Ninth International Conference on The Image

Abstract

The Robert Langmuir African American Photograph Collection in Emory University’s Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book Library is one of the most impressive individual efforts to capture the scope of African American life and history by a single collector to date. The collection contains more than 12,000 photographs depicting African American life from the beginning of photography in the early 19th century to the late 20th century. Ranging from daguerreotypes, photographs, postcards, carte de vistas, tintypes and cabinet cards, the scope of images reflect the past and represent people who have passed from this world to the next. What is most impressive is the range of photographs which account for the degree of human agency demonstrated in the kinds of activities, occupations and representations of everyday life found throughout the collection. In my presentation, “Looking at the Familiar: Photography in African American History and Memory,” images of ordinary people participating in everyday activities serve to reflect the world of possibility that African Americans imagined and sought to pursue as part of their day to day lives. At their core, each image maintains a place within the continuum of the African American experience, which is reflective of the complexities found in American culture related to black expressions of individual humanity, a sense of purpose, and a relentless and restless determination to be free.