Enjoy fast, free delivery, exclusive deals, and award-winning movies & TV shows with Prime
Try Prime
and start saving today with fast, free delivery
Amazon Prime includes:
Fast, FREE Delivery is available to Prime members. To join, select "Try Amazon Prime and start saving today with Fast, FREE Delivery" below the Add to Cart button.
Amazon Prime members enjoy:- Cardmembers earn 5% Back at Amazon.com with a Prime Credit Card.
- Unlimited Free Two-Day Delivery
- Streaming of thousands of movies and TV shows with limited ads on Prime Video.
- A Kindle book to borrow for free each month - with no due dates
- Listen to over 2 million songs and hundreds of playlists
- Unlimited photo storage with anywhere access
Important: Your credit card will NOT be charged when you start your free trial or if you cancel during the trial period. If you're happy with Amazon Prime, do nothing. At the end of the free trial, your membership will automatically upgrade to a monthly membership.
Buy new:
$42.17$42.17
FREE delivery:
Wednesday, April 24
Ships from: Amazon Sold by: Césarée Store
Buy used: $16.94
Other Sellers on Amazon
+ $3.99 shipping
72% positive over last 12 months
+ $3.98 shipping
90% positive over last 12 months
Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
Follow the authors
OK
Picturing Frederick Douglass: An Illustrated Biography of the Nineteenth Century's Most Photographed American Hardcover – Illustrated, November 2, 2015
Purchase options and add-ons
A landmark and collectible volume―beautifully produced in duotone―that canonizes Frederick Douglass through historic photography.
Picturing Frederick Douglass is a work that promises to revolutionize our knowledge of race and photography in nineteenth-century America. Teeming with historical detail, it is filled with surprises, chief among them the fact that neither George Custer nor Walt Whitman, and not even Abraham Lincoln, was the most photographed American of that century. In fact, it was Frederick Douglass (1818–1895), the ex-slave turned leading abolitionist, eloquent orator, and seminal writer whose fiery speeches transformed him into one of the most renowned and popular agitators of his age. Now, as a result of the groundbreaking research of John Stauffer, Zoe Trodd, and Celeste-Marie Bernier, Douglass emerges as a leading pioneer in photography, both as a stately subject and as a prescient theorist who believed in the explosive social power of what was then just a nascent art form.
Indeed, Frederick Douglass was in love with photography. During the four years of Civil War, he wrote more extensively on the subject than any other American, even while recognizing that his audiences were "riveted" by the war and wanted a speech only on "this mighty struggle." He frequented photographers’ studios regularly and sat for his portrait whenever he could. To Douglass, photography was the great "democratic art" that would finally assert black humanity in place of the slave "thing" and at the same time counter the blackface minstrelsy caricatures that had come to define the public perception of what it meant to be black. As a result, his legacy is inseparable from his portrait gallery, which contains 160 separate photographs.
At last, all of these photographs have been collected into a single volume, giving us an incomparable visual biography of a man whose prophetic vision and creative genius knew no bounds. Chronologically arranged and generously captioned, from the first picture taken in around 1841 to the last in 1895, each of the images―many published here for the first time―emphasizes Douglass's evolution as a man, artist, and leader. Also included are other representations of Douglass during his lifetime and after―such as paintings, statues, and satirical cartoons―as well as Douglass’s own writings on visual aesthetics, which have never before been transcribed from his own handwritten drafts.
The comprehensive introduction by the authors, along with headnotes for each section, an essay by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and an afterword by Kenneth B. Morris, Jr.―a direct Douglass descendent―provide the definitive examination of Douglass's intellectual, philosophical, and political relationships to aesthetics. Taken together, this landmark work canonizes Frederick Douglass through a form he appreciated the most: photography.
Featuring:
- Contributions from Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Kenneth B. Morris, Jr. (a direct Douglass descendent)
- 160 separate photographs of Douglass―many of which have never been publicly seen and were long lost to history
- A collection of contemporaneous artwork that shows how powerful Douglass’s photographic legacy remains today, over a century after his death
- All Douglass’s previously unpublished writings and speeches on visual aesthetics
- Print length320 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherLiveright
- Publication dateNovember 2, 2015
- Dimensions9.4 x 1 x 12.4 inches
- ISBN-100871404680
- ISBN-13978-0871404688
Frequently bought together

Customers who viewed this item also viewed
Editorial Reviews
Review
― David Brooks, New York Times
"Beautifully crafted and contextualized.... the extant photographs illuminate American history and memory."
― The Washington Post
"A terrific new book."
― The New Yorker
"Striking…. The most exciting images in the book are those that show us how these 19th-century portraits became, over the decades that follow, a part of the symbolic surround of the modern American landscape…. The words in this highly visual book are perhaps even more powerful than the images…. Pictures conveyed a precision akin to religious truth, an affective prerequisite for social movements."
― Matthew Pratt Guterl, The New Republic
"Nothing less than a masterpiece in the fields of biography, African-American history, and not least of all the neglected area of iconography…A riveting instant classic and a pure pleasure to behold."
― Harold Holzer, winner of the Lincoln Prize and author of Lincoln and the Power of the Press: The War for Public Opinion
"Picturing Frederick Douglass marries all of my present interests: legacies of slavery; beautiful images of a beautiful man; and the first theory of photography as a democratic medium capable of social change. Stunningly original and elegantly written and designed, it will inspire anyone interested in the links between the visual and the verbal."
― Sally Mann, author of Hold Still: A Memoir with Photographs
"Douglass emerges here out of photographic technology's earliest years, with majestic beauty, and through the power of his own self-creations. The book is the result of intrepid research and brilliant analysis; it charts Douglass's life visually, allowing him to look back at us wryly, wistfully, wrathfully."
― David W. Blight, Yale University, and author of Frederick Douglass: A Life
"In Picturing Frederick Douglass, Stauffer, Trodd, and Bernier offer exhilarating scholarship and our idea of Douglass and our sense of photography in nineteenth-century America are deepened. This is brilliant and very moving work."
― Darryl Pinckney, author of High Cotton, Out There and Black Balled: The Black Vote and U.S. Democracy
"Picturing Frederick Douglass marks a significant turn in the long history of Douglass’s reception. Both as a subject for photography and as a critical theorist who reflected on the democratic, humane, and truth-telling powers of the medium, Douglass emerges in this beautiful volume in a completely new light."
― W. J. T. Mitchell, author of Seeing Through Race
"Picturing Frederick Douglass is to be shared, studied, read and repeated every six months, not only in the classroom but in our living rooms…Beautifully researched and storied…A true treasure!"
― Deborah Willis, author of Reflections in Black and the acclaimed documentary, Through a Lens Darkly
"This stunning volume presents 160 photographs, some for the first time, and they not only follow Douglass throughout his life but also place him within the times he lived…. Stauffer, Zoe Trodd, and Celeste-Marie Bernier point out that Douglass saw the truth-telling aspects of photography and how it could be used as a tool in the fight against slavery, as photos both humanized African Americans and revealed the horrors of their enslavement. This tour de force is a must-have that will enhance history and reference collections."
― Patricia Ann Owens, Library Journal, Starred review
"This illustrious book collects all 160 photographs of renowned abolitionist Frederick Douglass and astutely places Douglass’s personal interest in photography into the context of his career and legacy…. This study provides a multifaceted, unique look at one of the most influential figures of American history."
― Publishers Weekly
"An impressive collection…give[s] a wonderful picture of the man, his intellect, and his devotion to his main cause, abolition…. The authors have pieced together an illuminating life portrait without extraneous biographical material, focusing intensely on their subject's belief in the strength of photographs."
― Kirkus Reviews
About the Author
Zoe Trodd is professor and chair of American literature in the Department of American and Canadian Studies at the University of Nottingham.
Celeste-Marie Bernier is professor of African American studies in the Department of American and Canadian Studies at the University of Nottingham.
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (Ph.D.Cambridge), is Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and American Research, Harvard University. He is the author of Life Upon These Shores: Looking at African American History, 1513–2008; Black in Latin America; Tradition and the Black Atlantic: Critical Theory in the African Diaspora; Faces of America; Figures in Black: Words, Signs, and the Racial Self; The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of Afro-American Criticism; Loose Canons: Notes on the Culture Wars; Colored People: A Memoir; The Future of Race with Cornel West; Wonders of the African World; Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Man; and The Trials of Phillis Wheatley. His is also the writer, producer, and narrator of PBS documentaries Finding Your Roots; Black in Latin America; Faces of America; African American Lives 1 and 2; Looking for Lincoln; America Beyond the Color Line; and Wonders of the African World. He is the editor of African American National Biography with Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, and The Dictionary of African Biography with Anthony Appiah; Encyclopedia Africana with Anthony Appiah; and The Bondwoman’s Narrative by Hannah Crafts, as well as editor-in-chief of TheRoot.com.
Kenneth B. Morris, Jr. is descended from two of the most important names in American history: he is the great-great-great grandson of Frederick Douglass and the great-great grandson of Booker T. Washington. He is also the Founder and President of the public charity, Frederick Douglass Family Initiatives, which uses education in schools across the U.S. to address and prevent contemporary forms of slavery or human trafficking in communities.
Product details
- Publisher : Liveright; Illustrated edition (November 2, 2015)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 320 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0871404680
- ISBN-13 : 978-0871404688
- Item Weight : 3.68 pounds
- Dimensions : 9.4 x 1 x 12.4 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #805,681 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #207 in U.S. Abolition of Slavery History
- #1,216 in Black & African American History (Books)
- #2,582 in Black & African American Biographies
- Customer Reviews:
About the authors

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more

John Stauffer is the Sumner R. and Marshall S. Kates Professor of English and African and African American Studies at Harvard University
He is the author or editor of 19 books and over 100 articles focusing on antislavery and/or photography.
Two of his books ("GIANTS" and "State of Jones") were national bestsellers. "The Black Hearts of Men" was the co-winner of the Frederick Douglass Book Prize and the Lincoln Prize runner-up. "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" and "Picturing Frederick Douglass" were Lincoln Prize finalists.
His writings on photography have appeared in "21st Editions"; "Young America: The Daguerreotypes of Southworth and Hawes," "WAR/PHOTOGRAPHY," "Aperture," "Beyond Blackface," and "Listening to Cement."
The paperback edition of his most recent book, "Picturing Frederick Douglass: An Illustrated Biography of the Nineteenth Century's Most Photographed American," will be available in early 2018, in time for Douglass's 200th birthday.
His interest in visual culture extends to exhibitions and film. He consulted on the traveling exhibition "WAR/PHOTOGRAPHY" (2012-14). He advised and appeared in three award-winning documentaries ("God in America"; "The Abolitionists"; and "The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross"); and he has been a consultant for feature films including "Django" and the forthcoming "Free State of Jones", directed by Gary Ross and starring Matthew McConaughey, which is based on his book.
His essays and reviews have appeared in "Time", "Wall Street Journal", "New York Times", "Washington Post", "Huffington Post", and in scholarly journals and books.
He has appeared on national radio and television shows, including "The Diane Rehm Show," "C-SPAN," and "Book TV with Susan Swain," and he has lectured throughout the United States and Europe.
In 2009 the U.S. State Department's International Information Programs hired him as one of its speakers.
That same year Harvard named Professor Stauffer the Walter Channing Cabot Fellow for "achievements and scholarly eminence in the fields of literature, history or art." He has also received two teaching awards from Harvard: the Everett Mendelsohn Excellence in Mentoring Award; and the Jan Thaddeus Teaching Prize.
He lives in Cambridge with his wife, Deborah Cunningham, and their two sons, Erik and Nicholas.
(August 2017)
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on Amazon-
Top reviews





