Profile Portrait of Frederick Douglass, ca. 1858. Unknown photographer (American). Daguerreotype. Gift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.
Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) was a brilliant and pioneering social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. He was also the most photographed American public figure of the 1800s. Douglass well understood the camera’s potential to express the humanity and dignity of its subjects, and used himself as a model to convey these ideas. Douglass did not view these self-portraits as a means of self-aggrandizement, but rather as vehicles to further his abolitionist agenda.
