: Carte de visite Propaganda in the American Civil War,” History of Photography 12 (April–­June 1988): 103–­20. Regarding the images of Gordon, see Kathleen Collins, “The Scourged Back,” History of Photography 9, no. 1 (January–­March 1985): 43–­45; and E. Bruce Robertson and Blake Stimson, review of Martin A. Berger, Fixing Images: Civil Rights Photography and the Struggle over Representation, RIHA ­Journal, October 21, 2010, www.riha_journal.org/articles/2010 /berger_fixing_images (accessed August 4, 2014). Among primary sources, see Harper’s Weekly, July 4, 1863, pp. 429–­30, published in “A Typical Negro”: three illustrations ­titled “Gordon as he entered our lines,” “Gordon in his uniform as a U.S. Soldier,” and “The Scourged Back. From The Independent.” See also National Anti-­Slavery Standard, June 13, 1863, and Rev. George Lansing Taylor, “The Scourged Back,” National Anti-­ Slavery Standard, September 26, 1863. 16. Annie Wittenmyer, “Memoir of Annie Wittenmyer,” in Under the Guns: a Woman’s Reminiscences of the Civil War (Boston: E. B. Stillings, 1895), pp. 17–­20; online in The American Civil War: Letters and Diaries, Alexander Street Press, http://alexanderstreet .com/products/american-­civil-­war-­letters-­and-­diaries (accessed August 4, 2014). 17. Ibid., p. 17. 18. Ibid., p. 19.

Chapter Two 1. Margaret Washington, Sojourner Truth’s America (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009), p. 323. 2. Ten thousand copies of the book were purchased the first week after publication, and half a million by 1857; see Claire Parfait, The Publishing History of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” 1852–­2002 (Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 2007). 3. Augusta Rohrbach, “Profits of Protest: The Market Strategies of Sojourner Truth and Louisa May Alcott,” in Prophets of Protest: Reconsidering the History of American Abolitionism, ed. Timothy Patrick McCarthy and John Stauffer (New York: New Press,

2006); see also Rohrbach’s book, Truth Stranger than Fiction: Race, Realism and the U.S. Literary Marketplace (New York: Palgrave, 2002). 4. This “puff ” was incorporated into the late 1853 edition of Truth’s Narrative; see Nell Irvin Painter, “Representing Truth: Sojourner Truth’s Knowing and Becoming Known,” Journal of American History 81, no. 2 (September 1994): 461–­492; quotation is from p. 475, note 37. 5. The publication of Stowe’s article in the National Anti-­ Slavery Standard, March 28, 1863, preceded the April 1863 publication in the Atlantic Monthly. 6. Harriet Beecher Stowe, “Sojourner Truth, the Libyan Sibyl,” Atlantic Monthly 11 (April 1863), pp. 473–­81; quotation is from p. 480; reprinted in Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A Bondswoman of Olden Time, with a History of Her Labors and Correspondence Drawn from Her “Book of Life”: Also, a Memorial Chapter, Giving the Particulars of Her Last Illness and Death, comp. Olive Gilbert and Frances Titus (Battle Creek, MI, 1884; reprint, ed. Nell Irvin Painter, New York: Penguin, 1998), pp. 103–­16. Subsequent references to Stowe’s article are to the Atlantic Monthly edition; subsequent references to Narrative of Sojourner Truth are to the 1998 Painter edition. 7. Stowe, “Sojourner Truth, the Libyan Sibyl,” p. 480. 8. Ibid., p. 481. 9. Ibid., p. 473. 10. Jacques-­Henri Bernardin de Saint-­Pierre, Paul et Virginie (Paris: Imprimerie de Monsieur, 1789). 11. James Cephas Derby, Fifty Years among Authors, Books and Publishers (New York: G. W. Carleton, 1884), p. 459. 12. Edward Wagenknecht, Harriet Beecher Stowe: The Known and the Unknown (New York: Oxford University Press, 1965), p. 132. 13. Joan D. Hedrick, Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), pp. 313–­15, 321. 14. Charles Edward Stowe [son] and Lyman Beecher Stowe [grandson], Harriet Beecher Stowe: The Story of Her Life, 1911; cited in Susan Belasco, Stowe in Her Own Time: A Biographical Chron­ icle of Her Life, Drawn from Recollections, Interviews, and Memoirs by Family, Friends, and Associates (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2009), p. 20. 15. Wagenknecht, Harriet Beecher Stowe, p. 131. 16. Washington, Sojourner Truth’s America, p. 302: “Sojourner

said it best: ‘Mrs. Stowe laid it on thick.’” National Anti-­Slavery Standard, April 14, June 27, and July 4, 1863. 17. Stowe, “Sojourner Truth, the Libyan Sibyl,” p. 480. 18. Letter to Mr. Redpath, Battle Creek, Michigan, June 17, 1863; published as “Letter from Sojourner Truth,” Boston Commonwealth, July 3, 1863. My emphases. 19. Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, or Life among the Lowly (Boston, John P. Jewett; Cleveland, OH: Jewett, Proctor and Worthington, 1852), p. 42. 20. Ibid. Sojourner Truth was sometimes compared to Stowe’s slave characters. In her Narrative of Sojourner Truth, p. 150, she included a news clipping: “Her appearance reminds one vividly of Dinah in ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin.’” Painter points out that Dinah, the head family cook who smokes a pipe, was a “self-­ taught genius” and “positive, opinionated, and erratic, to the last degree.” Ibid., p. 259, n. 116. 21. Karlyn Kohrs Campbell, Women Public Speakers in the United States, 1800–­1925: A Bio-­Critical Sourcebook (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1994), pp. 421–­33; quotation is from p. 421. 22. Letter, spring 1864; C. E. C., “To the Editor of the Advertiser and Tribune” [no date]; cited in Narrative of Sojourner Truth, p. 118; also cited in Carla Peterson, Doers of the Word: African-­ American Women Speakers and Writers in the North (1830–­1880) (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 33.

Chapter Three 1. Letter to Mr. Redpath, Battle Creek, Michigan, June 17, 1863; published as “Letter from Sojourner Truth,” Boston Commonwealth, July 3, 1863. 2. Ibid. My emphasis. 3. National Anti-­Slavery Standard, April 4, 1863. 4. Frances Titus, letter to Esther Titus, Battle Creek, Michigan, May 10, 1863. Isaac and Amy Post Family Papers, Rush Rees Library, University of Rochester, New York; online at www.lib .rochester.edu/index.cfm (accessed August 4, 2014). 5. Ibid. 6. Frances Titus, letter to Esther Titus, Battle Creek, Michigan, July 11, 1863. Isaac and Amy Post Family Papers. “July 11th, 1863 Dearest Esther, . . . Farewell dear Esther. Will you write to Amy Post & ask her to please send the money to pay for Sojourn-

Notes to pages 38–47

195

er’s pictures, $2.50. The man wants his money. Thy affectionate sister, Frances.” 7. Sojourner Truth, letter to Gerrit Smith, June 25, 1863; Gerrit Smith Papers, box 37, Syracuse University Library, New York: “June 25 1863, Battle Creek. Dear Sir, Sojourner Truth sends you many thanks for your kind donations to her and your kind words which she says have lengthened her days & made her so happy words can’t express it. She is now in comfortable health. Feels as strongly as ever for her country & race. Says she hopes to meet you if not here, in her Father’s house above. Sends her love for you all. Please accept she says her shadow. Yours, Caroline E. Sh—­— ­. Please send word if received. If any desire her picture for albums she’d like to send these[?] for 50 cts” (my emphasis). 8. National Anti-­Slavery Standard, July 4, 1863. 9. Ibid. “The picture came to us in a letter from a lady, dated Battle Creek, Mich., June 25, from which we copy as follows: Sojourner Truth says, words can’t express the gratitude she feels to you and the dear ones for the kind donations sent her. She says the Lord’s hand is in it.” 10. Ibid. My emphasis. 11. Truth’s grandson James, quoted in Margaret Washington, Sojourner Truth’s America (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009), pp. 305–­6. 12. On April 25, 1863, the National Anti-­Slavery Standard published this Truth letter of April 14 (my emphases), written by Phebe Stickney and addressed to Oliver Johnson, thanking donors, sixteen of which are listed by name (but not indicating the amount of each donation). 13. Harriet Beecher Stowe, “Sojourner Truth, the Libyan Sibyl,” Atlantic Monthly 11 (April 1863), p. 474. 14. See the caricature, “The Irrepressible Conflict,” in Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, November 19, 1859, p. 398: “If Sambo cut and run away, He’ll live to run another day; But if he is by Wise o’erta’en [overtaken]; He’ll never live to run again!” Reproduced in African American History in the Press 1851–­1899, comp. Richard C. Schneider, vol. 1 (Detroit: Gale Research, 1996), p. 135. 15. Teresa Zackodnik, “The ‘Green-­Backs of Civilization’: Sojourner Truth and Portrait Photography”: “Indeed Truth’s portraits can be read as politicized by making imaginable, if not accessible, a domesticity and sentimentality that, because it was racialized ‘white,’ was regarded as inappropriate or incongruous 196

Notes to pages 47–59

for African Americans. [The portrait] where Truth is posed with what Painter suggests is a photo of her grandson James Caldwell on her lap, is highly sentimental in its staging of an affective relation” (my emphases). American Studies 46, no. 2 (Summer 2005): 135. 16. National Anti-­Slavery Standard, September 12, 1863. 17. Sojourner Truth, letter to Mary K. Gale, February 25, 1864; Sojourner Truth Collection, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC. 18. Truth was mistaken about the name of the battle. In fact the Fifty-­Fourth Regiment’s first skirmish with Confederate troops took place on James Island, South Carolina, on July 16, 1863, when it stopped a Confederate assault and lost forty-­two men. Two days later, the regiment fought heroically at Fort Wagner when fifty died and fifteen were taken prisoner, including Truth’s grandson. James was released from Confederate prison almost two years later in 1865. “When Sojourner saw James in Boston, his condition was heartbreaking. He was deeply traumatized, in debilitating health, and mentally unstable.” Washington, Sojourner Truth’s America, p. 323. 19. David M. Henkin, The Postal Age: The Emergence of Modern Communications in Nineteenth-­Century America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), p. 59. Letter of February 13, 1864, printed in the National Anti-­Slavery Standard; cited in Kathleen Collins, “Shadow and Substance: Sojourner Truth,” History of Photography 7, no. 3 (July–­September 1983): 187. 20. Eliza Seaman Leggett, cited in Washington, Sojourner Truth’s America, p. 366. 21. Website for Salem, Ohio, History states: “She was a frequent visitor at the Deming home, and Deming’s horse and carriage were at her disposal.” http://www.salemohiohistory.com /HistoryMakers/John-­Deming.aspx, accessed August 4, 2014. 22. National Anti-­Slavery Standard, July 29, 1863. 23. This scrapbook was assembled by Eliza’s son Percival who received it as a Christmas gift from his father in 1872. Scrapbook, ZP4, vol. 1, Leggett Family Papers, 1794–­1895, Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library. 24. See Washington, Sojourner Truth’s America, p. 303. See also Matthew Kundinger, “Racial Rhetoric: The Detroit Free Press and Its Part in the Detroit Race Riot of 1863,” Michigan Journal of History (Winter 2006): 1–­29. 25. “Recollections of Eliza Seaman Leggett,” vol. 8, Leggett

Family Papers, 1794–­1895, Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library. Cited in Washington, Sojourner Truth’s America, p. 307. 26. The Charles F. Clark’s Annual Directory of the Inhabitants, Incorporated Companies, Business Firms, Etc. of the City of Detroit for 1864–­’5 (Detroit: C. F. Clark, 1864), pp. 209–­79, twice lists James J. Randall, first as “Randall, James J, photographer, 12 and 14 Fisher’s block, h same” and again under the category of photographers. 27. Sojourner, 1797(?)–­1883, letter from Sojourner Truth to Mary K. Gale, February 25, 1864; Sojourner Truth Collection, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC. 28. Ibid.

Chapter Four 1. Sojourner Truth, letter to the editor, Oliver Johnson, National Anti-­Slavery Standard, February 13, 1864. My emphases. 2. Margaret Washington, Sojourner Truth’s America (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009), p. 300: “In 1864, she spent the fall and winter in Detroit and sat for more genteel photographs at the Randall studio, owned by the family of Eliza Leggett’s future son-­in-­law. Randall put a copyright on the images in Sojourner Truth’s name.” James Randall was the father of Corydon Randall, who would marry Leggett’s daughter Anne, but not for another decade, in 1874. I have communicated with Professor Washington and searched her sources, but have found no evidence that James Randall filed Truth’s copyright. Truth also referred to the “friend” who filed her copyright; she generally called photographers “artists.” 3. According to a letter I received from Denise D. Garrett, Senior Copyright Research Specialist, Reference and Bibliography Section, Library of Congress, Washington, DC, August 28, 2007. I thank my excellent former undergraduate research assistant Melodie Yashar for tracking this down. 4. Sojourner Truth, letter to Mary K. Gale, February 25, 1864. Sojourner Truth Collection, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC. 5. William C. Darrah, Cartes de visite in Nineteenth Century Photography (Pittsburgh: W. C. Darrah, 1981). 6. The Calhoun County Business Directory for 1869–­70 (Battle

Creek, MI: E. G. Rust, 1869). For information on Wright, I thank George Livingston, Local and Family History Librarian, Willard Library, Battle Creek, Michigan. 7. Ibid. “Truth, Mrs. Sojourner (col’d), lecturer, bds. 10 College” (bds. means “boards at”). 8. See Rochester City Directories: 1859 “Baker, N.B., daguereotype gallery, entrance 18 Buffalo” 1861 “Baker, N.B. photograph gallery, 18 Buffalo” 1863 Only his home address 1864 “Baker, N.B., photographer, 18 Buffalo” 1866, 1868, “Baker, N. Byron, photographer, 18 Buffalo” Monroe County, New York City Online Historical Directories, https:/sites.google.com/site/onlinedirectorysite/home/usa/ny /monroe (accessed August 4, 2014). 9. Carleton Mabee, Sojourner Truth—­Slave, Prophet, Legend (New York: New York University Press, 1993), pp. 57, 105; Nell Irvin Painter, Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol (New York: W. W. Norton, 1996), pp. 118–­19. 10. Mabee, Sojourner Truth, p. 183. 11. Ibid., pp. 196, 236, 241. 12. Ibid. pp. 144, 148. 13. Rochester (New York) Daily Democrat, Rochester (New York) Evening Express, March 13, 1867. For the full letter, see Mabee, Sojourner Truth, pp. 148–­49. 14. Rochester (New York) Daily Union, March 14 and 16, 1867. Mabee, Sojourner Truth, p. 150. 15. Personal communication from Joan Severa, November 24, 2008. I am very grateful that Severa so generously took the time to study photographs of Sojourner Truth and share her expertise with me: “Off the bat I can tell you that the trouble is the age of our sitter. All women were expected to stop following fashion about age 40, and henceforth to dress in a modest manner, in plain dark colors, and without the accents and accessories of high style. This nearly always means that (except for high dress occasions, and then only among the well-­to-­do) they left off hoops and bustles, and covered their heads with daycaps. No wonder we cannot pinpoint date their images, without our main clues. I can only truly give a date for the dress of elderly women when young women are also in the image. I can confidently tell Notes to pages 59–79

197

you one thing, without further study: nothing whatsoever in the dress of Sojourner Truth is related to her race or economic status. She is dressed precisely as any woman of her age, across a very wide spectrum of relative affluence. The cap is not quite as persistent through the years for all women, though it was certainly common through the sixties. The white shawl is rather a personal choice, but a shoulder wrap of some kind is a frequently seen accessory for older women. I am rapidly learning why as I age! I can also give a preliminary bracket date to the style shown in the images, though I cannot testify to how long the garments might have been worn when sorely out-­of date. They are all of sixties cut, one a bit earlier, the others reflecting mid-­sixties. Take note that an 1870 style is cut in the same mode, but in high fashion has an overskirt with a raised back. The ‘modest’ version was to leave off the overskirt. The underskirt of the seventies, though, even when worn alone, always has some trim above the hem. That’s a good clue.” My emphases. See also Joan Severa, Dressed for the Photographer: Ordinary Americans and Fashion 1840–­1900 (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1995); and her My Likeness Taken: Daguerrian Portraits in America (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2005), in which she analyzes and dates nineteenth-­century photographic portraits on the basis of clothing. See also Pamela E. Klassen, “The Robes of Womanhood: Dress and Authenticity among African American Methodist Women in the Nineteenth Century,” Religion and American Culture 14, no. 1 (Winter 2004): 39–­82. 16. Personal communication with Joan Severa, February 6, 2011. 17. Ibid., February 20, 2011. “It is not uncommon for older women of any station to have a knitting bag included in a portrait. It is simply a reminder to later viewers that knitting was a major factor in the sitter’s life. To those who actually knew the sitter, it would be a fond reminder.” 18. Detroit Free Press, October 10, 1861; cited in Anne L. Macdonald, No Idle Hands: The Social History of American Knitting (New York: Ballantine Books, 1988), p. 100. This announcement also “appeared in all northern newspapers”; ibid., p. 382, n. 100. 19. Ibid., p. 104; see also pp. 101–­10. 20. Mary Boykin Miller Chesnut, Diary of Mary Boykin ­Ches­nut, August 1861, p. 113; online in The American Civil War: Letters and Diaries, Alexander Street Press database, http:// 198

Notes to pages 79–82

alexanderstreet.com/products/american-­civil-­war-­letters-­and -­diaries (accessed August 4, 2014). 21. Lydia Maria Child, letter to John Greenleaf Whittier, January 21, 1862; online in The American Civil War: Letters and Diaries, Alexander Street Press database. 22. The passage begins, “The industrial operations of our women were now chiefly devoted to knitting for the soldiers.” Memoir of Sallie Brock Putnam, in Richmond during the War: Four Years of Personal Observation (New York: G. W. Carleton, 1867), p. 389; online in The American Civil War: Letters and Diaries, Alexander Street Press database. 23. Memoir of Mrs. Sylvester Bleckley, in South Carolina Women in the Confederacy, ed. Mrs. Thomas Taylor and Sallie Enders Conner (Columbia, SC: State Company, 1903), 1:414; online in The American Civil War: Letters and Diaries, Alexander Street Press database. 24. The extent to which slaves knit varied regionally. According to Stephen Innes, ed., Work and Labor in Early America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988), p. 181, eighteenth­century records show that spinning and knitting were the tasks of old or disabled slaves only. Alain Mountain, An Unsung Heritage: Perspectives on Slavery (Cape Town: David Philip, 2004), p. 79, indicates that some slave women learned to knit as well as weave in the South. 25. For the Dumonts, Sojourner’s owners, the fall chore was the spinning of wool. Painter, Sojourner Truth, pp. 23–­24, says that Sojourner would spin about a hundred pounds over four to six months. 26. Captain George B. Carse, in the National Anti-­Slavery Standard, December 17, 1864; cited in Carleton Mabee, Sojourner Truth—­Slave, Prophet, Legend (New York: New York University Press, 1993), p. 120. 27. Painter, Sojourner Truth, p. 187. 28. Huey Copeland, Bound to Appear: Art, Slavery, and the Site of Blackness in Multicultural America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013), p. 50. I am not deploying Copeland’s reiteration of the distinction between “object” and “thing” proposed by Heidegger in his essay “The Thing,” despite the provocative fact that Heidegger relies on a clay water jug to define the “thing”: “an independent and self-­supporting vessel whose emptiness contains and pours out the evanescent fullness of the world as

it enfolds the human. . . . Yet as the philosopher also maintains, such apprehension is perpetually out of reach given the ways in which our epistemologies figure the world as a collection of discrete objects: ‘the thingness of the thing remains concealed, forgotten. The nature of the thing never comes to light, that is, it never gets a hearing.’ From this perspective [Fred Wilson’s] Mining the Museum can be understood as a series of staged auditions that give viewers the opportunity both to hear things in all of their radical alterity and to apprehend the flesh that undergirds the historical construction of objecthood.” Ibid., pp. 49–­50. 29. On Dave the potter, see Michael A. Chaney, Fugitive Vision: Slave Image and Black Identity in Antebellum Narrative (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008), chap. 6, “Throwing Identity in the Poetry-­Pottery of Dave the Potter.” See also Jill Beute Koverman, ed., I Made This Jar . . . : The Life and Works of the Enslaved African American Potter, Dave (Columbia: McKissick Museum, University of South Carolina, 1998); and Leonard Todd, Carolina Clay. The Life and Legend of the Slave Potter Dave (New York: Norton, 2008), which provides the most up-­to-­date list of all known inscriptions by Dave, pp. 232–­51. 30. I thank ceramicist and curator Roger Hankins for this observation. Personal communication, March 16, 2013. 31. Chaney, Fugitive Vision, p. 204. 32. Ibid., p. 180. Especially pertinent to this discussion is the following by Chaney: “Through literacy Dave characterizes himself as a disenfranchised, yet resistant, subject of dominant discourses. . . . Dave’s inscriptions allow a wider range of voices, enabling the slave to become more than a subject of commodification. In the writing on the jars, Dave positions himself variously as a member of the Edgefield community, an ironic commentator, a whimsical aphorist, and a performer of racialized speech. . . . [Secondly] Dave is an authorized viewer of his own crafts. . . . Thirdly, the signature elevates Dave to a kind of celebrity status within the antebellum South. Instead of making him a subject of contractual negotiation—­the function of ordinary signatures—­Dave’s first name signature is a paradox. It acts as a material emblem of his status as a commodity, but also points to his lauded role as a creator of commodities. And finally, Dave represents himself as the faintly traceable origin of a series of surrogate bodies comprised by the jars.” Ibid.; my emphasis. 33. Ibid.

34. Ibid. 35. Jonathan Crary, Techniques of the Observer: On Vision and Modernity in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990); cited in Chaney, Fugitive Vision, p. 200. Chaney contests Crary’s emphasis on the optical over the haptic.

Chapter Five 1. Memoir of William Wilson Chamberlaine, in Memoirs of the Civil War between the Northern and Southern Sections (Washington, DC: B. S. Adams, 1912); online in The American Civil War: Letters and Diaries, Alexander Street Press database, http://alexander street.com/products/american-­civil-­war-­letters-­and-­diaries (accessed August 4, 2014). 2. Section of William Henry Fox Talbot, “Some Account of the Art of Photogenic Drawing” (1839); reprinted in Photography in Print: Writings from 1816 to the Present, ed. Vicki Goldberg (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1981), pp. 40–­41. 3. See also Caleb Lyon, “Stanzas, Suggested by a Visit to Brady’s Portrait Gallery,” Photographic Art-­Journal (January 1851): 63; cited in Alan Trachtenberg, Reading American Photographs: Images as History; Mathew Brady to Walker Evans (New York: Hill and Wang, 1989), p. 43: “Like a spirit land of shadows / They in silence on me gaze, / And I feel my heart is beating / With the pulse of other days.” 4. The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning to Mary Russell Mitford 1836–­1854, ed. Meredith Raymond and Mary Sullivan (Waco, TX: Armstrong Browning Library, Baylor University, 1983), p. 357; cited in Patrizia Di Bello, Women’s Albums and Photography in Victorian England: Ladies, Mothers and Flirts (Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 2007), p. 88. Emphasis in the original. 5. Despite the commonplace that early photographs were called shadows and the oft-­repeated advertising slogan cited here, the secondary literature seldom cites primary sources. Kathleen Collins, “Shadow and Substance: Sojourner Truth,” History of Photography 7, no. 3 (July–­September 1983): 188, for ex­ample, cites only a South African example. In this book’s introductory quote by Oliver Wendell Holmes, he uses the term; “Doings of the Sunbeam,” Atlantic Monthly 12 (July 1863 [written in 1862]), p. 8. On the idea that photography fixed the shadow, see Talbot, “Some Account of the Art of Photogenic Drawing,”

Notes to pages 82–86

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pp. 40–­41: “Such is the fact, that we may receive on paper the fleeting shadow, arrest it there, and in the space of a single minute fix it there.” An 1891 interviewer asked Mathew Brady, “I suppose you remember many ladies you grasped the shadows of ?” Reprinted in Goldberg, Photography in Print, p. 204. I am not convinced by the racialized interpretation of photography as a “black art” offered by Nicholas Mirzoeff, “The Shadow and the Substance: Race, Photography, and the Index,” in Only Skin Deep: Changing Visions of the American Self, ed. Coco Fusco and Brian Wallis (New York: International Center of Photography, 2003), pp. 111–­28. 6. William Thompson Lusk, letter to to Elizabeth Freeman Adams Lusk, December 20, 1861; online in The American Civil War: Letters and Diaries, Alexander Street Press database, http:// alexanderstreet.com/products/american-­civil-­war-­letters-­and -­diaries (accessed August 4, 2014). 7. Abraham Lincoln, letter to to H. G. Eastman, Esq., April 7, 1860; cited in Patrick Maynard, “Drawing and Shooting: Causality in Depiction,” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 44, no. 2 (Winter 1985): 115–­29, especially p. 115. A photograph of the letter is reproduced in Charles Hamilton and Lloyd Ostendorf, Lincoln in Photographs: An Album of Every Known Pose (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1963), p. 35. 8. On shadows, see E. H. Gombrich, Shadows: The Depiction of Cast Shadows in Western Art (London: National Gallery Publications, 1995); Michael Baxandall, Shadows and Enlightenment (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995). 9. On the history of the silhouette, see Emma Rutherford, Silhouette: The Art of Shadow (New York: Rizzoli, 2009). 10. Charles Sanders Peirce, “Logic as Semiotic: The Theory of Signs,” in The Philosophy of Peirce: Selected Writings, ed. Justus ­Buchler (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1940), p. 106. Peirce calls indices signs “by physical connection.” 11. Memoir of William Wilson Chamberlaine, in Memoirs of the Civil War between the Northern and Southern Sections (Washington, DC: B. S. Adams, 1912); online in The American Civil War: Letters and Diaries, Alexander Street Press database, http://alexander street.com/products/american-­civil-­war-­letters-­and-­diaries (accessed August 4, 2014). My emphases. 12. Henry Bursill’s book Hand Shadows to Be Thrown upon the Wall was published in England in 1860 and then pirated in an 200

Notes to pages 86–92

unattributed American edition in the early sixties. Hand-­Shadow Stories was published in Boston by Taggard and Thompson in 1863. 13. Sojourner Truth, letter to Gerrit Smith, signed Caroline E. Sh—­— ­, June 25, 1863, from Battle Creek, Michigan. Gerrit Smith Papers, box 37, Syracuse University Library, New York. 14. Sojourner Truth, letter to Mary K. Gale, February 25, 1864; Sojourner Truth Collection, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC; cited in Carleton Mabee, “Sojourner Truth, Bold Prophet: Why Did She Never Learn to Read?” New York History 69, no. 1 (January 1988): 74. 15. Including Roland Barthes in Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography (New York: Hill and Wang, 1981). 16. Holmes, “Doings of the Sunbeam,” p. 5. 17. Ibid., p. 2. 18. Ibid., p. 5. 19. Hermann Vogel, The Chemistry of Light and Photography in Their Application to Art, Science and Industry (1st German ed., 1875; New York: D. Appleton, 1875; reprint, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), p. 46; cited in Tanya Sheehan, Doctored: The Medicine of Photography in Nineteenth-­Century America (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2011), p. 104. 20. Holmes, “Doings of the Sunbeam,” p. 5. 21. Ibid., pp. 6–­7. 22. Ibid., pp. 4–­5. 23. Richard Dyer, White: Essays on Race and Culture (New York, Routledge, 1997), p. 94, points out that today’s photographic how-­to manuals sustain Holmes’s assumption that “the normal face is a white face.” One manual is explicit: “When used as a standard for quality control purposes, it is assumed, unless stated otherwise, that the typical subject is Caucasian with a skin reflectance of approximately 36%.” Leslie Stroebel and Richard Zakia, eds., The Focal Encyclopedia of Photography, 3rd ed. (Boston: Focal Press, 1993); cited in ibid., p. 95. 24. Holmes, “Doings of the Sunbeam,” p. 3. 25. Lady Elizabeth Eastlake, “Photography,” London Quarterly Review (April 1857): 442–­68. 26. “The Science of Sacrifice: The Chromatics of Black-­and-­ White Photography in the 19th Century.” I thank Jan Von Brevern for sharing his manuscript translation of an article in Bildweleten des Wissens 8, no. 2 (2011): 1–­2.

27. Désiré Van Monckhoven, A Popular Treatise on Photography, trans. W. H. Thornthwaite (London: Virtue Bros., 1863); see also John Towler, The Silver Sunbeam (New York: Joseph H. Ladd, 1864). 28. Verso of a carte de visite, author’s collection: “Photographic Atelier. G. W. Chase, Newark, O.” 29. M. Carey Lea, ed., Newman’s Manual of Harmonious Coloring, as Applied to Photographs: Together with Valuable Papers on Lighting and Posing the Sitter (Philadelphia: Berman and Wilson, 1866), p. 17. 30. H. J. Rodgers, Twenty-­Three Years under a Sky-­Light (Hartford, CT: H. J. Rodgers, 1872), pp. 175–­76; cited in Sheehan, Doctored, p. 98. See also F. N. Blake, “Photographing Groups of Persons of Different Complexions,” Photographic Mosaics 13 (1878): 129; cited in ibid., p. 99. 31. Memoir of George Augustus Sala, p. 198:“Niagara in the summer, it need scarcely be said, abounds with photographers, and you may have your carte de visite taken with the actual Falls. . . . The drawback to this is that the light is behind you, and that you generally appear in the photograph as black as a sweep.” Online in The American Civil War: Letters and Diaries, Alexander Street Press database, http://alexanderstreet.com/products/american -­civil-­war-­letters-­and-­diaries (accessed August 4, 2014). 32. J. C. Leake Jr., in Lea, Newman’s Manual of Harmonious Coloring, p. 142. 33. “The Convention: Right of Suffrage,” New York World, July 23, 1867, p. 8. 34. Oliver Wilcox Norton, “Memoir of Oliver Wilcox Norton,” in Army Letters, 1861–­1865: Being Extracts from Private Letters to Relatives and Friends from a Soldier in the Field during the Civil War, with an Appendix Containing Copies of Some Official Documents, Papers and Addresses of Later Date (Chicago: O. L. Deming, 1903), p. 298; online in The American Civil War: Letters and Diaries, Alexander Street Press database. 35. Edward Wilson in the humor section lists corrections requested by schoolgirls; “The Humor of It,” Philadelphia Photographer, May 7, 1887, p. 266; cited in Sheehan, Doctored, p. 73. 36. Vogel, The Chemistry of Light and Photography, p. 245. 37. Sheehan, Doctored, p. 69. 38. Brian Winston, “A Whole Technology of Dyeing: A Note

on Ideology and the Apparatus of the Chromatic Moving Image,” Daedalus 114, no. 4 (Fall 1985): 105–­23; quotation is from p. 120. 39. Sheehan, Doctored, pp. 70, 245. 40. Charles F. Clark’s Annual Directory of the Inhabitants, Incorporated Companies, Business Firms, Etc. of the City of Detroit for ­1864–­’5 (Detroit: C. F. Clark, 1864), pp. 209, 279, twice lists “Randall, James J, photographer, 12 and 14 Fisher’s block, h same.” 41. “The Defeat of the Amazons,” New York World, July 1, 1867: “If the fair and unsophisticated breast of ANNA DICKINSON was turned into an abode of wrath, and if SOJOURNER TRUTH’s immaculate visage became a sickly mask . . . who can blame?” 42. Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A Bondswoman of Olden Time, with a History of Her Labors and Correspondence Drawn from Her “Book of Life”: Also, a Memorial Chapter, Giving the Particulars of Her Last Illness and Death, comp. Olive Gilbert and Frances Titus (Battle Creek, MI, 1884; reprint, ed. Nell Irvin Painter, New York: Penguin, 1998), p. 123; cited in Carleton Mabee, Sojourner Truth—­ Slave, Prophet, Legend (New York: New York University Press, 1993), p. 120. 43. Richard Avedon once told a story about making his first photograph: “You know, I think really my first photographs were portraits of my sister, Louise, burned into my skin. . . . Somehow I realized that my skin could be a sensitized surface. Since Louise was the photographic subject of the house, I put a negative of a picture of her on my upper arm, and taped it there with surgical tape. . . . I actually kept it on for two or three days. Then I peeled it off, and there was Louise, burned into my skin. That was my first portrait.” Cited in Adam Gopnik, “The Light Writer,” in Evidence 1944–­1994: Richard Avedon (New York: Random House, 1994), pp. 103–­19; quotation is from p. 104. This photographic experiment introduces color to the highly stylized convention of black and white photography. The negative of Louise was predicated on the simple binary of black and white, but taped to the arm of her brother, it produced the browns, pinks, oranges, and reds of her sunburned eight-­year-­ old brother. If she appeared fair on the arm of this boy, she did not appear “white.” See my “Negative-­Positive Truths,” Representations 113 (Winter 2011): 16–­38.

Notes to pages 92–98

201

Chapter Six 1. Sojourner Truth, letter to William Still, January 4, 1876; Leon Garniner Collection, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; cited in Carleton Mabee, Sojourner Truth—­Slave, Prophet, Legend (New York: New York University Press, 1993), p. 211. 2. E. C. S., “Sojourner Truth on the Press: To the Editor of the World,” in History of Woman Suffrage, ed. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Matilda Joslyn Gage, and Ida Harper (New York: Fowler and Wells, 1882; reprint, Salem, NH: Ayer, 1985), 2:928. 3. Susan B. Anthony, letter to Sojourner Truth, 1866; in Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A Bondswoman of Olden Time, with a History of Her Labors and Correspondence Drawn from Her “Book of Life”: Also, a Memorial Chapter, Giving the Particulars of Her Last Illness and Death, comp. Olive Gilbert and Frances Titus (Battle Creek, MI, 1884; reprint, ed. Nell Irvin Painter, New York: Penguin, 1998), p. 282. Subsequent references to Narrative of Sojourner Truth are to the 1998 Painter edition unless otherwise indicated. 4. Mabee, Sojourner Truth, p. 66. “Under these circumstances, her opportunities for leadership among blacks as well as whites were limited. . . . She never became part of the decision-­making inner councils of either the abolitionist or women’s rights movement, as Douglass sometimes did.” On Truth’s illiteracy see also Jean M. Humez, “Reading ‘The Narrative of Sojourner Truth’ as a Collaborative Text,” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 16, no. 1 (1996): 29–­52. 5. Shirley Wilson Logan, Liberating Language: Sites of Rhetorical Education in Nineteenth-­Century Black America (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2008); see also Dwight Conquergood, “Rethinking Elocution: The Trope of the Talking Book and Other Figures of Speech,” in Opening Acts: Performance in/as Communication and Cultural Studies, ed. Judith Hamera (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2005), pp. 141–­62. 6. Heather Andrea Williams, Self-­Taught: African American Education in Slavery and Freedom (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005), p. 13. 7. Quoted in ibid., p. 23. 8. The hunger for learning of illiterate African Americans was also used to entrap them. In one case, a literate black realized

202

Notes to pages 103–106

that a document offered to him by a white man was “not an order for books but a paper of indenture calculated to bind us to the services of some rascal. . . . That partially explains our longing for books.” Quoted in Andrew Ward, The Slaves’ War: The Civil War in the Words of Former Slaves (Boston: Mariner Books, 2008), p. 274. 9. I have seen several copies of this misspelled version. 10. Elizabeth Hyde Botume, First Days among the Contrabands (New York: Arno Press, 1968), p. 122. 11. Ibid., p. 22. Fisher was found with writing materials, and the master threatened to cut off his right hand; eventually, Fisher escaped to Canada. An 1829 pamphlet urging resistance stated that all slaves should learn to read; ibid., p. 14. 12. Ibid., p. 6: “Intuitively they learned all the tricks of dramatic art. Their perceptions were quickened. When seemingly absorbed in work, they saw and heard all that was going on around them. They memorized with wonderful ease and correctness.” Partly cited in Ward, The Slaves’ War, p. 26. My emphasis. 13. Botume, First Days among the Contrabands, pp. 6–­7. 14. Ibid., p. 7. Botume recounts that this woman’s children were among the first enrolled in her freedmen’s school, where they became good scholars; the “youngest boy is now a leader amongst his own people.” 15. Harriet Carter, “Sojourner Truth,” Chatauquan 7 (May 1887): 477–­80; quotation is from p. 479. 16. Carla Peterson, Doers of the Word: African-­American Women Speakers and Writers in the North (1830–­1880) (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 40–­45. 17. Ibid., p. 48: “Truth’s links to African and African-­ American oral cultures may be located . . . in her belief in the primacy of the spoken word, its importance as a mode of action rather than simply an articulation of thought, its magical power to create events, to make the past present, and vision reality. Moreover, in such cultures the oral word does not exist simply in a verbal context. . . . The voice is directly and intimately connected to bodily activity. . . . Rhythmic discourse may in fact evolve into song.” See also Walter J. Ong, Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (New York: Methuen 1982), pp. 67–­68, 34; and the refutation of Ong’s “autonomous” view of literacy by Brian V. Street, Literacy in Theory and Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984). 18. “Scholars have often noted that writing, especially print,

gives words spatial and temporal mobility”; Grey Gundaker, “Give Me a Sign: African Americans, Print, and Practice,” in An Extensive Republic: Print, Culture, and Society in the New Nation, 1790–­1840, ed. Robert A. Gross and Mary Kelley (Chapel Hill: Published in association with the American Antiquarian Society by the University of North Carolina Press, 2010), pp. 483–­95; quotation is from p. 484. 19. Augusta Rohrbach, Truth Stranger than Fiction: Race, Realism and the U.S. Literary Marketplace (New York: Palgrave, 2002), especially pp. 29–­50. 20. Frances Cody, “Inscribing Subjects to Citizenship: Petitions, Literacy Activism, and the Performativity of Signature in Rural Tamil India,” Cultural Anthropology 24, no. 3 (August 2009): 347–­80; quotation is from p. 356. 21. Ibid., p. 356. 22. Nelson Goodman, Languages of Art: An Approach to a Theory of Symbols (Indianapolis: Bobbs-­Merrill, 1968), pp. 113–­23. 23. Cited in Margaret Washington, Sojourner Truth’s America (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009), p. 36; and Carleton Mabee, “Sojourner Truth, Bold Prophet: Why Did She Never Learn to Read?” New York History 69, no. 1 (January 1988): 59. 24. Karlyn Kohrs Campbell, Women Public Speakers in the United States, 1800–­1925: A Bio-­Critical Sourcebook (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1994), pp. 421–­33. 25. Unnamed and undated newspaper, cited under the heading “N.Y. and Philadelphia Papers,” in Narrative of Sojourner Truth, p. 222; cited in Mabee, Sojourner Truth, p. 65. 26. Mabee, Sojourner Truth, p. 63. Mabee, “Sojourner Truth, Bold Prophet.” 27. Narrative of Sojourner Truth, p. 26; Washington, Sojourner Truth’s America, p. 55. 28. Stanton et al., History of Woman Suffrage, 2:224–­25; cited in Nell Irvin Painter, Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol (New York: W. W. Norton, 1996), p. 228. 29. Painter, Sojourner Truth, pp. 21–­22; Washington, Sojourner Truth’s America, p. 55. 30. From a speech given January 1, 1871; cited in Narrative of Sojourner Truth, pp. 213–­16: “I speak dese tings so dat when you have a paper come for you to sign, you ken sign it.” 31. Quoted in Stanton et al., History of Woman Suffrage, 2:926. Also cited in Suzanne Pullon Fitch and Roseann M. Mandziuk,

Sojourner Truth as Orator: Wit, Story and Song (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1997), p. 37. 32. Frederick Douglass, “What I Found at the Northampton Association,” in The History of Florence, Massachusetts, ed. Charles A. Sheffield (Florence, MA: The Editor, 1895), pp. 131–­32. Partly cited in Mabee, Sojourner Truth, pp. 72, 74. The full quotation: “I met here for the first time that strange compound of wit and wisdom, of wild enthusiasm and flint-­like common sense, who seemed to feel it her duty to ridicule my efforts to speak and act like a person of cultivation and refinement. I allude to Sojourner Truth. She was a genuine specimen of the uncultured negro. She cared very little for elegance of speech or refinement of manners. She seemed to please herself and others best when she put her ideas in oddest forms. She was much respected at Florence [Massachusetts], for she was honest, industrious, and amiable. Her quaint speeches easily gave her an audience, and she was one of the most useful members of the Community in its day of small things.” 33. From a speech given in 1853; cited in Campbell, Women Public Speakers, p. 429. 34. Ibid. 35. Sojourner Truth, letter to Mary K. Gale, February 25, 1864; Sojourner Truth Collection, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC; cited in Mabee, “Sojourner Truth, Bold Prophet,” p. 74. See also her exclamation: “Oh if I could but write. The best [that] friends can write for me sounds cold compared with the fervent warmth and affection of my heart.” Cited in Washington, Sojourner Truth’s America, p. 309. 36. Manuscript letter of Sojourner Truth to Amy Post, August 25, 1867; Rare Books, Special Collections and Preservation, University of Rochester, New York. 37. Williams, Self-­Taught, p. 29. Mattie Jackson escaped slavery by fleeing to Indiana 1866 at the age of twenty; she dictated her narrative in the hopes of raising money to fund her education. Botume, First Days among the Contrabands, pp. 143–­ 56, devotes chapter 10 to the task of writing letters for the freed slaves in her community. 38. Mabee, Sojourner Truth, p. 215. 39. Manuscript letter of Sojourner Truth to Amy Post, October 1, 1865; Rare Books, Special Collections and Preservation, University of Rochester, New York. Notes to pages 106–109

203

40. Letter, spring 1864; C. E. C., “To the Editor of the Advertiser and Tribune” [no date]; cited in Narrative of Sojourner Truth, p. 118; also cited in Peterson, Doers of the Word, p. 33: “It was touching to see her eager face when the newspapers were read in her presence. She would never listen to Mrs. Stowe’s ‘Libyan Sibyl.’ ‘Oh!’ she would say, ‘I don’t want to hear about that old symbol; read me something that is going on now, something about this great war.” 41. Sojourner Truth, letter, November 17, 1864; published in her Narrative of Sojourner Truth, 1878 edition, p. 320. 42. E. C. S., “Sojourner Truth on the Press,” 928. 43. This is the thesis of Logan, Liberating Language. See also Ong, Orality and Literacy, p. 70: “Oral communication unites ­people in groups. Writing and reading are solitary activities that throw the psyche back on itself.” 44. Narrative of Sojourner Truth, p. 74. 45. Ong, Orality and Literacy, pp. 99–­100. 46. E. C. S., “Sojourner Truth on the Press,” 928. My ­emphasis. 47. Robert A. Gross, “Reading for an Extensive Republic,” in Gross and Kelley, An Extensive Republic, p. 528. 48. Frances Titus, letter to May Post, Battle Creek, Michigan, July 21, 1883; Isaac and Amy Post Family Papers, Rush Rees Library, University of Rochester, New York; online at www.lib .rochester.edu/index.cfm (accessed August 4, 2014). 49. Sojourner Truth, letter to William Still, January 4, 1876; Leon Garniner Collection, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; cited in Mabee, Sojourner Truth, p. 211. Still had arranged speaking engagements for her; Truth and her grandson Samuel had also visited him in 1874. By 1876 Still was a prosperous coal dealer, had published a book on the Underground Railroad, and was a leader in the movement to desegregate streetcars. 50. Ibid. My emphases. 51. Washington, Sojourner Truth’s America, pp. 368–­69. 52. For instance, concerning the many versions of “Ar’n’t I a woman?” and the debates about the extent to which Frances Gage wrote the speech as so often quoted, see Mabee, Sojourner Truth, pp. 67–­81; Nell Irvin Painter, “Representing Truth: Sojourner Truth’s Knowing and Becoming Known,” Journal of American History 81, no. 2 (September 1994): 461–­492; Painter,

204

Notes to pages 109–115

Sojourner Truth, pp. 164–­78, 281–­87; Washington, Sojourner Truth’s America, pp. 224–­29. 53. From the Latin ¯amanuensis, from the phrase servus ¯a manu¯, “slave at hand” (that is, handwriting). 54. Illiteracy thus alerts us to the multivalency of the word writing as well as the precariousness of an illiterate’s authorship. 55. Rohrbach, Truth Stranger than Fiction, pp. 33–­34. Gundaker, “Give Me a Sign,” pp. 484–­85: “Racialized by association with European rationales for domination, print’s immediacy during reading also occasioned a kind of provisional visual equality, leaving vocal pitch and pace to the imagination while using the same amount of black ink, regardless of the color of the author. Seeing a representation of a black author’s voice without simultaneously seeing a black face must have been a new experience for many white readers.” I would add that this was also a new experience for many black readers. 56. Rohrbach, Truth Stranger than Fiction, p. 31. 57. Ibid., p. 33. See also John Stauffer, The Black Hearts of Men (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002), pp. 45–­70, regarding Douglass’s use of the daguerreotype; Lynn A. Casmier-­ Paz, “Slave Narratives and the Rhetoric of Author Portraiture,” New Literary History 34, no. 1 (Winter 2003): 91–­116; and Augusta Rohrbach, “Profits of Protest: The Market Strategies of Sojourner Truth and Louisa May Alcott,” in Prophets of Protest: Reconsidering the History of American Abolitionism, ed. Timothy Patrick McCarthy and John Stauffer (New York: New Press, 2006). 58. Elizabeth Burns Coleman, Aboriginal Art, Identity and Appropriation (Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 2005), p. 163. 59. Lindon Barrett, Blackness and Value: Seeing Double (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 71. “Self-­interested” stems from C. B. Macpherson, The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism: Hobbes to Locke (New York: Oxford University Press, 1962), p. 275. “The eccentricity” is the wording of Marlon B. Ross, “Authority and Authenticity: Scribbling Authors and the Genius of Print in Eighteenth-­Century England,” in The Construction of Authorship: Textual Appropriation in Law and Literature, ed. Martha Woodmansee and Peter Jaszi (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1994), p. 232. 60. Memoir of Henry Kyd Douglas, p. 623. Online in The American Civil War: Letters and Diaries, Alexander Street Press database,

http://alexanderstreet.com/products/american-­civil-­war-­letters -­and-­diaries (accessed August 4, 2014). See also Sarah Josepha Hale, “An Evening’s Conversation about Autographs,” Godey’s Lady’s Book 18 (June 1839): 256–­59; and the anti-­autograph articles in the Home Journal, April 19, 1851, p. 2; and September 9, 1854, p. 2. See also Tamara Plakins Thornton, Handwriting in America: A Cultural History (New Haven, CT, Yale University Press, 1996); Lisa Reid Ricker, “(Re)collecting Herself: Jennie Drew’s Autograph Album, Mnemonic Activity, and the Creation of Feminine Subjectivity,” in Women and Things, 1750–­1950: Gendered Material Strategies, ed. Maureen Daly Goggin and Beth Fowkes (Farnham, England: Ashgate, 2009). 61. Gerrit Smith, note to Sojourner Truth, 1868; Percival Leggett’s scrapbook, ZP4, vol. 1, Leggett Family Papers, 1794–­1895, Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library. 62. Quoted in The Century War Series, vol. 2, Battles and Leaders of the Civil War (New York: Century, 1887), p. 760. Online in The American Civil War: Letters and Diaries, Alexander Street Press d ­ atabase. 63. Percival Drayton, letter to Alexander Hamilton, February 19, 1864; in Naval Letters from Captain Percival Drayton, 1861–­ 1865 (New York: N.p., 1906), p. 81. Online in The American Civil War: Letters and Diaries, Alexander Street Press database. 64. Thornton, Handwriting in America, pp. 86–­88. Regarding autograph quilts, see Amelia Peck, “‘A Marvel of Woman’s Ingenious and Intellectual Industry’: The Adeline Harris Sears Autograph Quilt,” Metropolitan Museum Journal 33 (1998): 263–­90. 65. Edgar Allan Poe, “A Chapter on Autography,” Graham’s Magazine (November 1841), pp. 224–­34; quotation is from p. 224. See also the December 1841 issue, pp. 273–­86, and the January 1842 issue, pp. 44–­49. 66. Poe, “A Chapter on Autography,” November 1841, p. 224. 67. Poe, “A Chapter on Autography,” December 1841, p. 274. 68. “Autographo-­mania,” Overland Monthly (October 1869), in The Century War Series, vol. 2, Battles and Leaders of the Civil War (New York: Century, 1887), p. 760. Online in The American Civil War: Letters and Diaries, Alexander Street Press database. 69. Ibid. 70. Narrative of Sojourner Truth, p. 221; see also Detroit Advertiser and Tribune, June 11, 1869.

71. Jean Baudrillard cited in Ricker, “(Re)collecting Herself,” p. 266. 72. Ibid., p. 267, refuting the argument made by Todd Gernes, “Recasting the Culture of Ephemera,” in Popular Literacy: Studies in Cultural Practices and Poetics, ed. John Trimbur (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2001), p. 110. 73. Mary Thomas Crane, Framing Authority: Sayings, Self, and Society in Sixteenth-­Century England (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993); cited in Ricker, “(Re)collecting Herself,” p. 272. 74. From Detroit Papers; Narrative of Sojourner Truth, p. 155. 75. From Kansas Papers; Topeka, in ibid., p. 165. 76. Boston Papers; ibid., p. 221; see also Detroit Advertiser and Tribune, June 11, 1869. 77. Thornton, Handwriting in America, pp. 77–­78, 86–­88, 110. 78. “Autographs: From the ‘Home Journal,’” North American Miscellany 2, no. 16 (May 1851): 40; partly cited in Thornton, Handwriting in America, p. 87. 79. Ricker, “(Re)collecting Herself,” p. 265. Ricker is quoting Liz Rohan, “I Remember Mamma: Material Rhetoric, Mnemonic Activity, and One Woman’s Turn-­of-­the-­Century Quilt,” Rhetoric Review 23, no. 4 (2004): 370.

Chapter Seven 1. United States Supreme Court, Wheaton v. Peters, 33 U.S. 591, 593 (1834). 2. Quoted in Patrizia Di Bello, Women’s Albums and Photography in Victorian England: Ladies, Mothers and Flirts (Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 2007), p. 109. 3. James W. Pennebaker, The Secret Life of Pronouns: What Our Words Say about Us (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2011), p. 71. 4. Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy (London: Oxford University Press, 1912), p. 93; cited in Ann Banfield, “The Name of the Subject: The ‘Il’?,” Yale French Studies 93 (1998): 133–­74; quotation is from pp. 156–­57. Banfield also analyzes photography and Bertrand Russell in “L’Imparfait de l’Objectif: The Imperfect of the Object Glass,” Camera Obscura: A Journal of Feminism and Film Theory 8, no. 3 (September 24, 1990): 64–­87. On the first person in slave narratives, see John C. Inscoe, “Slave Rebellion in the First Person: The Literary ‘Confessions’ of

Notes to pages 115–124

205

Nat Turner and Dessa Rose,” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 97, no. 4 (October 1989): 419–­36; Mineke Schipper, “‘Who Am I?’: Fact and Fiction in African First-­Person Narrative,” Research in African Literatures 16, no. 1 (Spring 1985): 53–­79; James Olney, “‘I Was Born’: Slave Narratives, Their Status as Autobiography and as Literature,” Callaloo 20 (Winter 1984): 46–­73. 5. Quoted in Lynn A. Casmier-­Paz, “Footprints of the Fugitive: Slave Narrative Discourse and the Trace of Autobiography,” Biography 24, no. 1 (Winter 2001): 215–­25; quotation is from p. 216. 6. Ibid. 7. Ibid. 8. Lejeune quoted in ibid., p. 217. 9. Ibid. 10. Peter A. Dorsey, “Becoming the Other: The Mimesis of Metaphor in Douglass’s My Bondage and My Freedom,” PMLA 111, no. 3 (May 1996): 435–­50; quotations are from p. 444. 11. New York World, May 13, 1870; cited in Carleton Mabee, Sojourner Truth—­Slave, Prophet, Legend (New York: New York University Press, 1993), p. 216. 12. Pertinent here is the trademarking of ethnicities as discussed by John L. Comaroff and Jean Comaroff, Ethnicity, Inc. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009). I thank Marianne Constable for this reference. Constable has suggested that Sojourner was trademarking herself more than copyrighting her property. A relevant comparison is the flamboyantly theatrical self-­ portraiture of the Countess de Castiglione in nineteenth-­century France, far in advance of Cindy Sherman’s Film Stills. Whether one should interpret de Castiglione’s obsessive production of photographic images of herself as a creative practice in collaboration with the photographer or as a capitulation to women’s objectification under patriarchy was the question posed by Abigail Solomon-­Godeau, “The Legs of the Countess,” October 39 (Winter 1986): 65–­108. She concluded the latter, a position with which others, including myself, disagree. 13. Ginger Hill, “‘Rightly Viewed’: Theorizations of Self in Frederick Douglass’s Lectures on Pictures,” in Pictures and Progress: Early Photography and the Making of African American Identity, ed. Maurice O. Wallace and Shawn Michelle Smith (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2012), p. 49. 14. Ibid., p. 46. 206

Notes to pages 124–129

15. Jane M. Gaines, “The Absurdity of Property in the Person,” Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities 10, no. 2 (1998): 545. 16. Ibid., p. 547. 17. Ibid. 18. See David M. Henkin, The Postal Age: The Emergence of Modern Communications in Nineteenth-­Century America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), especially pp. 57–­60. 19. Meredith L. McGill, “Copyright,” in An Extensive Republic: Print, Culture, and Society in the New Nation, 1790–­1840, ed. Robert A. Gross and Mary Kelley (Chapel Hill: Published in association with the American Antiquarian Society by the University of North Carolina Press, 2010), pp. 201–­2. 20. Peter Jaszi, “Toward a Theory of Copyright: The Metamorphoses of Authorship,” Duke Law Journal 40, no. 2 (1991): 455–­502; quotation is from p. 463. 21. See B. Zorina Khan, The Democratization of Invention: Patents and Copyrights in American Economic Development 1790–­ 1920 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 222–­ 57; Trevor Ross, “Copyright and the Invention of Tradition,” Eighteenth-­Century Studies 26, no. 1 (Autumn 1992): 1–­27; Jaszi, “Toward a Theory of Copyright,” p. 455. 22. United States Supreme Court, Wheaton v. Peters, 33 U.S. 591 (1834), Henry Wheaton and Robert Donaldson, Appellants v. Richard Peters and John Grigg. 23. Ibid. 24. Ibid. 25. Justice Joseph Yates, in Millar v. Taylor, April 20, 1769; in The English Reports 98: 234 242 ([Oxford, England?]: Jutasat, 1999). 26. United States Supreme Court, Wheaton v. Peters. 27. Ibid. My emphasis. 28. Ibid. 29. McGill, “Copyright,” p. 208. 30. Ibid. 31. United States Supreme Court, Wheaton v. Peters, 33 U.S. 591 (1834). 32. Ibid. 33. In The Fugitive’s Properties: Law and the Poetics of Possession (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), pp. 107–­23, Stephen M. Best argues that Stowe v. Thomas, 1853, “uses the fugitive’s flight as a figure for textual circulation” and was catalyzed in part by the fears produced by the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850

(that the slave market would now extend everywhere and would absorb both escaped slaves and blacks incapable of defending their freedom). He clarifies that “when the author is viewed as the bearer of a right to profit through private accumulation, the copier assumes the form of a thief, one who has failed to perform his or her requisite duties; yet when the author appears the beneficiary of a statutory and limited monopoly, the copier becomes the very embodiment of free enterprise values, a personification of the useful enjoyment of riches found at the public weal.” 34. Justice Robert Grier in Stowe v. Thomas, 1853; cited in ibid., p. 117. 35. Ibid. 36. Ibid. 37. Ibid., p. 118: “Stowe v. Thomas affirmed the doctrine that copyright law afforded no protection for characters and figures possessed of a certain obviousness, conventionality or stereotypicality—­the position that copyright offered no right of property to patterns and codes, conventions and formulas, the clichés that were ‘bound to recur’ in the act of textual p ­ roduction.” 38. Jane M. Gaines, “Photography ‘Surprises’ the Law: The Portrait of Oscar Wilde,” in Contested Culture: The Image, the Voice and the Law (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991), pp. 42–­83. See also her “The Absurdity of Property in the Person.” In 1865 photographs and photographic negatives were officially added to copyright law, perhaps because of the popularity of Mathew Brady’s photographs during the Civil War. 39. Alan Trachtenberg, Reading American Photographs: Images as History; Mathew Brady to Walker Evans (New York: Hill and Wang, 1989). Scholars of photography seldom list the word copyright in their indexes. 40. Anthony W. Lee and Elizabeth Young, On Alexander Gardner’s Photographic Sketch Book of the Civil War (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), pp. 11–­12. According to Lee, Gardner distinguished between publisher and maker. 41. French scholar Bernard Edelman has written a significant—­ and wrongly neglected—­book about the different British and French cases, the title of which, Le Droit saisi par la photographie, emphasizes that the law was unprepared for the new medium. The title to the 1979 English translation of Edelman’s book, Ownership of the Image: Elements for a Marxist Theory of Law

(London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979), shifts the emphasis to property and is accompanied by a critical introduction by Paul Hirst. Recently, photography historian Elizabeth Anne McCauley further enriches our understanding of the British and the French histories without, however, engaging in conversation with Edelman’s arguments: “‘Merely Mechanical’: On the Origins of Photographic Copyright in France and Great Britain,” Art History 31, no. 1 (February 2008): 57–­78. 42. Gaines, “Photography ‘Surprises’ the Law,” p. 50. 43. Frederic Rideau, “Nineteenth-­Century Controversies Relating to the Protection of Artistic Property in France,” in Privilege and Property: Essays on the History of Copyright, ed. Ronan Deazley, Martin Kretschmer, and Lionel Bently (Cambridge: Open Book Publishers, 2010), pp. 241–­54; quotation is from p. 248. 44. The collaborative nature of photography is emphasized by McCauley, “‘Merely Mechanical,’” p. 68. 45. See also the example of Pedro Ángel’s portrait in Alonso de Villegas’s Flos sanctorum: Cuarta y última parte (1589). The text below the image says that to “avoid the damage” to his reputation by the many unauthorized and incorrect printed copies of his work, “I had this portrait made by the scrupulous silversmith Pedro Angel, which will serve as my signature.” Cited in Laura R. Bass, The Drama of the Portrait: Theater and Visual Culture in Early Modern Spain (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2008), p. 43. Villegas’s recourse to portraiture as a form of signature attests to the long-­standing anxieties of authors seeking to control the publication of their work. But because the portrait was reproducible, it was vulnerable to illicit reproduction; only quality could distinguish it. 46. Quoted in Kevin Sharpe, Selling the Monarchy: Authority and Image in Sixteenth-­Century England (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009), pp. 365–­66. 47. Ibid., p. 390. 48. The Letters of Peter Paul Rubens, trans. and ed. Ruth Saunders Magurn (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1955), letter 35, January 4, 1619; p. 68. Thanks to Vanessa Lyon for this source. 49. Ibid., letter 36, January 23, 1619; p. 69. 50. Pierre-­Gaspard Chaumette, quoted in Gazette Nationale ou Le Moniteur Universel, December 4, 1793. Thanks to Amy Freund for reminding me of this example in her “Revolutionary LikeNotes to pages 129–132

207

nesses: Portraiture and Politics in France, 1789–­1804” (PhD diss., University of California, Berkeley, 2005), pp. 68–­70. 51. McCauley, “‘Merely Mechanical,’” p. 64. 52. Ibid., p. 75, note 28. 53. Ibid. “After the invention of photographic portraits, many cases tested this right, such as the suit filed by the family of the classic actress Rachel . . . . in 1858 against the artist . . . who had copied an after-­death portrait the family had commissioned from the photographer Crette.” The court decided in favor of the family, but McCauley also cites an 1860 ruling against a sitter. 54. Cited in Di Bello, Women’s Albums and Photography, p. 109. The author unfortunately offers no footnotes. Di Bello offers another example regarding John Ruskin’s anger when someone sold prints of a photograph taken of him at a private gathering. Ibid., p. 109, note 8. 55. As Gaines, “Photography ‘Surprises’ the Law,” p. 75, has argued, “In the mid-­to late nineteenth century, . . . each [was] entitled to claim the inert matter over which he has exerted his will, in this case the body of the subject before the camera.” 56. Quoted in ibid., p. 104. 57. Quoted in ibid., p. 106. 58. Ibid. Photographers profited from celebrity portraits, even when they paid sitters royalties in advance, because they generally “retained the copyright in the theatrical portrait long after actors had contractually signed away any rights they might want to claim” (pp. 76–­77). 59. Jaszi, “Toward a Theory of Copyright,” pp. 480–­81, note 97. 60. Ibid. Even in 1989: see Olan Mills, Inc. v. Eckerd Drug of Texas, Inc., Copyright L. Rep. (CCH) N.D. Tex. (1989). 61. Edelman, Ownership of the Image, p. 68. 62. Cited in Gaines, “Photography ‘Surprises’ the Law,” p. 82. 63. Edelman, Ownership of the Image, p. 68. 64. Copyright Act of 1790, passed on May 31 1790; 1 Statutes at Large, 124. 65. 7th Cong., 1st Sess. Ch. 36 (1802). 66. 21st Cong., Sess. 2, Ch. 16 (1831), p. 437. “And the author or proprietor of any such book, map, chart, musical composition, print, cut, or engraving, shall, within three months . . . deliver or cause to be delivered a copy of the same to the clerk of said district. . . . That no person shall be entitled to the benefit of this act, 208

Notes to pages 132–135

unless he shall give information of copyright being secured, by causing to be inserted, in the several copies of each and every edition published during the term secured on the title-­page, or the page immediately following, if it be a book, or, if a map, chart, musical composition, print, cut, or engraving, by causing to be impressed on the face thereof, or if a volume of maps, charts, music, or engravings, upon the title or frontispiece thereof the following words, viz: “Entered according to act of Congress, in the year   , by A.B., in the clerk’s office of the district court of   ,” (as the case may be).” My emphases. 67. “Newspapers, magazines, pamphlets, local and federal government publications, broadsides, tracts, and sermons, all of which were seen as either too ephemeral or too local to benefit from copyright, constituted the basis for a decentralized print culture.” Mary Kelley, introduction to section 2, “Spreading the Word in Print,” in Gross and Kelley, An Extensive Republic, pp. 175–­78; quotation is from p. 177. See also Lionel Bently, “Copyright and the Death of the Author in Literature and Law,” Modern Law Review 57, no. 6 (November 1994): 973–­86; Nancy E. Anderson and David F. Greenberg, “From Substance to Form: The Legal Theories of Pashukanis and Edelman,” Social Text 7 (Spring–­Summer 1983): 69–­84; Douglas Nickel, “Impressed by Nature’s Hand: Photography and Authorship,” in Using Visual Evidence, ed. Richard Howells and Robert Matson (Maidenhead, England: Open University Press, 2009), pp.  43–­54. 68. Burrow-­Giles v. Sarony of 1884: “We entertain no doubt that the constitution is broad enough to cover an act authorizing copyright of photographs, so far as they are representatives of original intellectual conceptions of the author. But it is said that an engraving, a painting, a print, does embody the intellectual conception of its author, in which there is novelty, invention, originality, and therefore comes within the purpose of the constitution in securing its exclusive use or sale to its author, while a photograph is the mere mechanical reproduction of physical features or outlines of some subject, animate or inanimate, and involves no originality of thought or any novelty in the intellectual operation connected with its visible reproduction in the shape of a picture. . . . This may be true in regard to the ordinary production of a photograph, and that in such cases a copyright is no protection. On this question we decide nothing.” 111 U.S. 53 4 S. Ct. 279, 28 L. Ed 349 (1884). My emphasis.

69. Abraham Lincoln, letter of April 7, 1860, to H. G. Eastman, Esq.; cited in Patrick Maynard, “Drawing and Shooting: Causality in Depiction,” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 44, no. 2 (Winter 1985): 115–­29. See note 165. 70. Kathleen Collins, “Photographic Fundraising: Civil War Philanthropy,” History of Photography 11, no. 3 (July–­September 1987): 173–­87, and “The Scourged Back,” History of Photography 9, no. 1 (January–­March 1985): 43–­45. 71. Even in cases regarding books, publishers played a confusing role. 72. See also Frederick Douglass: “Mr. Collins used to say when introducing me to an audience, I was a ‘graduate from a peculiar institution, with my diploma written on my back.’” In Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (New York: Bonanza, 1962); partly cited in Dorsey, “Becoming the Other,” p. 443. 73. “An Act to amend the several Acts respecting Copyright: That the provisions of said act shall extend to and include photographs and the negatives thereof which shall hereafter be made, and shall ensure to the benefit of the authors of the same in the same manner, and to the same extent, and upon the same conditions as to the authors of prints and engravings.” A copy of any photograph “for which a copyright shall be secured under said acts” was to be sent to the Library of Congress. George P. Sanger, The Statutes at Large, Treaties and Proclamations, of the United States of America (Boston: Little, Brown, 1865). 38th Cong., vol. 1, 2d Sess. Chap. 71 (March 3, 1865). 74. Until 1861 “a portrait marked ‘Brady of Broadway’ was recognized as one of the choicest popular-­art commodities of the age. His signature carried instant recognition and prestige. . . . A ‘palace of light,’ Brady’s gallery . . . [made] it seem possible that the nation would hold together against unpromising odds. . . . By 1861 his collection of the ‘noteworthy’ had grown to ten thousand images.” Trachtenberg, Reading American Photographs, pp. 42–­43. 75. Hill, “‘Rightly Viewed,’” pp. 74–­75, n. 20. 76. Frederick Douglass, “Pictures and Progress,” a public lecture in Boston, December 3, 1861, in The Frederick Douglass Papers, ed. John W. Blassingame, ser. 1 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press 1985), p. 454.

Chapter Eight 1. Quoted in Forrest G. Wood, The Black Scare: The Racist Response to Emancipation and Reconstruction (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968), p. 44. 2. Ibid., p. 202. 3. Sojourner Truth, letter to Mary K. Gale, February 25, 1864: “Say that I sell the three for $1 or a single one for 35 cents. I have to charge a little more than the common price because the paper & envelope and sometimes the stamps cost XXX and they will see by my card that I sell the shadow to support the substance.” Sojourner Truth Collection, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC. 4. Elizabeth Siegel, Galleries of Friendship and Fame: A History of Nineteenth-­Century American Photograph Albums (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010), p. 7. 5. Allan Sekula, “Traffic in Photographs,” Art Journal 41 (Spring 1981): pp. 15–­25; quotation is from pp. 21–­23; Alan Trachtenberg cites Sekula in Reading American Photographs: Images as History; Mathew Brady to Walker Evans (New York: Hill and Wang, 1989), p. 19. See also Stephen M. Best, The Fugitive’s Properties: Law and the Poetics of Possession (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004). Marc Shell discusses “nothing” pretending to be a “something” in Money, Language, and Thought: Literary and Philosophical Economies from the Medieval to the Modern Era (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982). See also Walter Benn Michaels, The Gold Standard and the Logic of Naturalism: American Literature at the Turn of the Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987). 6. Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., “Doings of the Sunbeam,” Atlantic Monthly 12 (July 1863 [written in 1862]), p. 8. 7. On greenbacks, see Irwin Unger, The Greenback Era: A Social and Political History of American Finance, 1865–­1879 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1964). On the debates about money in relation to issues of race, see Michael O’Malley, “Specie and Species: Race and the Money Question in Nineteenth-­Century America,” American Historical Journal 99, no. 2 (April 1994): 369–­95; and the critical response of Nell Irvin Painter, “Thinking about the Languages of Money and Race: A Response to Michael O’Malley, ‘Specie and Species,’” American Historical Review 99, no. 2 (April 1994): 396–­404.

Notes to pages 135–144

209

8. “Memoir of George Washington Cable,” in The Century War Series, vol. 2, Battles and Leaders of the Civil War (New York: Century, 1887), p. 17. Online in The American Civil War: Letters and Diaries, Alexander Street Press database, http://alexanderstreet .com/products/american-­civil-­war-­letters-­and-­diaries (accessed August 4, 2014). 9. On the history of fractional currency, see United States Bureau of Engraving and Printing, History of the Bureau (Washington, DC: US Treasury Department, 1862–­1962), pp. 8–­13. 10. Congressional Record, 43rd Cong., 1st Sess., January 31, 1874, p. 1089; cited in O’Malley, “Specie and Species,” p. 379. 11. United States Bureau of Engraving and Printing, History of the Bureau, pp. 8–­9. 12. David A. Wells, Robinson Crusoe’s Money; or, The Remarkable Financial Fortunes and Misfortunes of a Remote Island Community with Illustrations by Thomas Nast (New York: Harper, 1876). The book was initially an anti-­greenback tract but was reprinted in 1896 as an attack on free silver. 13. Atlas and Argus, January 19, 1863; cited in O’Malley, “Specie and Species,” p. 380. 14. “Memoir of Phoebe Yates Pember,” in A Southern Woman’s Story: Life in Confederate Richmond (Jackson, TN: McCowat-­Mercer Press, 1959), p. 199; online in The American Civil War: Letters and Diaries, Alexander Street Press database, http://alexanderstreet .com/products/american-­civil-­war-­letters-­and-­diaries (accessed August 4, 2014). 15. Sung to Lincoln; James Sloan Gibbons’s song first appeared as a poem in 1862. See Irwin Silber and Jerry Silverman, The Songs of the Civil War (New York: Columbia University Press, 1960), p. 92. On blackface in the United States, see Eric Lott, Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995); Michael Rogin, Blackface, White Noise: Jewish Immigrants in the Hollywood Melting Pot (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996). 16. “How Are You Green-­Backs!” (New York: William A. Pond, 1863). 17. The Library of Congress describes the print as “a scathing attack on the ineptness and military ineffectualness of the Lincoln administration”: www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2003689257. 18. There is a related carte de visite called “The Southern Cross” that places Jefferson Davis’s photographed head at the 210

Notes to pages 145–152

center of a cross composed of photographed Confederate five-­ dollar bills. The accompanying poem reads: Hard to carry and on the wane The Rebels of their change complain But when they come to meet their bills They’ll find their change the least of ills. Mocking the bankruptcy of the regional Confederate currency relative to the Federally issued greenbacks, the carte de visite juxtaposes coin to bills defined as debt. It also reveals that these Confederate bills (issued September 1861) feature Minerva, the goddess of war, and founding father George Washington, not contemporary politicians such as Chase. 19. Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2006), p. 510. For another view, see Fred Reed, “More on Salmon P. Chase and His One-­Dollar Greenback,” E-­Sylum: An Electronic Publication of the Numismatic Bibliomania Society 11, no. 21 (May 25, 2008), article 15; online at www.coinbooks.com/esylum_v111n21a15.html (accessed August 4, 2014). 20. Going Home to Vote: Authentic Speeches of S. P. Chase, Secretary of the Treasury (Washington, DC: W. H. Moore, 1863). 21. Ibid. My emphasis. 22. Bruce Baryla, “More on Salmon P. Chase and His One-­ Dollar Greenback” (a response to Reed, “More on Salmon P. Chase”), E ­ -­Sylum: An Electronic Publication of the Numismatic Bibliomania Society 12, no. 37 (September 13, 2009), article 17; online at ww.coinbooks.com_nbs_esylum_v12n37.html (accessed August 4, 2014). 23. Baryla, “More on Salmon P. Chase.” “The first of the two privately mailed, anti-­Lincoln pamphlets that destroyed his campaign first appeared in a newspaper the day before, and it would only be a few weeks before Chase was forced to withdraw from contention due to the firestorm the pamphlets had created.” 24. On Clark, see BEP [Bureau of Engraving and Printing] History: Papers Prepared by the Historical Resource Center (2004), online at www.moneyfactory.gov/images/BEP_History_Sec508_web; Benny Bolin, “Spencer M. Clark,” Paper Money 27 (June–­July 1988): 77–­80; “Report from the First Division National Currency Bureau,” November 1864; Senate Report 273 (40th Cong., 3rd Sess.), March 1869, pp. 102–­3.

25. Jason Goodwin, Greenback: The Almighty Dollar and the Invention of America (New York: Henry Holt, 2003), pp. 230, 244. 26. Lafayette Baker, History of the United States Secret Service (Philadelphia: L. C. Baker, 1867), p. 261 (Ella Jackson journal). 27. Goodwin, Greenback, p. 245. 28. See United States Congress, House Select Committee to investigate charges against Treasury Department, The Treasury Investigation: The Suppressed Documents; Report on the Printing of Public Money (Washington, DC: S.n., 1864), p. 10. Quoted in Goodwin, Greenback, p. 245. 29. See Baker, History of the United States Secret Service, p. 265. See also Jacob Mogelever, Death to Traitors: The Story of General Lafayette C. Baker, Lincoln’s Forgotten Secret Service Chief (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1960); David R. Johnson, Illegal Tender: Counterfeiting and the Secret Service in Nineteenth-­Century America (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995). 30. Goodwin, Greenback, p. 246. 31. Sec. 3576, April 7, 1866; cited in United States Bureau of Engraving and Printing, History of the Bureau, p. 12. Carleton Mabee, Sojourner Truth—­Slave, Prophet, Legend (New York: New York University Press, 1993), pp. 126–­27, recounts an anecdote published in 1880 and 1890 that in 1865 Sojourner had tried to get Lincoln to exchange a greenback bearing his picture for her photograph: “It’s got a black face but a white back; an’ I’d like one o’yourn wid a green back.” Mabee concludes that the story was likely fabricated in order to make more exciting her interaction with President Grant. Sojourner herself recounted that she gave Grant her carte de visite and he, in turn, gave her a five-­dollar bill. I would emphasize that the Lincoln story, while in all likelihood fictional, nonetheless indicates that Sojourner’s cartes de visite were being linked to paper currency. Note the role of portraits on the bills and even the color-­printing jokes: blackface versus ­greenbacks! 32. United States Bureau of Engraving and Printing, History of the Bureau, p. 9. 33. See Sojourner Truth, letter to Mary K. Gale, February 25, 1864; Sojourner Truth Collection, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC. 34. On counterfeiting, see United States Bureau of Engraving and Printing, History of the Bureau, p. 11, and Johnson, Illegal Tender.

35. United States Bureau of Engraving and Printing, History of the Bureau, p. 2. See also Goodwin, Greenback, p. 222. 36. On the relatively little known history of bronzing, see United States Bureau of Engraving and Printing, History of the Bureau, p. 11. 37. Abraham Lincoln, letter of April 7, 1860, to H. G. Eastman, Esq.; cited in Patrick Maynard, “Drawing and Shooting: Causality in Depiction,” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 44, no. 2 (Winter 1985): 115. 38. E. C. S., “Sojourner Truth on the Press: To the Editor of the World,” in History of Woman Suffrage, ed. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Matilda Joslyn Gage, and Ida Harper (New York: Fowler and Wells, 1882; reprint, Salem, NH: Ayer, 1985), 2:927; partly cited in Kathleen Collins, “Shadow and Substance: Sojourner Truth,” History of Photography 7, no. 3 (July–­September 1983): 200. 39. Painter, “Thinking about the Languages of Money and Race,” p. 398. 40. Almost twenty-­five years ago, Walter Benn Michaels published an article that addressed this illustration from Wells, Robinson Crusoe’s Money; see his “The Gold Standard and the Logic of Naturalism,” Representations 9 (Winter 1985): 105–­32; reprinted in his The Gold Standard and the Logic of Naturalism: American Literature at the Turn of the Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), pp. 137–­80. 41. Nell Irvin Painter, Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol (New York: W. W. Norton, 1996), p. 180. 42. Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A Bondswoman of Olden Time, with a History of Her Labors and Correspondence Drawn from Her “Book of Life”: Also, a Memorial Chapter, Giving the Particulars of Her Last Illness and Death, comp. Olive Gilbert and Frances Titus (Battle Creek, MI, 1884; reprint, ed. Nell Irvin Painter, New York: Penguin, 1998), p. 214: “During the war, Sojourner met one of her democratic friends, who asked her, ‘What business are you now following?’ She quickly replied ‘Years ago, when I lived in the city of New York, my occupation was scouring brass door knobs; but now I go about scouring copperheads.”

Notes to pages 152–156

211

Chapter Nine 1. Susan B. Anthony, speech of July 25, 1864, in History of Woman Suffrage, ed. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Matilda Joslyn Gage, and Ida Harper (New York: Fowler and Wells, 1882; reprint, Salem, NH: Ayer, 1985), 2:898. 2. Ibid. 3. Relevant here is Thomas W. Laqueur, “Bodies, Details, and the Humanitarian Narrative,” in The New Cultural History, ed. Lynn Hunt (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), pp.  176–­204. 4. “Diary of John Worrell Northrop, December 1864,” p. 186; in Chronicles from the Diary of a War Prisoner in Andersonville and Other Military Prisons of the South in 1864 (Wichita, KS: J. W. Northrop, 1904), p. 228; online in The American Civil War: Letters and Diaries, Alexander Street Press database, http://alexander street.com/products/american-­civil-­war-­letters-­and-­diaries (accessed August 4, 2014). 5. Diary of Julia LeGrand Waitz, February 1863, p. 157; online in The American Civil War: Letters and Diaries, Alexander Street Press database. 6. Phoebe Yates Pember, letter to Eugenia Levy Phillips, June 25, 1863; online in The American Civil War: Letters and Diaries, Alexander Street Press database. 7. Adelbert Ames (Union Army general), letter to Blanche Butler Ames, April 25, 1870, p. 12; online in The American Civil War: Letters and Diaries, Alexander Street Press database. 8. Sojourner Truth, letter to Gerrit Smith, Battle Creek, Michigan, June 25, 1863, signed Caroline E Sh___; Gerrit Smith Papers, box 37, Syracuse University Library, New York. On photograph albums in the nineteenth century, see Patrizia Di Bello, Women’s Albums and Photography in Victorian England: Ladies, Mothers and Flirts (Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 2007); Elizabeth Siegel, Galleries of Friendship and Fame: A History of Nineteenth-­ Century American Photograph Albums (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010); Martha Langford, Suspended Conversations: The Afterlife of Memory in Photographic Albums (Montreal: McGill-­ Queen’s University Press, 2001); John A. Stotesbury, “Time, History, Memory: Photographic Life Narratives and the Albums of Strangers,” in Temporalities: Autobiography and Everyday Life,

212

Notes to pages 163–168

ed. Jan Campbell and Janet Harbord (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2002), pp. 193–­203. 9. Cited in Alexander Nemerov, Acting in the Night: Macbeth and the Places of the Civil War (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010), pp. 20–­21. 10. Hermann Vogel, The Chemistry of Light and Photography in Their Application to Art, Science and Industry (1st German ed., 1875; New York: D. Appleton, 1875; reprint, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), p. 152. 11. Letter from Nellie Hutchinson, 1868; online in The American Civil War: Letters and Diaries, Alexander Street Press database. 12. Percival Drayton, letter to Alexander Hamilton, February 19, 1864; in Naval Letters from Captain Percival Drayton, 1861–­1865 (New York: N.p., 1906), p. 81, my emphasis; online in The American Civil War: Letters and Diaries, Alexander Street Press database. 13. Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut, July 1862, p. 202; online in The American Civil War: Letters and Diaries, Alexander Street Press database. 14. Communication with Scott McCorkhill, March 2, 2012. This statement is corroborated by a Salem, Ohio, website that states Sojourner was “a frequent visitor at the Deming home, and Deming’s horse and carriage were at her disposal.” “John Deming, Industrialist,” Salem Ohio History Makers, http:// www.salemohiohistory.com/HistoryMakers/John-­Deming.aspx (accessed August 4, 2014). 15. “John Deming interview by Wilbur Siebert, August 13, 1892”; the Wilbur H. Siebert Underground Railroad Collection, an Ohio Historical Society Collection, Columbus, Ohio; online at ww2.ohiohistory.org/undergroundrr/siebert (accessed August 4, 2014). 16. Ibid. 17. Ibid. 18. William Heald, letter to the author, April 19, 2007. 19. William Heald, communication of May 29, 2007. 20. On the Iowa underground railway, see G. Galin Berrier, “The Underground Railroad in Iowa,” in Outside In: African American History in Iowa, 1838–­2000, ed. Bill Silag et al. (Des Moines: State Historical Society of Iowa, 2001), pp. 44–­59. 21. For this hypothesis, I am indebted to my undergradu-

ate students in my fall 2007 seminar on photography and the Civil War. 22. Penciled on the back was “Peter M. Yawger (never married) / brother of Daniel 2nd.” 23. Langford, Suspended Conversations, p. 21. 24. Scott McCorkhill, e-­mail communication, April 10, 2012. 25. Josephine R. Franklin, letter to Sojourner Truth, May 31, 1864; Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library. 26. Percival Leggett’s scrapbook, ZP4, vol. 1, Leggett Family Papers, 1794–­1895, Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library.

Chapter Ten 1. Frances Titus, letter to Amy Post, Battle Creek, Michigan, July 21, 1883; Isaac and Amy Post Family Papers, Rush Rees ­Library, University of Rochester, New York; online at www.lib .rochester.edu/index.cfm (accessed August 4, 2014). 2. Sojourner Truth, letter to Amy Post, Battle Creek, Michigan, November 4, 1867; Isaac and Amy Post Family Papers. 3. Sojourner Truth, letter to Amy Post, Detroit, Michigan, February 8, 1869; Isaac and Amy Post Family Papers. 4. Frances Titus, letter to Amy Post, Battle Creek, Michigan, July 21, 1883; Isaac and Amy Post Family Papers. 5. Frances Titus to Amy Post, Battle Creek, Michigan, July 21, 1883; Isaac and Amy Post Family Papers: “Her leg has been much more troublesome than before in years—­badly swollen & the raw sore much enlarged. The pain, at times, is intense.” 6. Ibid. 7. According to Charles F. Clark’s Annual Directory of the Inhabitants, Incorporated Companies, Business Firms, Etc. of the City of Detroit for 1866–­’7 (Detroit: C. F. Clark, 1864),p. 259: “Randall, Corydon C. photographic operator, bds. 12 High.” Corydon’s first address as a photographer, “bds. 12 High,” does not appear on any of the extant imprints. Sojourner could have had photographic portraits made by Corydon’s father, James J. Randall, in Detroit in February 1864, immediately after her copyright was acquired, but we have no evidence that any of her earlier photographs were made by him. 8. While the 220 Woodward Ave. address dates to 1875, according to a listing in the Michigan State Gazetteer Business Direc-

tory (Detroit: Tribune Printing Company, 1875), and the “Corner of Williams and Madison Avenues, opposite East Grand Circus Park” dates from 1882 to 1883, the mount of the former could have been old, or conversely, the cabinet cards could have been made from earlier negatives in 1883, the year of her death. 9. According to Kathleen Collins, “Shadow and Substance: Sojourner Truth,” History of Photography 7, no. 3 (July–­September 1983): 189, “Perry either purchased, borrowed, or copied Randall’s negative or print.” Perry ran his studio from 1880 to 1898. 10. “Early Kalamazoo Photographers,” March 9, 2012; kalama zoogenealog.blogspot.com 11. Collins, “Shadow and Substance,” p. 189. 12. Nell Irvin Painter, Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol (New York: W. W. Norton, 1996), p. 246. 13. Ibid., pp. 243–­44. 14. Colored Citizen (Topeka, KS), October 11, 1879; cited in Mabee, Sojourner Truth, p. 166, and Painter, Sojourner Truth, p. 245. 15. Margaret Washington, Sojourner Truth’s America (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009), p. 372. 16. Sojourner Truth speech, in Nightly Noon Newspaper ­(Battle Creek, MI), June 8, 1881; Washington, Sojourner Truth’s America, p. 375; cited in University of Minnesota “Voices from the Gap,” http://voices.cla.umn.edu/artistpages/truthSojourner.php, accessed August 4, 2014. 17. Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3 (1883). Painter, Sojourner Truth, p. 246. 18. Douglas A. Blackmon, Slavery by Another Name: The Re-­ Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II (New York: Doubleday, 2009).

Notes to pages 168–187

213

Index

Page numbers in italics refer to figures.

abolitionist politics: paper currency and, 145 abolitionists: active in Underground Railroad, 167; in Rochester, New York, 78; Truth’s movement within circles of, 170 abolition of slavery: Truth as campaigner on behalf of, 8, 156 “Absurdity of Property in the Person, The” (Gaines), 125–­26 advertisements: for whitening creams, 97 advertisers: photographs and, 86 African American authors: frontispiece signatures of, and binding of blackness to literacy, 115 African Americans: delivered into portraiture, photography and, 18; depression of 1873 and, 186; sixth-­plate tintype portrait of African American man, 1864–­ 66, 18, 19; as theorists and practitioners of photography, 15 African American schoolchildren: photo-

graphic portrait of, 93, 94 African American soldiers: hand-­tinted ambrotype of, 90, 91; tintypes of, 49, 50 Agassiz, Louis, 14 albumen photographs: large size of, during the 1860s, 57 Allmallategui, Gregoria, ix, ix ambrotypes, 2; of African American women, children, and families, 50, 51, 51, 52; of black soldiers, 49; hand-­tinted, of unidentified African American soldier, 90, 91; of sailor holding double portrait in one hand and a cigar in the other, 173, 174 American Anti-­Slavery Society, 25 amputees: copyright and fund-­raising cartes de visite on behalf of, 135 Angola, Indiana: analysis of carte de visite of Truth before her speech in, 28, 28–­30, 32, 33–­34

215

Anthony, Susan B., 78; on anti-­slavery question, 163; excerpt of letter to Sojourner Truth, 103; inaccurate casting of Truth’s mutilated hand by, 107; speech to Women’s Loyal National League, 1, 163 anti-­Confederate cartes de visite, 4–­7, 5, 6, 7, 164 anti-­slavery commitments: Civil War debates about money and, 144 Anti-­Slavery Standard. See National Anti-­ Slavery Standard artists: copyright claimed by, 139 Artot, Mlle.: portrait of, untouched and retouched, albumen print, 96, 96–­97 Atlantic Monthly: Harriet Beecher Stowe’s portrayal of Truth in, 20; Stowe’s articles written for, 38; Stowe’s “Sojourner Truth, the Libyan Sibyl” published in, 46 authors: common-­law rights of, US approach to copyright and rejection of, 127–­28, 129–­30 authorship: ownership versus, copyright claims and, 135; Truth’s illiteracy and questions of, 113 autobiography: Lejeune’s analysis of “contractual obligation” specific to genre of, 124 autograph facsimile albums: popularity of, mid-­nineteenth century, 118 “Autograph Letter, President Lincoln to John Hanks”: reproduction of, on carte de visite, 121, 121 “Autograph-­omania,” 119 autograph quilts, 118, 118 autographs, 166; “memory crisis” of nineteenth century and, 122; mid-­ nineteenth century popularity of, 115; photographic reproduction of, 121, 121; Truth as avid collector of, 115, 117, 119, 119, 120, 121, 122, 176; written across bottom of photographs, 140–­41, 141 “Autographs of Distinguished Persons”: in

216

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Narrative of Sojourner Truth, 119, 119, 121 Avedon, Louise, 201n43 Avedon, Richard: on making of his first photograph, 201n43; William Casby, Born a Slave, 15–­16, 16, 98, 123

backlighting in photographs: white sitters made black by, 93 Baker, Lafayette: Treasury Department investigation led by, 152 Baker, N. B., Rochester, New York: cartes de visite of Sojourner Truth by, 76, 77, 78, 79, 139, 141; imprint of, 76, 77 Baltimore women: arrest of, for wearing pennies as Copperhead brooches, 146, 165 Banks, Major General: imprinted statement of, “Learning is Wealth” carte de visite, 136, 137, 137, 138 Banks, Samuel: illness and death of, 112, 113; as reader for freedmen, 109; Truth’s funeral expenses for, 112; as Truth’s primary scribe, 108 Barnum, P. T.: Joice Heth purchased by, 34 Barrett, Linda, 115 Barthes, Roland, 88; Avedon’s photograph of William Casby and recourse of, 15, 16, 16, 193n61, 193n62; on unique evidentiary power of photography, 15 Baryla, Bruce, 151 Battle Creek, Michigan: circulation of posthumous photographs of Sojourner Truth in, 185; Sojourner Truth’s house in, 112, 143; Truth in, 45, 46, 47, 52, 58; Truth’s photographs made in, 47, 48, 70, 70, 71, 72, 72 Battle Creek Journal: S. C. Wright advertisement in, 70–­71 Battle of Gettysburg (1863), 44 battle sites: cartes de visite and depiction of, 3

Baudrillard, Jean: on autograph collection as form of autobiography, 119 Baumfree, Isabella: birth of, 7; purchase of, by Dumont family, 107. See also Truth, Sojourner Beauregard, General: portrayed in anti-­ Confederate carte de visite, 5 Beecher, Henry Ward, 138 Benham, B. H.: anti-­Union carte visite of Abraham Lincoln in blackface by, 6, 7, 7 Bent, H. N.: imprinted statement of, “Learning is Wealth” carte de visite, 136, 137, 137, 138 Bernardin de Saint-­Pierre, Jacques-­Henri: Paul et Virginie, 40 Best, Stephen: elucidation of Stowe v. Thomas by, 129, 206–­7n33 Biddle, Charles J.: depicted in “A Nest of Copperheads,” 146 black and white photography: American conception of racial difference and, 98 Black Laws: in Indiana, 28–­29 Blackness and Value (Barrett), 115 black population: of New York, literacy of, 103 black soldiers: creation of paper money identified with recruitment of, 145; in first voluntary all-­black infantry, 20, 48; photographic portraits used by, 49–­50 black students: “Knowledge is power,” unknown photographer, 104, 104 Blockman, Douglas: on segregation as “slavery by another name,” 187 “bodied voice”: of Sojourner Truth, 106 bodily relics: autograph seekers and, 115, 117 “Book of Life” compendium: within Narrative of Sojourner Truth, 27; Truth’s autograph collection in, 120 books: Wheaton’s lawyers on, 129 Boston Commonwealth: Truth repudiates Stowe, 1863 letter in, 42–­43, 45; Truth’s letter regarding uncertain fate of

grandson in, 54 Boston Liberator, 25 Botume, Elizabeth Hyde, 106 bourgeois respectability: Truth surrounded by conventions of, in cartes de visite, 80 Bown, Benjamin, 167 Boyd, Willie, 108, 113; Truth’s letter to Gerrit Smith written by, 114 Boyle, James, 25 Brady, Mathew, 4, 139; Frederick Douglass photographed by, 141; Sojourner Truth’s photograph by, 139–­40, 140, 209n74 Brady & Co.: famous sitters’ signatures at bottom of photographs and imprint of, 140–­41 branding, of slaves, 125, 137–­38, 138 bronzing: of fractional bills, 154, 154 Brown, John, 14; Deming album and carte de visite with engraving of, 170, 171 Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 41; pays homage to photography, 85 Bruce & Hall: unnamed African American girl photographed by, 173 Bryant, Dan: profile portrait depicted, “How Are You Green-­Backs!,” 147, 147 Buchanan, James: depicted in “A Nest of Copperheads,” 146 Bureau of U.S. Colored Troops: creation of, 51 Burrow-­Giles Lithographic Co. v. [Napoleon] Sarony, 130, 208n68

cabinet cards, 57; Truth’s commissioning of, 11; Truth’s orders for, 184 Caldwell, James: capture of, on James Island, South Carolina, 54, 196n18; cartes de visite of, Demings’ family photograph album, 55–­56, 56, 167, 170; enlists in Fifty-­Fourth Massachusetts Regiment, 20, 48; framed photograph of, in uncaptioned cartes de visite of

Sojourner Truth, 52, 53, 54, 55, 80, 176; Stowe’s description of, 49; Truth announces uncertain fate of, in National Anti-­Slavery Standard, 52, 54 Calhoun County Business Directory for 1869–­ 70: S. C. Wright listing in, 71; Sojourner Truth listing in, 72 calling cards: cartes de visite as substitute for, 2 Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography (Barthes), 15 Camp Ward, Detroit, Michigan: Truth travels to support black regiment in, 58–­59 capitalism: early photography and rise of, 144 capital punishment: eliminating, Truth’s campaign on behalf of, 8 Carse, Captain George B.: reports on Truth’s beliefs on education and industry, 81 cartes de visite: affordability, repeatability, and portability of, 2–­3; anti-­ Confederate, 4–­7, 5, 6, 7, 164; “Autograph Letter, President Lincoln to John Hanks,” 121, 121; autograph seekers, bodily relics, and, 117–­18; of black soldiers, 49; chromatics of photography and sitters posing for, 92; collections of, 21; combined materials in, 17; as complex, aggregate objects, 18, 20; complexion advertisements on back of, 97; displayed and arranged in relationships, in albums and on walls, 166; double gilt rules and square corners in, typical of 1860s, 66; fund-­raising, legal declaration of copyrights and, 135–­37, 136; of greenbacks, 149, 149–­50, 150; Holmes Sr. likens to paper money, 144; inscriptions on back of, 165–­66; invention and patenting of, 2; “Lerning is Wealth,” 105, 105, 136–­37, 137; Oliver Wendell Holmes on popularity of, 1; paler version of “Lerning is Wealth,”

105, 105; pink pigment added to white complexions in, 90; pro-­Union, 3–­4, 4, 5; question of copyright protection for, 134–­35; rephotographing of, and sitter’s loss of control of, 135; of silhouette of an unknown man, 86, 86; as social currency, Holmes Sr. on, 17; with tax stamp framed on card mount’s recto, 19; Truth and infinitely reproducible nature of, 155; Truth’s first mention of, in the press, 45; Truth’s purchases of tax stamps and individual cost of, 68; Truth’s repeated posing for, 10; in Truth’s visual archive, 11; uniqueness of Truth’s, with copyright in name of sitter, 139; of unnamed African American girl standing next to draped table with folded fan, 173, 173; widespread circulation of, during Civil War, 164–­65; in Yawger photo album, 168. See also individual photographers Casby, William, 123; Barthes’s recourse to Avedon’s photograph of, 15, 16, 16, 193n61, 193n62; strangeness of Avedon’s overly proximate view of, 98 cents: worn as brooches by Baltimore women, 146, 165 Chamberlaine, William Wilson: excerpt from memoir of, 85 Chambers, Rev. John: depicted in “A Nest of Copperheads,” 146 Chaney, Michael: on “commercial” pots of Dave (enslaved potter), 83, 199n32 “Chapter on Autobiography, A” (Poe), 118 Charles, Ray, 143 Chase, Salmon, 152, 153; campaigns for president on dollar bills, 151–­52; carte de visite of greenbacks with mirroring heads of Abraham Lincoln and, 149, 150; carte de visite with engraved portrait of, based on one-­dollar-bill engraving of his likeness, 151; face of, on one-­

Index

217

dollar greenback, 150, 150, 152; parodied in “How Are You Green-­Backs!(?),” 147, 148 chemistry in photography: egg, metals, and, 88; improperly varnished tintype with coloration distortions, 94, 95; light, exposure time, and, 89, 89–­90, 90; racial difference, tonal values in photography, and, 98; silver nitrate usage, 88; skin and hair color and, 90, 91, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 96, 97, 98 Chemistry of Light and Photography in Their Application of Art, Science and Industry, The (Vogel), 89, 96 Child, Lydia Maria: political reservations about knitting by, 80 children: African American, Civil War era photographs of, 50–­51, 51, 52 Chinn, Wilson: branded slave, 125, 137–­38, 138; reading to three freed children, 105, 105 Circassian cream: photographer and vendor of, 97 Civil Rights Act of 1875: Supreme Court declares unconstitutionality of, 186–­87 Civil War: cartes de visite and representation of, 3–­4; “cartomania” as consequence, not repression of, 3; circulation of cartes de visite during, 164–­65; federal legislation versus state rights in lead up to, 128; flood of paper catalyzed by, 149; greenbacks and financing of, 144; Oliver Wendell Holmes on Americans turning their eyes away from, 1–­2; paper made into value throughout, 17; patriotic connotations associated with knitting during, 80, 81; photographs of African American women, children, and families during, 50–­51, 51, 52; photography’s advantages during, 81–­82; requests for cartes de visite, and “appearing in good company” while

218

Index

serving in the military during, 166; Truth declares desire to fight in, 48, 49; Truth keeps apace with enormous changes produced by, 44; Truth’s early cartes de visite and explicit support for, 20. See also money and the Civil War Clark, Spencer Morton: under investigation for embezzlement, fraud, and sexual harassment, 152–­53; places own portrait on five-­cent fractional currency note, 152, 153; Stuart Gwynn’s sway over, 153, 154 Clarkson, Thomas: Gerrit Smith sends part of hair lock from, to Sojourner Truth, 117 class: photograph albums of discrete individuals and, 173 class typologies: photography and construction of, 14 Claudet, M. Antoine, 91, 92 cleanliness: Truth preaches industry and, to Freedmen’s Village residents, 81 Cleopatra (Story), 38, 40 clothing of Sojourner Truth: Joan Severa’s analysis of, 79–­80, 197–­98n15 Cochrane, Euphemia, 59, 64 Cody, Frances: on literacy campaigns in rural India, 106–­7 coins: greenbacks and replacement of, 145; pro-­slavery and anti–­Civil War politics and, 145 Coleman, Elizabeth Burns: on signatures of African American authors, 115 Collins, Kathleen, 11 Colman, Lucy: Truth’s visit with, to see Abraham Lincoln, 170 color: photographs and strange translation of, in black and white spectrum, 92 “‘Colored Volunteer,’ The” (Nast), 49, 49 commodity fetishism: early photography and rise of, 144 complexion business: photographers in, 97

complexion imagery: in Holmes’s “Doings of the Sunbeam,” 90 Confederate currency: bankrupted, mockery of, 210n18 Confederate generals, hung in effigy from a devil’s pitchfork, 5, 5, 164 Confederate prison: cartes de visite exchanged in, 164–­65 Confederates in Union states: surreptitious expressions of loyalty created by, 146, 165 Confederate troops: James Caldwell captured by, 54 Congress: Civil Rights Act of 1875 and passage through, 186; tax stamp system and, 68; Truth files petitions with, 8–­9 “contemporaneous history”: Truth’s autograph collection and passion for, 119, 120 Copeland, Huey, 82, 198n28 Copperhead brooches: Baltimore ladies wear pennies as, 146, 165 “Copperhead Horror of Negro Soldiers” (National Anti-­Slavery Standard), 145 Copperheads, 28; blackfacing of Lincoln on carte de visite by, 7, 154, 164; in Norwalk, Ohio, 6; pro-­Union carte de visite depicting “Nest” of, 145–­46, 146; Sojourner Truth verbally attacked by, 28–­29, 156; term connoted with vipers and copper itself, 145–­46 Coppock, Edwin, 170 copyright: for “Autograph Letter, President Lincoln to John Hanks,” 121, 121; for carte de visite of Fannie Virginia Casseopia Lawrence, 138; concepts permeating nineteenth-century debates about, 130; fund-­raising cartes de visite and, 135–­37, 136; protection for photography, 130, 138–­39, 150, 155; United States and approach to, 127–­28 Copyright Act of 1790: amendments to, 134;

Truth’s claim to copyright and amendments to, 135 Copyright Act of 1862 (England), 132 copyright law: photography during the nineteenth century and, 21; photography in England and, 130; photography in France and, 131 Copyright Office of the Library of Congress: sole record of Truth’s copyright held by, 64 copyright of Sojourner Truth, 10, 11, 63, 64, 123–­41, 155; absence of, in Packard photograph, 185, 185; Brady & Co. carte de visite of Truth, without copyright, caption, or name, 139–­40, 140; captions, proprietorship, and, 125; filing of, in her name, for cartes de visite, 10; hidden from view when inserted into a frame, 176; lack of handwritten signature and assertion of authorship with, 122; on later photographs, 184, 185; legacy of, 188; photographers named in cartes de visite and, 139; uniqueness of providing sitter’s name with, 139 Corbin, Diana, 187–­88; carte de visite of, 188, 188 counterfeiting: of bank bills, 144–­45; bronzing technique and prevention of, 154; manufacture of first greenbacks and anxieties about, 153–­55 Crary, Jonathan: nineteenth century characterized by, 84 Cumberworth, Charles: Marie at the Fountain, 40, 41 currency: cartes de visite functioning as clandestine political tokens and, 165; chaotic regionalism of, Civil War crisis and, 144–­45; Congress prohibits portrait of any living person on, 153; derivation of term and meaning of, 17; fractional, 145, 153; pro-­and anti-­slavery commitments and, 21;

slaves forbidden to being bearers of, 83; slippage between photography and, 151; ten-­cent fractional currency note, 144; Truth’s shadows as consistent form of, 143–­44. See also money and the Civil War Currier & Ives: “Running the ‘Machine’” published by, 148 Curtis, George William, 166

daguerreotypes, 2; of African American women, children, and families, 50, 51; rephotographing of, 135; of slaves, Agassiz’s commissioning of, 14, 15; translation of, into engravings, 194n5 Dan Bryant’s Minstrels: “How Are You Green-­Backs!” performed by, 146–­47, 147 Dave (enslaved potter), South Carolina (1857): clay pots made, inscribed, and signed by, 82, 82–­83, 84, 124, 199n29, 199n32 Davis, Jefferson, 21; caricature of, in anti-­ Confederate carte de visite, 6, 6, 7; depicted in “A Nest of Copperheads,” 145, 146; hanging in effigy, anti-­Confederate cartes de visite of, 5, 5; photograph of, in “The Southern Cross,” 210n18; signature of, over Brady’s printed inscription, 140, 141 debt: Truth’s book sales and payoff of, 112–­13; Truth’s cartes de visite sales and payoff of, 143, 177 Decker, Charles, 34 Deming, Angelina, 167 Deming, John, 167, 168 Deming family photograph album: John Brown’s carte de visite in, 170, 171; Sojourner Truth’s cartes de visite in, 55, 55–­56, 56, 167, 170 Democrats: rural blacks and Southern state governments controlled by, 186 depression of 1873: African Americans’

rights and, 186 Derby, J. C.: on Harriet Beecher Stowe’s narrative about Sojourner Truth, 40–­41 desegregation of streetcars: Truth’s campaign on behalf of, 8 Detroit, Michigan: Truth files copyright in, 63; Truth’s final photographs taken in, 178; Truth sits for photographs at Randall studio in, 197n2; Truth travels to Camp Ward in, 58–­59 Di Bello, Patrizia, 132 Disdéri, André-­Adolphe-­Eugène: cartes de visite invented and patented by, 2 disenfranchised persons: delivered into portraiture, photography and, 18 “Dixie”: Dan Emmett purported author of, 146 “Doings of the Sunbeam” (Holmes), 88–­89, 90 Dorsey, Peter, 124 Douglass, Frederick, 10, 12, 14, 18; frontispiece and title page for My Bondage and My Freedom, 116; lectures on photography, Ginger Hill’s probing analysis of, 125; photographers of, 141; photography as a “mighty power” celebrated by, 20; scholarly attribution of agency (and complexity) to, 15; on Truth as “uncultured negro,” 108, 203n32; Truth’s photographic representation of self and parallels with, 16; two sons of, enlist in Union army, 48; underscores need for pictures in books, 27; white abolitionists’ instructions to, 124 Drayton, Percival, 166 DuBois, W. E. B., 15 Dugdale, Joseph A., 46 Dumas, Alexandre père: portrait reproduction case and, 132 Dumont, Gertrude, 107 Dumont, John: default on Truth’s emancipation by, and Truth’s hand injury, 107

Index

219

Dumont family (Sojourner Truth’s owners): volume of Sojourner Truth’s spinning output for, 198n25 dyslexia: Sojourner Truth and question of, 107, 107

Eastlake, Lady Elizabeth: skeptical analysis of photography by, 90–­92 economic advancement: Truth associates knitting with, 81 Edelman, Bernard, 130, 131, 133, 207n41; photography in United States and, 130, 131, 207n41 education: African American schools, 104, 104; Truth’s campaign on behalf of, 8 egg: chemistry of photography and, 88 Elizabeth I (queen of England): control over artists and portraits of, 131 Elliott, Miss E. M., 104, 104, 105 emancipated slaves: copyright and fund-­ raising cartes de visite on behalf of, 135; Truth’s work on behalf of, 8; Truth teaches knitting to, 81, 84 Emancipation, 30, 31 emancipation of slaves, in New York, 107 Emancipation Proclamation (1863), 34, 43–­ 44, 52, 154 Emmett, Dan: “How Are You Green-­Backs!” written by, 146–­47 employment: defeat of Civil Rights Act of 1875 and segregation of blacks in, 187 England: analyses of legal rulings on photography in, 130, 207n41; portrait reproduction cases in, 132 engraving(s), 17; daguerreotypes translated into, 194n5; photography versus, 154 ephemera: no privilege of copyright for, 134 exposure time: race of sitter, tonal range of objects in photographs, and, 97–­98; successful photographic portrait and, 89–­90

220

Index

F. W. Thomas, 129 facial tonal range: Lady Eastlake’s skeptical analysis of photography and, 91 Falk v. Donaldson, 133 families: African American, Civil War era photographs of, 50–­51, 51, 52 family albums: Sojourner Truth’s carte de visite in, 55, 55–­56, 56, 167–­68, 169, 170, 171, 172–­73 fashion. See clothing of Sojourner Truth federal banknotes: Lincoln and control over printing of, 155 federal government: tax stamp system of, 68 federal legislation: state rights versus, in lead up to Civil War, 128 Fessenden, William Pitt: depiction of, in “Running the ‘Machine,’” 148, 149 Fifty-­Fourth Massachusetts Regiment: skirmish with Confederate troops at James Island, South Carolina, 196n18; Truth’s grandson enlists in, 20, 48 first person: Truth’s usage of, in captioned cartes de visite, 123–­24 five-­cent fractional currency note: Spencer Morton Clark places own portrait on, 152, 153 Fort Magruder, Virginia: Truth’s mistaken belief of James Caldwell’s capture at, 54, 59 Fort Wagner, South Carolina: James Caldwell taken prisoner by Confederates at, 196n18 Fowler and Wells’s Phrenological Cabinet (New York City), 8 fractional bills: early, bronze oval encircling portrait face on, 154, 154 fractional currency: illegal, Truth’s circulation of her cartes de visite as, 153; introduction of, 145 France: analyses of legal rulings on photography in, 130, 131, 207n41; McCauley on copyright of photography in, 132;

portrait reproduction cases in, 132 “Frank, Frederick, Alice” fund-­raising carte de visite: photographic copy of, 135–­36, 136 Franklin, Benjamin: veteran amputee, carte de visite of, 34, 35 Franklin, Josephine R.: Truth’s cartes de visite sold by, 172–­73 freedmen: Truth’s work on behalf of, 8, 78, 81, 84 Freedmen’s Bureau, 78 Freedmen’s Villages: Truth’s work at, 8, 81 freed slaves: resettlement of, Truth’s long campaign for, 186; Truth’s decision to live among, 170 French Revolution: struggle to redefine personal rights and, 132 Fugitive Slave Bill: Sizer’s denunciation of, 13 Fugitive Slave Law, 206n33 fugitive slavery, Sojourner Truth renames herself in, 124, 126 fund-­raising cartes de visite: legal declaration of copyright and, 135–­37, 136 furniture and furnishings: in Corydon C. Randall’s studio setting, 178, 180, 181, 184; in Sojourner Truth’s captioned cartes de visite, analysis of, 74, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78–­79, 80, 81

Gaines, Jane, 130; “The Absurdity of Property in the Person,” 125–­26 Gale, Mary: depiction of one of Truth’s letters to, 114; excerpts from Truth’s letters to, 54, 59, 63, 64, 88, 209n3 Gardner, Alexander, 2, 130 Garrison, William Lloyd, 25 Garrisonians: Demings as, 167; Frederick Douglass “instructed” by, 124 Gaskell, Elizabeth, 41 Gettysburg Address, 52

Gilbert, Olive, 10; Truth begins dictating autobiography to, 25 Going Home to Vote (pamphlet): Samuel Chase on greenbacks in, 150–­51 gold: hoarding of, 145 gold jewelry: painting onto photographic portraits, social elevation and, 51, 51 gold portrait of Sojourner Truth: on 1875 edition of Narrative, 156, 157, 159 Goodman, Nelson, 107 Gordon (ex-­slave): untitled carte de visite of, 34, 35, 79, 138, 164 government: Truth’s captioned cartes de visite identified with, 69 “Grandpapa”: in Hand-­Shadow Stories, 87, 87 Grant, Ulysses S., 9; signature of, over Brady’s printed inscription, 140–­41 Greeley, Horace, 110 greenbacks: attacks on, multiple forms of, 145–­49; cartes de visite of, 149, 149–­50, 150; as cheap, circulating portraits of important men, 150, 150; coins replaced by, 145; derivation of term, 145; federal authorization of, 144; ten-­cent fractional currency note, 144 “Greenbacks” (Charles), 143 Grier, Judge Robert: decision against Stowe, in Stowe v. Thomas, 129–­30 Griffing, Josephine, 29, 33 gutta-­percha cases: tintypes nested in, 18, 19 Gwynn, Stuart: anti-­counterfeiter inventions of, 153, 154

hair color: chromatics of photography and, 91, 92, 93 Hand Shadows to Be Thrown upon the Wall (Bursill), 87, 200n12 Hand-­Shadow Stories: “Grandpapa” and “Sambo” in, 87, 87 hand-­tinted photographs: sixth-­plate ambrotype portrait of African American

soldier, 90, 91; sixth-­plate tintype portrait of three sitters, 91 handwriting: autograph collecting as ultimate emblem of uniqueness of, 121; “eccentricity of the individual” and, 115 Hanks, John: President Lincoln’s letter to, as autograph letter reproduced on carte de visite, 121, 121 Hansible [?], Mrs. Stephen, 172 Hardenbergh, Charles: inventory of estate of, 9 Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 41 Heald, Ann Minthorn (also called Anna): remounted captioned carte de visite of Sojourner Truth bought by, 73, 163, 165, 167, 168 Heald, Hiel, 167 Heald, William, 167 Heald photograph album: carte de visite of Sojourner Truth in, 167–­68 Heidegger, Martin, 198–­99n28 Heth, Joice: advertisement for, 34, 34 Hill, Ginger, 12, 125 Holmes, Oliver Wendell, Jr., 3 Holmes, Oliver Wendell, Sr., 94, 98; on Americans turning their eyes away from Civil War, 1–­2; cartes de visite likened to paper money by, 144; “Doings of the Sunbeam,” 88–­89, 90; on photographic intimacy, 4; on popularity of card-­portraits, 1; on social currency of cartes de visite, 17 housing: defeat of Civil Rights Act of 1875 and segregation of blacks in, 187 “How Are You Green-­Backs!” (Emmett): blackface parody of popular recruiting song, 146–­48; song sheets for, 147, 148

illiteracy: slaves’ reliance on listening and memorization and, 106 illiteracy of Sojourner Truth, 10–­11, 42;

autograph collection and, 115, 119, 119, 120, 121, 122; challenges posed by, and overcoming of, 107–­8; dyslexia possibility and, 107, 107; lack of literate signature for her photographs and, 141; published speeches analyzed by Truth, 110; reading newspapers as communal oral event and, 109; reliance on circulation of printed publication and, 107; Truth expresses frustration related to, 108; Truth’s belief in primacy of spoken word, 106, 202n17; vulnerability, isolation, and ramifications of, 112–­13; words used in cartes de visite in face of, 20–­21 immaterial: legal status of, nineteenth century and questions about, 126 impoverished: transformation of, into substances of elevated value, 15, 15–­16 industry: Truth associates knitting with, 81 inflation: fractional currency devaluation and, 145 inscribed pieces of paper: during Civil War era, debate over legal status of, 21 International Exhibition, London (1862): Story’s Libyan Sibyl shown at, 38, 39, 40 Iowa Underground Railroad, 167–­68 Irving, Washington: on autograph seekers, 119

Jackson, Mattie, 108 Jacobs, Harriet, 15 James Island, South Carolina: James Caldwell’s capture at, 54, 196n18 Jaszi, Peter: on copyright doctrine, 127 Johnson, Oliver, 56, 57, 58, 63, 64, 109

Kansas: black exodus to, 1879, 186 Kingdom of Matthias: Truth as member of, 8 knitting: Civil War and patriotic connotations related to, 80, 198n22; inscribed

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221

as absence, in Truth’s cartes de visite, 98–­99; in photograph of Sojourner Truth, Percival Leggett’s scrapbook, 57, 58, 175, 176; Randall’s photographs of Truth shown without, 184; significance of Truth’s inclusion of, in her cartes de visite, 84; Truth’s beliefs on industry and, 81, 84; Truth’s expertise in, 107; Truth’s inclusion of, in cartes de visite, 20, 65, 68, 69, 69, 70, 73, 74, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81 knitting bags: portraits of older women and inclusion of, 80, 198n17 “Knowledge is power” photograph, African American school, 104, 104

landscapes: cartes de visite and depiction of, 3 Langford, Martha: on photo albums and oral communication, 170 Lansing, Michigan: Truth’s last speech at Michigan state legislature in, 186 law, 17 (see also copyright law); debate over inscribed pieces of paper and, 21; Truth’s captioned cartes de visite identified with, 69 Lawrence, Catherine S., 138 Lawrence, Fannie Virginia Casseopia: claims to possession in carte de visite of, 138; liberated orphan, carte de visite of, 34, 35 “Learning is Wealth” carte de visite: in fund-­ raising series for freed slaves of New Orleans, 105, 105; textual inscriptions on verso of, 136–­37, 137 Leaves of Grass (Whitman), 9 Lee, Anthony, 130 Lee, Mrs. Charles H., 172 Lee, Robert E.: portrayed in anti-­ Confederate carte de visite, 5 Leggett, Anne, 97

222

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Leggett, Eliza Seaman, 12; grieves over loss of daughter and then son in battle, 58–­59; Truth described by, 55; Truth’s portrait in family scrapbooks of, 57, 57–­58, 68, 76, 78, 79, 173 Leggett, Percival: photograph of Sojourner Truth in scrapbook of, 57, 57–­58, 196n23; Sojourner Truth’s carte de visite with newspaper clippings in scrapbook of, 173–­74, 175 Lejeune, Philippe: on contractual obligation specific to autobiography, 124 letters: of Sojourner Truth, depiction of, 114; Truth as prolific correspondent and, 108 letter-­writing services: cost of, 108 Liberator, 167 Libyan Sibyl (Story), 38, 39 light: photographic “shadow” and dependence on, 88 Lincoln, Abraham, 59, 120, 139, 153; autograph letter of, reproduced as carte de visite, 121, 121; in blackface, anti-­Union carte de visite of, 6, 7, 7, 154, 164; carte de visite of greenbacks with mirroring heads of Salmon Chase and, 149, 150; Copperhead blackfacing of, on carte de visite, 7, 154; depiction of, in “Running the ‘Machine,’” 148, 149; face of, on ten-­dollar bills, 150; parodied in “How Are You Green-­Backs!,” 147; refers to his photographic portraits as shadows, 86; on reproducibility of his cartes de visite, 135, 155; Sojourner Truth travels to meet with, 139; Truth’s visit with, 170 listening: illiterate slaves’ reliance on, 106 literacy: African American schools and, 104, 104; blackness bound to, frontispiece signatures of African American authors and, 115, 116, 117; of Dave (enslaved potter), “commercial” pots and, 82, 82, 83; power of, in obtaining freedom for slaves, 103–­4

literacy campaigns: in rural India, Frances Cody on, 106–­7

Mabee, Carleton, 107; on literacy of New York’s black population, 103 manual labor: Truth’s inclusion of knitting in photographs and, 20, 81, 84 Marie at the Fountain (Cumberworth), 40, 41 Maryland: U.S.C.T. regiments raised in, 51 McCauley, Anne, 130; on copyright of photography in nineteenth-­century France, 132 McCorkhill, Scott: on John Brown’s photograph in old family album, 170 McGill, Meredith, 129 McLean, Justice John: in Wheaton v. Peters, 128 memento mori: photograph within photograph functioning as, 54 memorization: illiterate slaves’ reliance on, 106 memory: photo albums, storytelling, and, 170 metals: chemistry of photography and, 88, 156 Michigan: Truth in, 45–­59 Michigan state legislature, Lansing, Michigan: Truth’s last speech at, 186 military prisons: cartes de visite and depiction of, 3; cartes de visite exchanged in, 164–­65 “Milk Tickets for Babies, in Place of Milk” (Nast), 146 Minthorn, Henry John, 167, 168 mirror imaging: in Sojourner Truth’s signature, 107, 107 Mission to Fugitive Slaves in Canada: Being a Branch of the Operations of the Colonial Church and School Society . . . : frontispiece for, 94 modernization: Truth’s and Douglass’s belief in liberatory power of, 12

monetary notes (federal), 17, 18 money: “shadow” as exchange for, 143 money and the Civil War, 143–­59 (see also currency; greenbacks); attacks on greenbacks and, 145–­49; chaotic regionalism of US currency and, 144–­45; counterfeiting anxieties and, 153–­55; enslaved people as a kind of money, 155; “shadow” and “substance” as economic metaphors, 155–­56, 156; Sojourner Truth’s own paper money, 153 Mott, Lucretia, 166; carte de visite of, with her signature, 140, 141 Mumfred, Sam, 177 musical compositions: copyright protection for, 134 My Bondage and My Freedom (Douglass): frontispiece and title page for, 116

Napoleon: power of and destinies of portraits commissioned by, 131 narrative contexts: photo albums and retelling of, 170 Narrative of Sojourner Truth, 7, 8, 21, 97, 107; authorship issues with, 113; “Autographs of Distinguished Persons” in, 119, 119, 121; back cover of (1875), 158; “badly diseased hand” referred to in, 107; engraving of Sojourner Truth portrait from 1850 edition of, 27, 27; front cover of (1875), 157; portrait of Sojourner Truth, frontispiece for, 26, 27; sales prices for, 47; self-­publication of, 25; “Sojourner Truth. ‘Libyan Sibyl,’” frontispiece based on carte de visite, 43, 43; title page of, 26; Truth obtains “puff ” or promotion from Stowe for, 37, 38; Truth’s favorite seated portrait incorporated into, 73, 73 Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: as inspiration for Truth’s own autobiogra-

phy, 27; sales volume of, 25 Nast, Thomas, 145; “A Shadow Is Not a Substance” illustration by, 156; “Milk Tickets for Babies, in Place of Milk,” 146; “The ‘Colored’ Volunteer,” 49, 49 National Anti-­Slavery Standard, 34; anti-­ Copperhead articles in, 145; Carse reports on Truth’s beliefs on education and industry in, 81; published correction about Truth’s grave illness, 46; Stowe’s articles written for, 38; Stowe’s “Sojourner Truth, the Libyan Sibyl” published in, 46; Truth announces grandson’s enlistment in, 48–­49; Truth announces James Caldwell’s uncertain fate in, 52, 54; Truth mails photographs from Battle Creek, Michigan, to, 56–­57; Truth’s mentions her photography in, 63–­64; Truth’s photographs promoted by, 47–­48; Truth’s subscription to, 9 National Currency Bureau, 152 “Nest of Copperheads, A”: pro-­Union carte de visite, 145–­46, 146 Newman’s Manual of Harmonious Coloring, as Applied to Photographs, 92, 93, 94, 98 New Orleans: fund-­raising photographic series devoted to freed slaves of, 30, 31, 32, 105, 105 newspaper articles: in Truth’s scrapbooks, 110, 111, 112 newspapers: no privilege of copyright for, 134; Truth as avid consumer of, 109–­10 New York: illiteracy among slaves in, 103; slaves freed in, 107 New York World: Truth on implications of sale of her image according to issue of, 125; Truth speaks about potential loss of control of her cartes de visite, 155 Niagara Falls: backlighting and racial inversion in photographs taken at, 93, 201n31 nineteenth century: characterization of, as “marked by a memory crisis,” 122

“Northern Star, The”: on carte de visite of greenbacks, 149–­50, 150 Norwalk, Ohio: Copperheadism in, 6

obedience: as requirement of photographic studios and slavery, 32, 33 “‘Oh! How I Love the Old Flag.’ REBECCA, A Slave Girl from New Orleans,” 30, 31, 32 one-­dollar bills: face of Samuel Chase on, 150, 150 Ong, Walter: on shift from oral to print cultures, 110 “On the Art of Fixing a Shadow” (Talbot), 85 oral communication: photo albums and inciting of, 170 oral cultures: African and African American, Truth’s links to, 106 orphans: copyright and fund-­raising cartes de visite on behalf of, 135–­37, 136 “Our Protection, Rosa, Charley, Rebecca, Slave Children from New Orleans,” 32, 32 overexposure: photograph making and, 89; Truth’s photographs, subtleties of contrast, and, 98 ownership: authorship versus, copyright claims and, 135

Packard, Cullen Channing, 141; posthumous (?) carte de visite of Sojourner Truth by, 185, 185, 187 Paddock, Captain William: portrait of, with tax stamp in Mrs. Tuckerman’s album, 168 Painter, Nell Irvin, 11, 107; on cruelty of 1870s, 186; on enslaved people as a kind of money, 155; on Truth’s self-­ presentation in cartes de visite, 79, 81; on Truth’s self-­publication, 25 paper, 17

Index

223

paper currency: Republican and abolitionist politics and, 145; Sojourner Truth’s cartes de visite linked to, 153, 211n31; Truth’s reliance on, 54. See also currency parlor games: turning shadows into pictures, 87, 87 Paul et Virginie (Bernardin de Saint-­Pierre), 40 Paxson, Charles: “Learning is Wealth” photographs taken by, 105, 136, 137, 137, 138 Peirce, Charles Sanders, 86 Pennebaker, James W.: on use of first person pronouns, 123 Perry, F. E., 141; Diana Corbin (Sojourner Truth’s eldest daughter) photographed by, 188, 188; posthumous remounted captioned cabinet card of Sojourner Truth by, 184–­85, 185, 188, 213n9 personhood: photography and former slave’s claim to, 125–­26 Peters, Richard, 127 Peterson, Carla: on Truth’s links to African and African-­American oral cultures, 106 photograph albums (see also scrapbooks): communities and narratives created by, 166–­67; oral rather than textual communication incited by, 170; Sojourner Truth’s cartes de visite in, 55, 55–­56, 56, 167–­68, 169, 170, 171, 172–­73 photographers: cabinet cards and attention on, 184; colors and challenges posed to, 92–­93; in complexion business, 97; duplicate cartes de visite and, 135; photographer/sitter rights and authorial status of, 132–­33 photographic negative: glass negative for undated cabinet card portrait, 89, 89; light and making of, 88 photographic portraits: of Sojourner Truth, multiple copies of, 11 photographic positive: light and development of, 88; printing of, 89

224

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photographic studios: obedience and, 32, 33 photographs: converted into jewelry, Baltimore ladies and, 165; likened to currency by Holmes Sr., 17; “memory crisis” of nineteenth century and, 122; phrenological examinations versus, 14; “writing by light” and, 86 photography: African Americans as theorists and practitioners of, 15; analyses of legal rulings on, in England and France, 130, 131, 207n41; bodily relics and, 117; chemistry in (see chemistry in photography); construction of racial and class typologies and, 14; copyright protection for, 130, 138–­39, 150, 155; disenfranchised persons delivered into portraiture via, 18; Douglass’s celebration of, 12; engraving versus, 154; Lady Eastlake’s skeptical analysis of, 90–­92; like paper currency, as alchemy in reverse, 156; monochromatic, 155; as positive-­ negative medium, racial inversion and, 20; as a shadow, pervasive concept of, 85–­86, 87, 88; slippage between currency and, 151; Truth’s first mention of, in the press, 45; Truth’s references to as a business, 64; Truth’s reliance on copyright law predating invention of, 127; Von Brevern on chromatics of, 92; war and Truth’s embrace of, 12 phrenological examinations: of John Brown, 170; photographs versus, 14; Truth’s generalized portrait of her character from, 13–­14, 108, 192–­93n55 Phrenological Journal, 13, 14 “Pictures and Progress” (Douglass), 12 pink pigment: applied to white complexions in tintypes and cartes de visite, 90 Plato: Truth impressed by thinking of, 9 Poe, Edgar Allan, 141; “A Chapter on Autobiography,” 118 political activism: Truth’s collected au-

tographs and autobiography of, 122; Truth’s commitment to, 103, 176 political advertisements: portraits on federal bills as, 151 political petitions: Sojourner Truth’s anonymous “mark” on, 103 political tokens: cartes de visite functioning as, 165, 166–­67 Pond, William A.: signature depicted, song sheet Dan Bryant’s “How Are You Green-­Backs!,” 147, 147–­48 Popular Treatise on Photography, A (Van Monckhoven), 92 portrait reproductions: ambiguous rights to, 131–­32 portraiture: cartes de visite and availability of, 2 Post, Amy, 45, 46, 47, 112, 173, 178; excerpt of letter from Frances Titus to, 177; excerpts from Truth’s letters to, 109, 177; Truth’s friendship with, 78 Post, Isaac: Truth’s friendship with, 78 postage stamps: combined materials in, 17; in “How Are You Green-­Backs!,” 147; images of, placed at center of fractional currency engravings, 145; as portraits, 18, 19 postal reforms: Truth’s exploitation of, 54 precious metals: photography’s devouring of, 156 press: Sojourner Truth and study of, 109–­10 Price, General: portrayed in anti-­ Confederate carte de visite, 5 printed word: Truth’s embrace of, as means of support and as political tool, 106, 107 printing, 17; methods for thwarting counterfeiters, 154–­55; printing press as stand-­in for Republican cause, 148, 148 progressive activism: written language and, 107 property: Justice Joseph Yates’s definition of, 128

proprietor: in context of photography, 135 pro-­slavery commitments: Civil War debates about money and, 144; coins and, 145; “substance” aligned with, 156 publication: Truth’s appreciation of mechanics and appearance of, 110, 111, 112; Truth’s embrace of, as means of support and as political tool, 106, 107 public life: defeat of Civil Rights Act of 1875 and segregation of blacks in, 187

Quaker abolitionists, 78, 167–­68

racial difference: preservation of, photography and commitment to, 94, 97; tonal values in photographs and, 98 racial identity: photography and, 97 racial inversion: photography as positive-­ negative medium and, 20, 89, 90, 94 racial segregation: Supreme Court decision on Civil Rights Act of 1875 and, 187 racial typologies: photography and construction of, 14 racism: in Steuben County, Indiana, 28, 29, 30 radical Reconstruction policy: Civil Rights Act of 1875 as last act of, 186 Randall, Corydon C., 139, 141; carte de visite of Sojourner Truth taken by, April 11, 1882?, 187; logbook entry for, August 8, 1881, session L?, 183; logbook entry for April 11, 1882, session M?, 183; logbook entry for June 13, 1881, session K?, 182; posthumous captioned cabinet card of Sojourner Truth by, reprinting photograph of, 184–­85, 185; Truth’s final photographs taken by, 178, 179, 180, 181, 213n7; Truth’s outsize order of photographs from, 178 Randall, James J., 59, 97

Raphael, 9 Redpath, Mr.: Sojourner Truth’s letters to, published in Boston Commonwealth, 45, 54 Reed, William P.: depicted in “A Nest of Copperheads,” 146 Republicans: paper currency and, 145 retouchers, photographic, 96 reversed lettering: in Sojourner Truth’s signature, 107, 107 Ricker, Lisa Reid: on autograph albums, 120 Robinson Crusoe’s Money; or, The Remarkable Fortunes and Misfortunes of a Remote Island Community (Wells): Thomas Nast’s “A Shadow Is Not a Substance” in, 156; Thomas Nast’s “Milk Tickets for Babies, in Place of Milk” in, 145, 146 Rochester, New York: Truth poses for cartes de visite in, 76, 77, 78–­79; Truth’s advocacy on behalf of freed slaves in, 78 Rochester City Directories: N. B. Baker, photographer, listing in, 76 Rochester Equal Rights Convention (1866): Truth speaks at, 78 Rohrbach, Augusta, 113 Rubens, Peter Paul: on seeking privileges for his copper engravings, 131–­32 “Running the ‘Machine’“: anti-­Republican print, 148, 148–­49

“Sambo”: in Hand-­Shadow Stories, 87, 87 Sambo stereotype: widespread application of, during Civil War, 49 Sarony, Napoleon, 132; Oscar Wilde photograph by, and ruling on rights of, 130, 130, 135 Sayre and Chase (Newark, Ohio): cartes de visite made by, 3–­4, 4 Schomburg Center for Research and Black Culture, New York Public Library: uncaptioned carte de visite of Sojourner

Truth in, 64–­65, 65 School of Athens (Raphael), 9 schools: African American, 104, 104 scrapbooks, 166: Sojourner Truth’s autograph collection in, 115; Sojourner Truth’s cartes de visite inserted into, 173–­74, 175, 176; Sojourner Truth’s collection of newspaper articles in, 110, 111, 112. See also photograph albums Sears, Adeline Harris: autograph quilt of, 118, 118 seaside portraits: of Sojourner Truth, 184, 185 segregation of blacks: Supreme Court decision on Civil Rights Act of 1875 and, 187 Sekula, Allan, 14; analysis of Holmes’s identification of cartes de visite as greenbacks, 144 self-­objectification: former slaves and, 125 “self-­possessing subject”: Barrett on signature, literacy, and, 115 Seventy-­Sixth Ohio Volunteer Infantry: pro-­ Union carte de visite commemorating, 3–­4, 4, 5 Severa, Joan: analysis of Truth’s clothing by, 79–­80, 197–­98n15 Seward, Fanny, 166 Seward, William Henry, 80 sewing societies: United States Sanitary Commission and, 80 “shadow”: decisive use of, in Truth’s cartes de visite, 126; as economic and photographic metaphor, 155–­56; as exchange for money, 143; implications of Truth’s reliance on term, 98–­99; Truth’s metaphor of, 20; Truth’s reliance on word to refer to photographs, 85, 88; widespread conception of photography as, 85–­86, 87, 199–­200n5 “Shadow Is Not a Substance, A” (Nast), 156 shadows: cast by bodies, Civil War officer’s anecdote about, 86–­87

Index

225

Sharper, John: carte de visite of, 50 Sheehan, Tanya, 97; on retouching, in the whitening of portrait sitters, 96 signatures: of African American authors, blackness bound to literacy with, 115, 116, 117; in autograph quilt detail, 118, 118; Edgar Allan Poe’s analysis of, 118–­19, 121; photographic reproduction of, 121, 121; publication of, precedents for, 121; Truth as avid collector of, 115, 117, 119, 119, 120, 121, 122, 176; written across bottom of photographs, 140–­41, 141 silhouette portraits, 86, 86, 87; of Truth, back cover 1875 edition of Narrative, 158, 159 silver nitrate: photographic negative and treatment with, 88–­89 Sizer, Nelson, 108, 170; John Brown analyzed by, 14; phrenological reading of Sojourner Truth by, 13–­14 skin color: challenges faced by photographers relative to, 93; photographs and differentiation of, 93, 94; racial difference, tonal values in photography, and, 98 slave narratives: refusal of contractual obligation specific to autobiography and, 124; trademarks of, 115 slave owners: power of literacy understood by, 103 slavery: abolition of, Truth’s campaign on behalf of, 8, 156; Anthony uses photography as form of evidence against, 163–­64; black soldiers in war against, 49, 50; Douglass’s belief in technology and ending of, 12; obedience and, 32; photography, uniqueness of black individuals, and, 18; photography deployed to win war against, 20; Quaker community and abolition of, 168; rural blacks flee South fearing reinstatement of, 186; “shadow” aligned with abolition

226

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of, 156; Truth and Stowe denounce and capitalize on subject of, 38; Truth’s own paper money and abolition of, 153 slaves: Agassiz’s commissioned daguerreotypes of, 14, 15; branding of, 125, 137–­38, 138; defined and treated as fungible property, Painter on, 155; emancipation of, in New York, 107; regional variation in knitting by, 198n24; in upstate New York, illiteracy of, 103; writing, self-­ possession, and, 106 Smith, Gerrit, 117, 166; excerpt of Truth’s letter to, 47; Truth’s letter to, written by grandson “Willie” Boyd, 114 social currency: Holmes Sr. on cartes de visite as, 17 social elevation: photographic portraits of African American families and, 50, 51 Socrates: Truth impressed by thinking of, 9 “Sojourner Truth, the Libyan Sibyl” (Stowe), 37, 38, 41; excerpts from, 37, 39, 40; Stowe pronounces Truth’s death in, 39, 46; Truth introduced to wider public via, 38; Truth repudiates accuracy of her portrayal in, 42–­43, 45 “Sojourner Truth on the Press: To the Editor of the World” in History of Woman Suffrage (Stanton), 103 soldiers: knitting for, 80, 198n22 South Carolina: literacy for slaves outlawed in, 83 “Southern Cross, The” carte de visite, 210n18 Southern women: Civil War and call to knitting by, 80 Spirit of 1861, The (Currier and Ives), 30, 31 spoken word: Truth’s belief in primacy of, 106, 202n17 Stanton, Edwin: Bureau of U.S. Colored Troops created by, 51 Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, 103, 112; on Truth’s study of the press, 109 state rights: federal legislation versus, in

lead up to Civil War, 128 Stephens, General: portrayed in anti-­ Confederate carte de visite, 5 Stickney, Phebe, 46, 48, 49 Still, William, 170; excerpt from Sojourner Truth’s letter to, 103, 112 Stonewall, General: portrayed in anti-­ Confederate carte de visite, 5 Story, William Wetmore, 41, 44, 45; Cleopatra, 38, 40; Libyan Sibyl, 38, 39 storytelling: photo albums and, 170 Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 44, 54, 109, 113, 164; American justices ruling against, in Stowe v. Thomas, 129–­30; James Caldwell described by, 49; portrayal of Sojourner Truth by, in Atlantic Monthly, 20; “Sojourner Truth, the Libyan Sibyl,” 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43; statement (“puff ”) about Truth’s Narrative by, 38, 43, 195n4; Truth differentiates herself from famous, distorted portrait by, 36; Truth initiates commercial relationship with, 37; Truth’s Commonwealth letter refutes portrayal of her history by, 42–­43, 45; Uncle Tom’s Cabin, 37, 40, 41, 42, 43 Stowe v. Thomas, 127, 129, 133, 206–­7n33, 207n37 streetcars: desegregation of, Truth’s campaign for, 8 “substance”: attacks on greenbacks and money as, 145; as economic and photographic metaphor, 155–­56; external to Truth’s shadow, glimpse of, 143–­44 suffrage: Truth’s work on behalf of, 8, 9 suffragettes: Truth’s movement within circles of, 170 Supreme Court: Civil Rights Act of 1875 declared unconstitutional by, 186–­87 surveillance: photography as mechanism for, 14

Tackaberry, S.: copyright holder for “Learning is Wealth” carte de visite, 136, 137, 137, 138 Talbot, Henry Fox: “On the Art of Fixing a Shadow,” 85 tax stamps, 72; belonging to captioned cartes de visite of Sojourner Truth, session F, 66, 67, 68, 74; dating of Truth’s photographs with, August, 1864 to August, 1866, 68; tintype portraits with, 18, 19 technology: Truth’s and Douglass’s belief in liberatory power of, 12 ten-­dollar bills: face of Abraham Lincoln on, 150 “Thing, The” (Heidegger), 198–­99n28 Third New York Light Artillery, Battery A: Peter Yawger joins with, 168 Thompson, Justice Smith: quoting Yates’s skepticism about textual “property,” 128; in Wheaton v. Peters, 123, 126 tintypes, 2; of African American women, children, and families, 50–­51, 51, 52; of black soldiers, 49, 50; combined materials in, 17; improperly varnished, coloration distortions in, 94, 95; pink pigment added to white complexions in, 90, 91; quarter-­plate, of two young men, in Union uniform, 173, 174; in Yawger photo album, 168 Titus, Esther, 46, 47 Titus, Frances, 27, 45, 47, 52, 112; on challenges of obtaining photographic portrait, 46; excerpt of letter to Amy Post, 177; Truth’s friendship with, 177, 178 Tom Thumb, 34 tonal values in photographs: racial difference and, 98 Trachtenberg, Alan, 130; analysis of Holmes’s identification of cartes de visite as greenbacks, 144 trademarks: of photographers, on cabinet

cards, 184, 185 Treasury Department: investigation of charges against, 152–­53, 211n28 Treasury notes: portraits on, embarrassing question of, 152 “Treasury woman”: as euphemism for prostitute, 153 Truth, Bett: listed in inventory of estate of Charles Hardenbergh, 9 Truth, Sojourner, 18, 97; activism of, financed by paper currency of photographs, 17, 153, 156; allographic versus autographic writings of, 107; as author of her photographic representation and circulation, 15; authors and profits from photographic representation of herself, 16; autographs collected by, 115, 117, 119, 119, 121, 122, 176; in Battle Creek, Michigan, 45, 46, 47, 52, 58; beginning of captioned and copyrighted cartes de visite of, 63; “bodied voice” of, 106; born into slavery, 7; Brady & Co. carte de visite of, 139–­40, 140; “BRADY’s National Photographic Portrait Galleries” imprint on verso of carte de visite of, 139, 140, 209n74; cane in later photographs of, 184, 185; captioned cabinet card of, by C. C. Randall, seated poses from session M?, 180, 181; captioned cabinet card of, by C. C. Randall, standing pose from session L?, 180; captioned carte de visite of, by C. C. Randall, and verso, 178, 179; captioned carte de visite of, seated pose, 1864–­1865, 11; captioned carte de visite of, seated pose from session F, 66; captioned carte de visite of, seated pose from session F?, 69; captioned carte de visite of, seated pose from session F, higher contrast, 67; captioned carte de visite of, seated pose from session G, 70, 71, 72; captioned carte de visite of, seated pose from session H, 75;

captioned carte de visite of, standing pose, from session I, 76, 77; captioned carte de visite of, standing pose from session D or E, 65, 65; captioned carte de visite of, standing pose from session F?, 67, 69; captioned carte de visit of, by C. C. Randall, standing pose from session K?, 180; captioned cartes de visite of, by S. C. Wright, 70, 70, 71, 72; captioned cartes de visite of, different studio settings, session F, 65; captioned cartes de visite of, seated pose from session I, 76, 77, 78–­79; caption for cartes de visite invented by, 65; carte de visite of, by Corydon C. Randall, April, 1882?, bearing caption and copyright, 187; carte de visite of, with newspaper clippings, in Percival Leggett’s scrapbook, 173–­74, 175; cartes de visite of, as consistent, exchangeable form of paper value, 143–­44, 209n3; cartes de visite of, Demings’ family photograph album, 55–­56, 56; children of, 8, 187–­88, 188; commercial relationship with Harriet Beecher Stowe initiated by, 37; contrast challenge posed to photographers by, 98; Copperheads chant racial slurs against, 28–­29, 156; copyright of (see copyright of Sojourner Truth); Corydon C. Randall logbook entries for, 182, 183; court cases won by, 8, 21; Dave the enslaved potter’s vessels compared with captioned photographs of, 82–­83, 84; Demings’ family photograph album and carte de visite of, 167, 170; depiction of letters from, 114; description of original 1850 photograph of, 27–­28; differentiated image of, from photographs of “curiosities” of the day, 36; different ways individuals acquired cartes de visite of, 168, 170; as domestic slave in Upstate New York, 81; doodle inside blank

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area of photographer’s imprint, verso of captioned carte de visite of, 72; Dutch accent of, 10, 43; Dutch spoken by, as child and young woman, 103; Exodus to Kansas and final traveling days of, 186; “favorite portraits” of, discussion of characteristics in, 73, 73, 74, 74, 75, 76; final photographic portraits taken just before death of, 187, 187; formal learning targeted by, 108; freedom of movement and cartes de visite of, 126; friendship with Demings, 168, 170, 212n14; handwritten texts on versos of photographs of, 165–­66; Heald album and carte de visite of, 167–­68; iconography of last photographs of, 178, 184, 185–­86; illiteracy of (see illiteracy of Sojourner Truth); illiterate slave daughters of, 108, 187–­88; Josephine R. Franklin’s cartes de visite sales on behalf of, 172–­73; knitting taught by, 81, 84; last portraits of, 1881–­ 83, 177–­88; last speech of, at Michigan state legislature, 186; latter years and political activism of, 186; learns how to control production of photographs, 58; as “Libyan Sibyl,” Stowe’s personification of, 38, 39, 40–­42; love for and reliance on her grandsons, 170; negative view of carte de visite of, 89, 90; oval bust-­length portrait of, on leather binding of 1875 edition of Narrative, 156, 157, 158, 159; photographer named in captioned cartes de visite of, 139; photograph of, in scrapbook of Percival Leggett, 57, 57–­58, 196n23; photography deployed to make arguments by, 20; phrenological reading of, 8, 13, 14, 108; portrait of, on invented and self-­ made money, 153; posthumous final photographs after death of, 184–­85, 185, 187; on potential loss of control over her cartes de visite, 155; printing of her

228

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name on front and back of cartes de visite, 139; as prolific correspondent, 108; readers for, 109, 110; reliance on term “shadow,” appreciating implications of, 98–­99; remounted captioned carte de visite of, seated pose from session H, 73; remounted captioned carte de visite of, seated pose from session H, retouched floor and background, 76, 76; remounted captioned carte de visite of, standing pose from session H, 74, 74; remounted captioned cartes de visite of, seated pose from session H, 75; renames herself, 8; repudiates Stowe’s portrayal of, as “Libyan Sibyl,” 42–­43, 45; right hand injury suffered by, 107; salient facts about life of, 7–­10; scolds “college students” for writing rather than listening to lecture by, 106; scrapbooks of, 110, 111, 112; scrapbooks with cartes de visite of, 173–­74, 175, 176; self-­ publishes Narrative, 25; selling price of carte de visite by, 153; selling price of cartes de visite of, 47; signature of, in autograph book, 107, 107; signature of, verso of carte de visite, 107, 107; significance of pronoun choice in captioned cards of, 123–­24; sittings by, for three different series of photographs, 64; Stowe pronounces death of, in “Libyan Sibyl,” 39, 46; Susan B. Anthony’s casting of, as protagonist in Stowe’s “tale,” 164; texts and visual archive left by, 11; transcribed speeches of, 113; Tuckerman album and carte de visite of, 168, 169, 170; uncaptioned carte de visite of, seated pose from session E?, 65; uncaptioned carte de visite of, seated poses from session B, 53; uncaptioned carte de visite of, seated poses from session C., 55, 55; uncaptioned carte de visite of, standing pose, likely Indiana, 28, 28–­29;

verso of remounted captioned carte de visite of, “bought by Ann Heald,” 73; Wykoff Hanging Bill and strategically conciliatory speech of, 186; Yawger photo album and carte de visite of, 168 Truth Stranger than Fiction (Henson): frontispiece and title page for, 117 Tuckerman, Mrs.: carte de visite of Sojourner Truth in album of, 168, 169, 170; cover of carte de visite album of, 169; index page from carte de visite album of, 168, 169 Turner, Sojourner: listed in inventory of estate of Charles Hardenbergh, 9 “Twenty Dollar Bill, The New York National Exchange Bank”: carte de visite of, verso and recto, 149, 149

Uncle Tom’s Cabin (Stowe), 37, 40, 41, 42, 43; Stowe v. Thomas and German translation of, 129; Truth’s appearance and Dinah in, 195n20 underexposure: photograph making and, 89 Underground Railroad, 112, 167, 170; abolitionists active in, 167–­68 Union army: tintypes of African American soldiers in, 49, 50 Union cause: tax stamps and, 17; Truth’s captioned cartes de visite identified with, 69 United States: ambiguous rights for photographers and sitters in, 132–­34; first copyright act in, 134 United States Sanitary Commission: knitting societies and, 80 US postal system: cartes de visite sent via, 2

Vallandigham, Clement C.: depicted in “A Nest of Copperheads,” 146 Vogel, Hermann, 89, 96

Von Brevern, Jan: on chromatics of photography, 92

Walker, Kara, 86 Wallace, Maurice O., 15 war: cartes de visite as tools of, 7; memorializing beloved in cartes de visite and, 3; Truth’s embrace of photography and, 12 Washington, George: fifty-­cent fractional currency note with portrait of, 18; five-­cent fractional currency note with “bronzing” around image of, 154, 154; ninth-­plate tintype portraits with tax stamps featuring portrait of, 19; tax stamp portraits of, 66, 67, 68; ten-­cent fractional currency note with portrait of, 144; tintype verso, with tax stamp featuring portrait of, 19; twenty-­five-­ cent fractional currency note with off-­center bronzing around image of, 154, 154 Washington, Margaret, 11, 41, 55 Webb, Mary E.: Stowe dramatizes Uncle Tom’s Cabin for, 41 Wells, David: Thomas Nast’s illustrations in anti-­greenback tract of, 145, 146, 156 “We’re Coming, Father Abram, Three Hundred Thousand More”: “How Are You Green-­Backs!” as parody of, 146 Wheaton, Henry, 127 Wheaton v. Peters, 128, 129, 141; Justice Smith Thompson’s statement in, 123, 126 whitening creams: photographers and sale of, 97 white skin: emphasis of, with pink pigment added to tintypes or cartes de visite, 90, 91 Whitman, Walt: Eliza Leggett’s letter to, quote from, 12; Leaves of Grass, 9 Wilde, Oscar, 132; ruling on Sarony’s rights to photograph of, 130, 130, 135

William Casby, Born a Slave (Avedon), 15, 15–­16 Williams, Miss J., 93 Wilmer, J. P. B.: depicted in “A Nest of Copperheads,” 146 Winnott, Maggie, 34 Wittenmyer, Annie: pro-­Union curiosity, carte de visite of, 34, 36 Wollstonecraft, Mary, 166 woman suffrage: Truth’s work on behalf of, 8, 9 women: African American, Civil War–­era photographs of, 50–­51, 51, 52; Civil War and call to knitting by, 80, 81 Women’s Loyal National League: Susan B. Anthony’s speech to, 1, 163 Wood, Ferdnando: depicted in “A Nest of Copperheads,” 146 Woods, General Charles Robert: pro-­Union carte de visite commemorating, 4, 4 Woods, General William Burnham: pro-­ Union carte de visite commemorating, 4, 4 work: Truth transitions from personal commemoration to inclusion of, in cartes de visite, 65, 65, 66, 67 World: Truth’s evaluation of, 109–­10 Wright, S. C., Battle Creek, Michigan: captioned and copyrighted cartes de visite of Sojourner Truth by, 70, 70, 71, 72, 72, 74, 76, 139, 141 writing: transcription, authorship, and, 113 written language: progressive activism and, 107 Wykoff Hanging Bill: defeat of, 186

Yerrington, George Brown, 25

Zealy, J. T.: Agassiz’s commissioned daguerreotypes of slaves by, 14, 15 Zion African Church (New York City), 8

Yates, Justice Joseph, 128, 129 Yawger, Daniel, 168 Yawger, Laura: carte de visite of Sojourner Truth in photo album of, 168 Yawger, Peter, 168

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