Rudolf Eickemeyer's Photographs and the Reality of Freedom Lesson Plan
By Jean M. West

Overview

This lesson plan should be used with or as a follow-up lesson to the topic of life after slavery. Students will examine the images of African Americans made by the photographer Rudolf Eickemeyer, Jr. (1862-1932). Eickemeyer was a leader in the so-called Pictorialist Movement that dominated around 1900. He used careful composition and soft focus to produce artistic images, usually romantic in comparison to the hard-edged Modernist School that followed. Students will examine the role of photographer, subject, camera, and audience in creating and interpreting images of the reality of freedom. The lesson is intended to be used by middle or high school students in history, photography, and/or language arts classes.

Curriculum Standards

For a list of standards that this unit addresses, click here.

Time required

From one class period to several days, depending on the depth of research and amount of photographic or computer lab time students use to examine and evaluate the images within the gallery.

Materials

Internet access.

The Lesson

Anticipatory Set

1. Select any large photograph, whether historic, personal or commercial, and post it in the classroom. Ask students to brainstorm what was necessary for them to be able to view the photograph.



2. Categorize students' answers under the general headings of: photographer, subject, camera/film/developing process, and audience. Discuss the types of cameras used, types of images produced, and photographic styles, as well as how changing audiences may impact on the way an image is perceived over time.



3. Conclude the activity by asking students to write a journal entry discussing how modern audiences can prepare themselves to look at a century-old photograph as a contemporary viewer rather than as a 21st-century viewer.

Procedures

1. Divide the class into research teams to examine Eickemeyer's collection and the roles of each of the following four elements: camera (media), photographer, subject, and audience. (Depending on class size, you may wish to divide the photographs among three-five teams so that they can concentrate on specific images.)



2. Ask each team to research answers to the questions for their section (as outlined below) and be prepared to offer a five-minute presentation on their element. Depending on constraints of time and technology, students may use illustrative materials, objects, or a computer slide show as they share their findings.


1. Camera:


• What type of camera was used?



• What type of medium (glass plate, paper, stereographic card, other) were the images recorded on?



• What was the typical length of exposure?



• What developing process was used with this camera and medium?



• How quickly after exposure of the medium was developing necessary?



• How do the limits of the camera, medium, and developing impact the location where the photograph can be taken, the light conditions under which it can be taken, and the tolerance of the camera for motion?



• Given the technological limitations, do you think that as many photographs were taken in this era as now? Of those photographs taken is this era, what factors might have led to their loss or destruction?



• Compare the clarity and tones of the black-and-white photographs of this time period with contemporary images.


2. Photographer:


• Who was the photographer? Does it matter if we know?



• Is there any evidence of why the photographer decided to photograph these subjects?



• What went into taking these photographs in terms of the photographer's skill and costs, factoring in the amount of equipment and materials required?



• Is there any evidence that the photograph was staged rather than spontaneous? Consider props, camera focus, light source, and amount of motion of subject.



• Consider the editorial choices of this photographer, such as:


• Portraits rather than nature, architectural, or other subjects



• Choice of settings and props (books, vegetables)



• Choice of subjects (non-paying subjects, former slaves)



• Choice of what is in the lens and what is excluded from the picture



• Choice of routine rather than special event



• Choice of illumination


3. Subject:


• Who was/were the subject(s)? Does it matter if we know?



• Do you think this/these subject(s) had ever been photographed before? How "hi-tech" was photography compared to the level of technology in their ordinary life?



• Why do you think each subject consented to the picture?



• How spontaneous do you think the individual in each photograph was?



• Is spontaneity necessary to capture real emotion and truth in a photograph?



• Do you think the subject(s) put any constraints on the photographer in the taking of the photograph, like asking to wash up first or change outfits or be photographed from their "good side?"



• Do you think, like modern models or others photographed today, that these subjects gave written or verbal consent to being photographed, asked for authority to block sale of an image, or asked for a percentage of profits made from the use of their image?



• Do you think the subject(s) ever saw the final image(s)?


4. Audience:


• Who do you think was the original intended audience for these images?



• How do you think the original audience responded to these images? Are they typical of images of the era?



• What aspects of the images do you think the original audiences understood better than modern audiences would?



• What is the impact of this photograph on you?



• What questions would you like to ask the photographer?



• What questions would you like to ask the subject?



• What do you bring to the photograph that gives you an understanding that the original audience lacked?



• Do you think the impact of this photograph would be as great if it were a video? If it were in color? If it had audio?



• Does this image reach out to you over time or not, and why? Consider whether the primitive rural conditions in which these subjects live and the lack of modern color and audio dimensions take away from its power or not.
3. As a culminating activity, ask students to discuss the following questions as a class:
   
   
   • What aspects of the day-to-day reality of a former slave's life does this collection of photographs capture? Consider living conditions, literacy, and the nature of their work.
   
   
   
   • What aspects of the emotions of "the reality of freedom"--from hope to despair--does this capture? Is there a prevailing emotion in the grouping? Explain.
   
   
   
   • How was the "reality of freedom" different for the child than for the adults? For the aged compared to the young? Is that captured in the photographs?
   
   
   
   • What elements of the "reality of freedom" does a photographer capture that cannot be captured from other primary sources such as narratives or drawings? Do their images in photographs provide some of the only testimony of former slaves that survives today about the "reality of freedom?" Consider the illiteracy rate among former slaves, their lack of access to writers and publishers, and their lack of free time.
   
   
   
   • How important is chronology or historical context to understanding these photographs?
   
   
   
   • Are Eickemeyer's photographs more like poetry or more like documents? Are Eickemeyer's photographs more romanticized than modern photographers' photographs? What impacts do Pictorialist photographs have that modern photographs lack, or vice versa?

Assessment

You may evaluate classroom presentations on a 25-point scale (which may be multiplied by 4 to convert to 100-point scale or for conversion to letter grades) using the following rubric:

Related Works

1. Rudolf Eickemeyer donated his collection to the Smithsonian Institution in 1930. A brief historical background and biography, "Amateur Art Photographers in 1896," is available at http://americanhistory.si.edu/1896/ps04.htm.

A view of his field kit (camera, lenses, and traveling case) is available at the Smithsonian's History Wired website at: http://historywired.si.edu/object.cfm?ID=468. The website also provides links to an article about the notorious Evelyn Nesbit (featured in the musical Ragtime!), who was photographed by Rudolf Eickemeyer.

2. In 1987, Smithsonian Institution Press published In My Studio: Rudolf Eickemeyer, Jr. and the Art of the Camera 1885-1930. The catalog for an exhibition held at the Hudson River Museum, written by Mary Panzer and Estelle Jussim, examined Eickemeyer's role as a pioneer in the Pictorialist movement. It also includes biographies of his contemporaries, a chronology, and bibliography.

Along with Alfred Stieglitz, Eickemeyer was an early American member of The Linked Ring, an international association of photographers. However, after Eickemeyer attempted to popularize his photographs by publishing them in books, magazines and advertisements, Stieglitz felt that Eickemeyer had betrayed art for commercial success, refused to publish his photographs, and barred him from his Photo-Secession movement. The issue of whether photography should be pursued as art rather than as a business continues to be debated in the photographic community today. For a discussion of the falling out between Stieglitz and Eickemeyer, read Roger Hull's "Emplacement, Displacement, and the Fate of Photographs," an essay in Multiple Views, Logan Grant Essays on Photography, 1983-89 (University of New Mexico Press, 1991).

Interdisciplinary Links

• Language Arts--Point of View Writing:


1. Write an interior monologue or journal entry from the point of view of Eickemeyer explaining what the reality of freedom was; OR Describe as a journal entry what went into creating one of these images from Eickemeyer's point of view; OR Write a stream-of-consciousness entry from the viewpoint of Eickemeyer deciding whether to say anything additional about these photographs to modern viewers or to let the work stand on its own merits, and what his reasoning is.



2. Write from the point of view of the subject of one of Eickemeyer's photographs explaining what the reality of freedom was; OR Describe, through a narrative, your reaction to being photographed by Rudolf Eickemeyer; OR Write a stream-of-consciousness entry from the point of view of one of Eickemeyer's photographic subjects deciding whether to say anything additional about the photograph to a modern audience or let the photograph stand on its own merits.


• Photography or Graphic Arts Class:


1. Capture one of the photographs from the website and "develop" it through a digital processing program in at least five ways, such as cropping, flipping, cutouts, rotation, skewing, image sizing, fading, outlining, colorizing, converting to sepia or cyan, using repetitive images, blurring, shadowing, transparencies, gradient colorizing, edge treatments, and so forth. Explain why you chose the method you used and what it brings to the photograph that the original format did not.



2. Work with the photography instructor or a professional photographer to make a series of images of the same subject using different cameras. Make a display.



3. Convert the photographs in this series into a computer slide show selecting quotes from narratives or capturing audio files of former slaves, which adds a textual or audio dimension to the images.



4. Clatonia Joaquin Dorticus was an African-American woman who invented both an improved photographic print wash machine and an improved machine for embossing photographs in the 1890s. Locate information about her print washer or embosser, for instance her patents or about information about her life as an inventor.



5. Why do some images transcend time, technology, subject matter, and photographer's skill, while others do not? Find, either in this collection or in another, the finest photograph you've ever seen, make a copy, and explain why it is the finest.



6. Consider your own photographs, how you take them, preserve them, display them, and organize them (or not). Look into ways to safely store, label, and display your photographic treasures. Brainstorm ways that you can preserve your photographs on a realistic budget, given your space and time constraints, and then prepare a plan including a to-do list. Then, enact your plan.

This lesson was submitted by Jean West, an education consultant in Port Orange, Florida.