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Picturing Freedmen’s Schools: Reconstruction Era Photographs from the Ronald Rooks Collection

It should come as no surprise that the period of Reconstruction after the Civil War remains one of the most complicated times in American history. Three separate amendments were added to the constitution, three civil rights acts were passed (although one was later deemed unconstitutional), and innumerable pieces of legislation made their way into committee. These laws primarily served two purposes: firstly, to free enslaved peoples and provide for them assistance, and secondly, to ease tensions between the North and South. One of the most important legislative acts during Reconstruction was the Freedmen’s Bureau Bill, which established a governmental agency within the United States Army to serve as a relief system for formerly enslaved peoples under the thirteenth amendment. The Bureau were to provide clothes, shelter, and supplies to formerly enslaved peoples and to protect them from Southern whites who sought to keep them extrajudicially.

Unknown Photographer. Ex-Slave Children and Mrs. Edwards, c. 1863-1865. UMBC Special Collections, 76-13-001

Another key role of the Bureau was that of education. As enslaved peoples were not allowed formal education, it was essential that, once freed, they had access to some form of learning. Without education, African Americans in the South had no way to develop new trades and skills, and were far more vulnerable to violations of their rights. Teachers from the North volunteered through organizations such as the National Freedman’s Relief Association, Gloucester Freedmen’s Aid Society, and numerous religious-based organizations, to move to the South and operate schools for formerly enslaved peoples, known as Freedmen’s schools.

Unknown Photographer. Three ex-slave children, c.1863-1865. UMBC Special Collections, 76-13-014

Funding for these schools proved a much greater challenge than founding them, however, and nationwide fundraising efforts were established, to varying degrees of effectiveness. One of the most effective means, however, is represented by photographs in the Ronald Rooks Collection, housed in UMBC’s Special Collections. Under direction of the National Freedman’s Relief Association, dozens of photographs of formerly enslaved peoples, especially children, along with their teachers, were made and distributed for sale as cartes de visite across the northern United States with the proceeds supporting the Freedmen’s schools.

Anderson, S. Portrait of a young woman, c. 1863-1865. UMBC Special Collections, 76-13-010

A carte de visite is a small photographic print on a paper mount, designed for a large quantity of production. They were inexpensive and didn’t require any sort of special viewing device, and so they proved incredibly popular during the Civil War and early Reconstruction. They functioned not unlike a calling card or trading card, and so they quickly became a very powerful means of propaganda. Photographs of politicians and celebrities could be distributed widely as cartes de visite, and abolitionists such as Sojourner Truth also used them to fundraise and to spread messages about the horrors of slavery. One of the most important images of the time was that of Gordon, who escaped enslavement and allowed his back to be photographed, showing the extensive scarring from whippings endured from slave owners. This image became infamous when it was distributed as a carte de visite and reproduced in the illustrated news magazine Harper’s Weekly. Printed on the verso of the carte de visite was Gordon’s story, which confronted Northern viewers with the true barbarity of his treatment. Pro-slavery propaganda had convinced many Northerners that enslaved peoples were only mistreated if they were disobedient, but Gordon’s story proved that to be a lie. The image and accompanying text proved to be a powerfully persuasive tool in the abolitionist movement, garnering support for the Union Army’s cause.

Seaver, C. Jr. The Peculiar Institution, c. 1863-1865. UMBC Special Collections, 76-13-002.

Some of the cartes de visite sold in support of the Freedmen’s schools were intended to draw sympathy from philanthropic Northern whites, and none proved more effective than those depicting the so-called white slaves. These were children who were born into slavery, but who appeared to be white. Much of the popularity of these images stemmed from Northern fears that should slavery continue unabated, whites would soon become enslaved alongside blacks. As noted by historian Mary Niall Michell, “their images appealed to Victorian sentiments about white rather than black or ‘colored’ girlhood.” Nonetheless, these images provided an immense amount of fundraising for the schools for Freedmen.

Paxon, Charles. A Slave Girl from New Orleans, c. 1863-1865. UMBC Special Collections, 76-13-015.

Art as propaganda has existed for millennia, but photography and mass production took things to a new level, as clearly demonstrated by the carte de visites of Reconstruction-era America. It is impertinent to say that they single-handedly changed the hearts and minds of northerners, but it is also undeniable that they had an impact on our history.

Post by Ben Rybczynski, former Special Collections intern and Gallery Assistant, written Fall 2020.

Bibliography

Mitchell, Mary Niall. “‘Rosebloom and Pure White,’ or so It Seemed” American Quarterly, Vol. 54, No. 3 (Sep., 2002), pp. 369-410, accessed March 25, 2020, https://www.jstor.org/stable/30042226

Leisenring, Richard. “Philanthropic Photographs: Fundraising during and after the Civil War” Military Images, Vol. 36, No. 2 (SPRING 2018), pp. 44-57, accessed May 28, 2020, https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/26348670

Parment, Robert D. “SCHOOLS FOR THE FREEDMEN”, Negro History Bulletin, Vol. 34, No. 6 (OCTOBER, 1971), pp. 128-132, accessed April 30, 2020, https://www.jstor.org/stable/24766513

Grigsby, Darcy Grimaldo. “Negative-Positive Truths”, Representations, Vol. 113, No. 1 (Winter 2011), pp. 16-38, accessed May 28, 2020, https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/rep.2011.113.1.16

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Library Rotunda Exhibit: Early Photobooks by Women Photographers

Sign for exhibit Early Photobooks by Women Photographers

The Special Collections department at UMBC includes the Edward L. Bafford Photography Book Collection; researchers can access historical technical manuals, pamphlets, exhibition catalogs, and photography books that show to development of photography from the 19th century to today. Photobooks as a distinct publication type – typically highlighting photographs with supplemental text as opposed to using photographs as illustration for the main text and with an emphasis on design elements – accelerated in production in the early 20th century with increased publication and distribution methods. Women photographers, and especially women of color, were not given the same access to publication as their male counterparts, and it is not until after secondwave feminism in the 1970s that we see a larger number of photobooks by women.

The examples currently on display through May 10, 2023, were all published in the 1930s and 1940s. These early photobooks show the wide range of photographic style and methods used by women photographers, from pictorialist in the early 1900s to photomontage, documentary style, and even action shots for dance photography. The photographers on display include:

Exhibit case with Anne Brigman photobooks
Exhibit case with Anne Brigman photobooks
  • Berenice Abbott (1898-1991)
  • Margaret Bourke-White (1904-1971)
  • Anne Brigman (1869-1950)
  • Claude Cahun (1894-1954) and Marcel Moore (1892-1972)
  • Dorothea Lange (1895-1965)
  • Barbara Brooks Morgan (1900-1992)

Join Special Collections librarians on Wednesday May 10 from 12-2pm for a hands-on tour of the photobooks. Or visit the Special Collections reading room to work directly with UMBC’s photobook collection!

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Digitizing Cruikshank: Behind the Scenes

One of my favorite things about working at Special Collections is the amount of strange and fascinating items around every corner. A little over a year ago, I had no idea who George Cruikshank was, let alone that Special Collections houses so many of his oddest and most interesting works. George Cruikshank was a famous illustrator and caricaturist in 19th century Britain. Among his best known works are illustrations for George Dickens’s Oliver Twist and William Harrison Ainsworth’s Rookwood. While Cruikshank was respected for his craft, he was also considered by many to be eccentric and contentious. His fervent support for the Temperance Movement often appeared in his work, for which he received much criticism. But despite his controversial reputation, Cruikshank’s legacy as an influential and talented artist has endured through the centuries.

Picture of Sarah in the reading room holding open Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft
Letters on demonology and witchcraft, addressed to J.G. Lockhart, esq., by Sir Walter Scott, bart. BF1531 .S5 1830
18 x 11.5 cm., full page recto and verso. Manuscript by Cruikshank starting "The Fairy Library- Jack and the Beanstalk 8 subjects- 6 Plates..."
Verso of Manuscript by Cruikshank, “The Fairy Library” and “Hop O’my Thumb” on recto, and “Cinderella” on verso Coll315_01-32-001_v

In 2020, Lindsay DiCuirci, associate professor of English, Beth Saunders, curator and head of Special Collections, and Susan Graham, Special Collections librarian, were awarded an Adaptation Grant through the Hrabowski Innovation Fund, for their project, “Digitizing the Funny Papers: A Student-Led Digital Humanities Collaboration with UMBC Special Collections.” This project culminated in the creation of a digital exhibition built by students in English 416/616 in Fall 2022. The collection required hundreds of scans of items in the Merkle Collection of 18th and 19th century English graphic satire, home of our Cruikshank materials. Digitizing collection materials is an important part of both access and preservation, but it can be very challenging. My colleague Gabe Morrison and I were tasked with scanning the materials, and there were many days when it felt like the world was conspiring against us. Books wouldn’t stay open, the scanner kept crashing, photoshop wouldn’t load — you name it, we probably ran into an issue with it. As fun as working at Special Collections is, some days are just hard. But the pressure was on: the exhibition had to be completed by the end of the Fall semester.

A new edition, revised and corrected. "For this edition the plates were "touched up" by Findlay and changed in several details with sometimes new backgrounds added -- considerably to the original artist's disgust"--cf. J.C. Thompson, Bilbliography.
(Scan 15) The adventures of Oliver Twist; or, The parish boy’s progress. By Charles Dickens. With twenty-four illustrations on steel, by George Cruikshank.  PR4567.A1 1846
Scrapbook containing 27 plates of illustrations, two photographs -- one of George Cruikshank and one of James Gibbs -- tipped in, and a handwritten letter from George Cruikshank to James Gibbs. Some pages have multiple illustrations and all illustrations but one are in color.
(Page 20) Scraps and Sketches, by George Cruikshank. To be continued occasionally.
NC1479.C9S3 1828

It took two semesters of digitization work to make this project possible. Gabe and I each spent many hours hunched over a computer, cropping and rotating each scan with care. When working with large tomes, even simple tasks could become unruly and overwhelming. Sometimes it can feel like our work would disappear to viewers of the collection, but, ultimately, that’s the goal: we wanted use of the digital collection to feel natural and effortless. Flipping through scans should feel as close as possible to flipping through pages in a book. We wanted Cruikshank’s illustrations to be the star of the show, not our labor.

The relentless support of our colleagues at Special Collections and Dr. DiCuirci reminded us that every challenge was a worthwhile effort. It is a privilege to work with the odd and beautiful items in our collection, to share objects that inspire so much wonder and fascination. We hope you enjoy the online exhibition, “Digital Cruikshank: Etching & Sketching in Nineteenth-Century England” — we’re so proud of how it turned out.

Scrapbook containing 27 plates of illustrations, two photographs -- one of George Cruikshank and one of James Gibbs -- tipped in, and a handwritten letter from George Cruikshank to James Gibbs. Some pages have multiple illustrations and all illustrations but one are in color.
(Page 22) Scraps and Sketches, by George Cruikshank. To be continued occasionally. NC1479.C9S3 1828

Thank you to Dr. Lindsay DiCuirci and the students of English 416/616 for their hard work and support. You can view the Cruikshank books and illustrations in the online exhibition and in person at Special Collections in the Albin O. Kuhn Library & Gallery. This post was written by Special Collections student assistant Sarah Nove ‘24, English.

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Library Rotunda Exhibit: New Accessions

This month Special Collections is debuting a new exhibit in the rotunda of the Albin O. Kuhn Library & Gallery. The five cases that sit outside the elevators and stairway will feature a sample of Special Collections’ new acquisitions since fall of 2020. Since the COVID 19 outbreak and safety protocols closed campus during this period, we felt this was a great opportunity to highlight what you may have missed from our collection.

Concert flier from the Famous Ballroom, 1973, Left Bank Jazz Society Inc. The text states: "Notice of Artist Substitution. Due to the sudden cancellation of Lou Donaldson Quintet, The Left Bank Jazz Society of Baltimore proudly substitutes Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers. Sunday, July 1, 1973 5:00 til 9:00 p.m." The flier also displays a picture of American jazz drummer Art Blakey on the lefthand side.
Concert flier from the Famous Ballroom, 1973, Left Bank Jazz Society Inc. Collection, Collection 312, Special Collections, University of Maryland, Baltimore County (Baltimore, MD)

Case 1 highlights the Left Bank Jazz Society, a Baltimore, Maryland-based organization formed in 1964, which hosted a series of concerts featuring nationally acclaimed performers such as Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington, and Count Basie. The Left Bank Jazz Society Inc. collection (Coll 312) contains the Society Constitution, news releases, concert programs, flyers, photos and many more items. The Left Bank Jazz Society sought to bring the country’s top jazz performers to Baltimore, as many had skipped the city en route from New York to Washington D.C. The founders successfully managed to not only book contemporary jazz greats, but they maintained steady performances in Baltimore clubs for nearly thirty years. Included in this case are the original 1964 Constitution, four concert tickets from various Baltimore venues, four concert flyers for The Famous Ballroom, a 10 year anniversary calendar/flier from 1974, an oversized bumper sticker featuring the Jazzline phone number and a news release statement from 1969 which highlights the incorporation of the Left Bank Jazz Society #954, a Maryland penitentiary treatment program which sought to rehabilitate inmates through a sense of civic and social awareness through music.

Left Bank Jazz Society Oversize Bumper Sticker. The sticker is yellow with green accents and white, bold font. The text states: "Jazz Live! Left Bank Society, Incorporated. Famous Ballroom 1717 North Charles Street Baltimore. Every Sunday..5 'til 9 p.m. Call Jazzline 945-2266"
Left Bank Jazz Society Oversize Bumper Sticker, Left Bank Jazz Society Inc. Collection, Collection 312, Special Collections, University of Maryland, Baltimore County (Baltimore, MD)
Cover art for science fiction comic The Eternaut, created by Héctor Germán Oesterheld with artwork by Francisco Solano López. The cover artwork features a man in an astronaut suit looking forward with a striped background.
Cover Art: Oesterheld, Héctor Germán and Francisco Solano López. The Eternaut. Seattle: Fantagraphics Books, 2015. Rosenfeld (Science fiction) PN6790.A73 O4513 2015

Case 2 features new items that add to our extensive Science Fiction collection. Intersectionality was a driving force in our collection development this year, focusing on representing underrepresented voices and the themes and identities that intersect through science fiction works. These include notable works by Indigenous, Black, Asian, Latine, and members of the LGBTQ+ community. These books and graphic novels feature amazing artwork by some of the most influential and talented illustrators, including Manuele Fior, Jon J Muth, Francisco Solano López, Stacey Robinson, and John Jennings.

Materials from the Bafford Photography Book Collection displayed in Case 3. The case features various items such as photographs laying down, and books standing upright.
Materials from the Bafford Photography Book Collection displayed in Case 3

Case 3 includes books and serials from our Bafford Photography Book Collection which feature the history and development of photography. This selection of recent additions to this collection features contemporary photography books in unconventional formats. Ranging from a cigarette-shaped book which examines the role smoking plays at some Chinese weddings to an exhibition book in nine accordion-folded series of prints which can be ordered and displayed in a variety of combinations, these photography books capture the imagination, diversity, and creativity of each individual artist as well as the scope of our collection.

Cover art for book "The Brother You Choose" The cover has a black background, with bold yellow and white font. The cover reads: "The Brother You Choose: Paul Coates and Eddie Conway Talk About Life Politics and the Revolution, Susie Day, Afterword by Ta-Nehisi Coates"
Day, Susie. The Brother You Choose: Paul Coates and Eddie Conway Talk about Life, Politics, and the Revolution. Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2020. Arnold (Maryland History) HV9956.B35 D39 2020
Cover art for book "A New Deal for All?" The cover reads: "A New Deal for All? Race and Class Struggles in Depression-Era Baltimore, Andor Skotnes" with a Depression-era photograph of a group of men and women, some of whom have their fist raised.
Skotnes, Andor. A New Deal for All?: Race and Class Struggles in Depression-Era Baltimore. Durham: Duke University Press, 2013. Arnold (Maryland History) F189.B19 N475 2012

Case 4 documents the history and culture of Maryland’s people and communities.  Our new Maryland history book acquisitions feature numerous publications highlighting the often scandalous histories of Baltimore’s law enforcement, including Baltimore’s Gun Trace Task Force, whose members robbed drug dealers and sold their product back on the streets for half a decade, as well as differing historical chapters in the fight for racial equality that touch on incarceration, resistance protests, and the black power movement.

Case 5 highlights the Fluxus art movement in the 1960s from our Dick Higgins collection (Coll043). Co-founded by Dick Higgins, Fluxus embraced the fluidity and boundary-crossing nature of art and introduced the concept of “intermedia,” a collaboration of different artistic genres. This artform incorporated musical composition, design, poetry, painting, performance art, and theoretical writings. Many avant-garde artists took part in this movement including Dick Higgins, Ken Friedman, and Mieko Shiomi.

Materials from the Dick Higgins Collection displayed in Case 5. The items are laid flat in the case, including "Spatial Poem" by Mieko Shiomi, hand-written musical notations by Dick Higgins, and an invitation for Dick Higgins’ first solo exhibition at Galerie René Block, Berlin amongst others.
Materials from the Dick Higgins Collection displayed in Case 5

The new accessions exhibit will be on display in the Library Rotunda until March 17, 2023.

Post by Mark Breeding, Special Collections graduate assistant, with assistance from Kayla Brooks, an intern with Special Collections. Mark and Kayla are both currently enrolled in UMBC’s historical studies graduate program.

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Daphne Harrison and Africana Studies Department

When UMBC began its first semester in 1966, the initial 750 students and 45 faculty members came to campus and established an atmosphere of diversity and open dialog. Members of the community were committing to their academic pursuits in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement and soon after, the Vietnam war, a truly turbulent time in American society outfitted with instances of campus unrest. Students started asking questions and demanding answers across college campuses in order to enhance their collegiate experience and change their campus environment. An instance of asking questions and demanding answers came in the late 1960s, when students began to ask why there hadn’t been an established, degree-granting African American Studies Department, supported by African American cultural studies and literary scholars and professors. Higher educational institutions started to embrace the intellectual validity of cultural studies and neighboring institutions had already begun work to build programs to support this growing interest for students. And so, with the approval of the Maryland Council for Higher Education (MCHE) in 1972, the new department was solidified in UMBC’s curriculum.

Professor Daphne Harrison and class
[Professor Daphne Harrison and class], circa 1970s. Gelatin silver print, 5 x 7 in. University Photographs, UARC Photos-08-0016.

The African American Studies Department planning committee in 1973 included Dr. Daphne Harrison, who initially served as the Acting Director for the program, and fully reassumed the position from 1981-1992. Through her work and the inaugural faculty and staff, the curriculum explored areas of the African diaspora in Africa, North America, and the Caribbean. The W.E.B. Dubois Distinguished Lecture series was established, and interdisciplinary connections became more solidified across departments.

Unidentified Africana Studies faculty and staff

William E. “Skip” Boyd, [Africana Studies faculty and staff], circa 1970s. Gelatin silver print, 4 x 5 in. University Archives, UARCPhotos-08-0012.

However, the Africana Studies records not only provide a spotlight on the development of the department, it sheds a light on the temperature on campus from its beginnings. In order to develop a program of integrity and substance on campus, faculty members and administrators involved in the department’s establishment thought it necessary to investigate the perspectives, biases, and relationships on campus that could better inform them of what the actual experiences of black students, staff, and faculty on campus were like. A series of efforts through surveys, interviews, and written testimonials, all captured in the collection, lends deep insight into what interactions and relationships looked like within what was then still a predominantly white population. The National Institute of Health’s Racism Intervention Development Program here at UMBC directly tackled the lack of awareness of, and developed solutions for issues that faced minority students at predominantly white institutions. This program brought a high level of exposure to understanding institutional racism in higher education, along with other participating institutions who were prepared to question and address this issue during the mid-1970s. It also took a direct look at opportunities of intersectionality across already established departments.

The collection also features reference documentation, correspondence, and proposals associated with the National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute for Teachers, a grant-funded program specifically targeting high school teachers, to enhance their teaching approaches on African American studies teaching of history, culture and literature. Not only did UMBC’s African American Studies program build itself, it also promoted its growing expertise by creating opportunities to expand the reach of exposure to African American studies curriculum.

Post by Laurainne Ojo-Ohikuare, Processing Archivist