About

6 cubic feet; photographic.
384 photographic prints, black and white
14 tintypes
6 stereographs

Collection Description

The Texas African American Photography Archive General Collection is an artificial collection gathered from a number of sources and is not related to a single entity. The collection contains photographs in a number of processes and formats. The images are of African American Texans or made by African American Texans and come from communities from around the state. Another series includes photographs of African American from other states.

The collection spans from the period from the 1850s through the 1970s and includes a number of photographic formats, from daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, tintypes, and albumen prints to gelatin silver prints. Genres are mostly confined to formal portraiture and informal snapshots. There are also several examples of crayon enlargements and prints unique frames. A number of African American-owned photographic studios are represented.

African American Photography in the United States

The TAAP Archive also includes the work of African American photographers in other areas of the country during different historical periods. These also include daguerrotypes, ambrotypes, tintypes, and albumen and gelatin silver prints. Most notable are daguerrotypes by James Presley Ball (1825-1901) in Cincinnati, Ohio, Portland, Oregon, and Helena, Montana, and the Goodridge Brothers (1841-1922) in York, Pennsylvania, and Saginaw, Michigan. Other well-known African American photographers in the TAAP Archive collections are Addison N. Scurlock in Washington, D. C. and Prentice Herman Polk in Tuskegee, Alabama. These images and others by lesser-known photographers establish a national context for the TAAP Archive and provide valuable information about African American history and culture.

Arrangement: arranged by series and by format.

Copyright and permissions: use in educational research and publications only. Permission from TAAP Archive required.

Source: Documentary Arts Acquisition Fund