I made this post on TIL after reading on Wikipedia that FD never smiled in the many photographs he took to avoiding playing into racist Minstrel caricatures because he believed it would undermine his cause and public image as an abolitionist.
There was a lot of confusion about the accepted style of photo posture and facial expression back then, with many people I suspect generalizing from this popular Vox video. A lot of comments seem to reflect the belief that exposure times were too long to smile ("He's not smiling because he couldn't hold it"), and that it was against cultural norms at the time ("He's not smiling because nobody smiled"). For all I know, the claims in the video are well sourced, but these is different from the original claim. The original claim is that he gives the camera a stern look, which, regardless of the norms on smiling, is a different expression. The Wikipedia article I got the original fact from cites this NPR interview with John Stauffer, who wrote a book on FD. He says in the interview:
MARTIN: So these [photographs] were not just taken for fun.
STAUFFER: That's right. So he spells out in four speeches - essays - that he gives why photography is so important in ending slavery and racism and achieving civil rights. And he believed in the camera's truth value - that even in the hands of a racist white, the camera will not lie. Thus, it was a wonderful critique or counter to the proliferation of racist caricatures, particularly in blackface minstrelsy.
MARTIN: How much control did he have over the way he was portrayed in these photographs? I mean, was it his choice never to smile, or was that the convention of the time?
STAUFFER: Yes, yes. It wasn't necessarily a convention, but Douglass specifically - in print, he said that he did not want - he did not want to be portrayed as a happy slave. The smiling black was to play into the racist caricature. And his cause of ending slavery and ending racism had the gravity that required a stern look. And so he tended to confront the viewer, look directly into the camera. And so it was a confrontational pose that countered what most photographic manuals instructed the photographer - to position the sitter in a visionary gaze so that you looked up or beyond the camera, looking far away.
He was very self-conscious and sensitive of his visual image, even as a slave in the early 1840s. He describes feeling down in the mouth and looking in a mirror and perceiving himself as ugly, which is really fascinating. And he was very self-conscious of how he presented himself both as - in a photograph, as a speaker, as a writer. The public persona - the look of the public persona was crucial to him because he wanted to enter into the public sphere with an equal voice with an equal image and have the same rights as any other citizen.
Could it be that, in an age of selfies, smiles, etc., we bluntly categorize FD's expression as 'smiling or not smiling' because of our expectations for old photos, while to his contemporaries, his 'stern look' would stand out as stonier than the prevailing non-smiling norm? I think only FD's word can solve this.
However, while it is relatively undisputed that FD took an incredible number of photos, I've found it much more difficult to locate sources to this end, beyond John Stauffer, or, what texts John Stauffer is referring to. Other authors seem to attribute his attitudes regarding the value of pictures and his marked stare to inconsistent or nebulous reasons.
So, at 18,000 upvotes and boosting a murky truth, what are some other reliable authors, or primary sources which can succinctly get to the bottom of this? Did Fredrick Douglass take every one of his numerous photos with the intention of sending a message?
The good news is that you didn't wildly mislead anyone. In 1845, a British artist drew a portrait of Douglass for the front cover of his autobiography. The portrait shows him with a small smile, looking almost bemused. Douglass wrote to his editor that he was dissatisfied with the drawing as it presented him as happy, "with a much more kindly and amicable expression than is generally thought to characterize the face of a fugitive."^1 Stauffer was likely referring to that particular letter in his interview. In other letters, Douglass expressed frustration that the smile made it appear as if he was untroubled or unburdened by his experiences as an enslaved person. The 2018 version of his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, edited by Celeste-Marie Bernier, also includes original quotes from these letters and suggest he was determined to have more editorial control over his image after that experience. Finally, Douglass reviewed the copy of the book for his paper, The North Star, and repeated the quote, except this time, ended with the phrase "fugitive slave."
Douglass was, to all intents and purposes, an artist. He was fascinated by the interplay between light and dark in photography, between truth and fiction in the written word. It's safe to conclude that he enjoyed and appreciated photography - he wrote multiple essays on the topic, sat for portraits for nearly anyone who asked (provided he had editorial control) and took photographs himself. Stauffer's book contains multiple essays written by Douglass about the beauty of photography and each essay is a testament to his appreciation of the emerging art form.
His unwillingness to perpetuate stereotypes or be seen as free from the burdens of his past was one reason for his expression. There are at least two other ways to consider the nature of Douglass' portraits.
First, his writing suggests he simply didn't trust white artists. In his own words (also from The North Star):
Negroes can never have impartial portraits, at the hands of white artists. It seems to us next to impossible for white men to take likenesses of black men, without most grossly exaggerating their distinctive features. And the reason is obvious. Artists, like all other white persons, have adopted a theory respecting the distinctive features of Negro physiognomy. We have heard many white persons say, that ‘Negroes look all alike,’ and that they could not distinguish between the old and the young. They associate with the Negro face, high cheekbones, distended nostril, depressed nose, thick lips, and retreating foreheads. This theory impressed strongly upon the mind of an artist exercises a powerful influence over his pencil, and very naturally leads him to distort and exaggerate those peculiarities, even when they scarcely exist in the original.
He was interested in the nature of light and early film and at least one of his essays speaks to photography development and his opinions on different ways to accurately capture Black complexions. He was a student of the art form and learned what he liked and what he didn't like. In effect, he maintained a similar expression in virtually all of his portraits because he could be confident he would be satisfied with how it would turn out. It appears to be a way for him to maintain control over his image and the photography experience.
Second, he wrote, and spoke, about the nature of identity and what it means to construct an identity of one's own making. Part of that was exploring and using repetition, in both his writing and his portraits. There's a wonderful essay by Henry Louis Gates Jr. in which he explores Douglass' relationship with photography.
Douglass would write, in his revised account of his road from slavery to freedom, that “a man, without force, is without the essential dignity of humanity. Human nature is so constituted, that it cannot honor a helpless man, although it can pity him; and even this it cannot do long, if the signs of power do not arise." But this begs the question: how does one broadcast those signs of power, the force of irresistible, inimitable subjectivity? How does one represent a group while at the same time charting the uniqueness of one’s self, again, in one’s “own form”?
Gates goes on to demonstrate how Douglass' very presence in his portrait speaks to his interest in communicating strength and power. When we look at his unsmiling face, the viewer is seeing a man asserting his humanity and his worth. By looking directly at the camera, he was establishing himself as an equal to the photographer and the viewer.