The Scourged Back-- A Famous Photo of a Beaten Runaway Slave, Revisited

Yesterday (Thursday May 2, 2013) I came home at night and saw that my blog had received nearly 700 hits in a few hours, most of them for a post I wrote over four years ago called "The Scarred Back of a Slave Named Gordon".  I couldn't figure out where the interest in this famous and grisly photograph was coming from until my sharp-eyed sister-in-law, Robin Paulson, alerted me to an on-line essay in The New York Times' Opinionator blog in the  "Disunion" section, titled "A photo taken 150 years ago of a runaway slave changed the way Americans saw the Civil War".  The essay by Ted Widmer discussed this watershed image,  which dramatized, through the still-new science of photography, the brutality of some slave owners and served as an effective tool for the abolitionist cause.  Widmer went on to discuss other photographs currently on view in the exhibit "Photography and the American Civil War" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  I think that readers wanted to know more about the story of this particular slave, and that's why they searched out my original blog post.  I've had a number of comments since it was first published in October of 2009 and I'm re-posting it below along with the comments and also with an additional image of Gordon and his scarred back, which I added to the post only about a week ago.

On page 14 of the Sept. 20, [2009] Book Review, The New York Times published a shocking photograph of a slave with a horribly scarred back to illustrate a review of “Deliver Us from Evil”.

Because I collect antique photos and have many dealing with slavery and the life of black people in the 1800's, I wrote to the Times the back story behind this photo, and the letter, somewhat abbreviated, is in the book review section this Sunday--Oct. 4, 2009.

I wrote: This famous photograph, usually titled “The Scourged Back”, was widely circulated by abolitionists and is one of the earliest examples of photography used as propaganda. A contemporary newspaper, The New York Independent, commented: “This Card Photograph should be multiplied by the 100,000 and scattered over the states. It tells the story in a way that even Mrs. (Harriet Beecher) Stowe cannot approach, because it tells the story to the eye.”

As photo historian Kathleen Collins explained in The History of Photography Vol. 9 Number 1, January, 1985—it shows a slave named Gordon who escaped his master in Mississippi by rubbing himself with onions to throw off the bloodhounds. He took refuge with the Union Army at Baton Rouge and, in 1863, three engraved portraits of him were printed in Harper’s Weekly, showing the man “as he underwent the surgical examination previous to being mustered into the service—his back furrowed and scarred with the traces of a whipping administered on Christmas Day last.”

The actual photographs of the escaped slave, taken by McPherson and Oliver of New Orleans, were widely circulated as carte-de-visite photos. On the verso of the mount were the comments of S. K. Towle, Surgeon, 30th Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteers: “…Few sensation writers ever depicted worse punishments than this man must have received, though nothing in his appearance indicates any unusual viciousness—but on the contrary, he seems intelligent and well-behaved.”

I have a colored glass slide of the same photograph (above) in my collection, undoubtedly used in anti-slavery lectures. Abolitionists exploited the new medium of photography, circulating, in addition to "the Scourged Back", CDV’s of a slave named Wilson who was branded on the forehead, and selling thousands of the series of emancipated “white”-appearing slave children from New Orleans, posed patriotically, including wrapped in the American flag. On the back was printed: “The nett [sic] proceeds from the sale of these Photographs will be devoted to the education of colored people in the department of the Gulf now under the command of Maj. Gen. Banks.”

April 24, 2013--Because of questions I've received about this famous image, I am now adding below one of the original CDVs of Gordon's back showing him with his head tilted farther back to show his beard.  I do not own this image, but I've always been aware of it. I always assumed that both these poses of Gordon were taken at the same time, but when I study them together I don't know.  Another question--I always assumed that "my" image up at the top was  reversed--something that could easily happen with a glass negative.  (All daguerreotypes and ambrotypes are reversed mirror images of the actual subject, so if the subject is holding a newspaper, for example, the headlines will be reversed mirror-image writing.)  Now, looking at these two photos of Gordon together, I can't tell if the images show him turned to face opposite sides, or is one of them reversed and he's looking over his left shoulder in both of them?  Or do you think they were taken at two different photo sessions, separated by time?  Opinions? 

Rolling Crone and Elizabeth Keckley together in The New York Times On Line

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The three verified images of Elizabeth Keckley

           Last Thursday I got on a plane for Miami, just missing the blizzard called Nemo.  This long-planned trip brought me to South Beach to help babysit granddaughter Amalia while daughter Eleni was traveling to South Carolina to promote her newest book “Other Waters.”

           On the same day I left Boston, Feb. 7,  the New York Times on-line published an article I wrote for them about Elizabeth Keckley, the mulatto former slave who became  the dressmaker and confidant of Mary Todd Lincoln.  Here’s where you can see it:

   http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/07/mrs-keckley-has-met-with-great-success/

          The article, “Mrs. Keckley has Met with Great Success”, appeared in a section of The Times’ “Opinionator” section called “Disunion” which “follows the Civil War as it unfolded.”  Appearing in this section inevitably brings a crowd of readers and many comments, some of them from experts in every detail of the Civil War (which I am not!)

          I first discovered Elizabeth Keckley – an extraordinary woman who bought freedom from slavery for herself and her son with her skills at sewing—when, in 2007, I bought on E-Bay a cased ambrotype portrait of a mixed-race woman. Pinned to the velvet lining was a scrap of paper with the words “Elizabeth Keckley, Formerly a Slave”.  Researching her story was a revelation to me—of what a woman born into slavery managed to achieve in the nineteenth century. I posted my first story about her in “A Rolling Crone on Sept 27, 2009.

 http://arollingcrone.blogspot.com/2009/09/first-black-woman-in-white-house.html

          A month later, in Oct. 23, 2009, I wrote a second post on Keckley, comparing the only three known images of her to the woman in the ambrotype I had bought.  Here’s the post: 

http://arollingcrone.blogspot.com/2009/10/story-behind-photo-elizabeth-keckley.html

         In the end I realized sadly that my image of “Elizabeth Keckley” was not authentic—there was too much disparity between the verified images of Keckley and the one I bought.  But I didn’t mind that much, because buying the image had introduced me to such a fascinating person.

          I read two books about Keckley’s life and I tried unsuccessfully to interest The New York Times in publishing  an article about Keckley, but did not succeed.  Then, a few months ago, the film “Lincoln” appeared and snapped up a lot of nominations for the Oscars.  Evidently many who saw the film were intrigued by the character of Elizabeth Keckley,  (portrayed by actress Gloria Reuben)  in a relatively minor role, and they wanted to learn more about her. 

           I knew this was true because the number of hits on my old posts about Keckley suddenly soared as people began Googling her.  I tried again to interest The Times in a piece about her and last Thursday it appeared in “Disunion.” (And yesterday’s Sunday Times Book Review contained a full-page ad for the new novel “Mrs. Lincoln’s Dressmaker” by Jennifer Chiaverini, which is already number 11 on the Best Seller list.)

           So far my essay in “Disunion” has received 34 comments—some critical, some favorable.  The most common complaints claim that it’s inaccurate to say that Mary Todd Lincoln was institutionalized by her son Robert when she  “descended into total madness”.   He did commit her to an institution for fear that she would harm herself, but evidently she was not completely insane and was later released.

 

         Another criticism that frequently pops up when I write about racial issues is that it’s wrong to call mulattoes like Elizabeth Keckley or apparently-white former slaves like her son George, “African American” or  “black.”  I completely understand and agree with this point, but as one Stephen D. Calhoun wrote after a comment from the always-irate A. Powell on my “Disunion” piece:  

 

          In 1858 the rules of the laws of Maryland classified all mulattoes as negroes. Within the rules and laws of that era, the classification is not anachronistic. It is accurate.

 

         The comments I liked best were, of course, the many positive ones, especially this one from Ole Holsti in Salt Lake city, UT:

         This entire series is wonderful, and this is one of the best. Many thanks!

 

          Eventually, I’m told, The Times will publish a book including selected essays from the “Disunion” series, and I’m hoping that my piece on Elizabeth Keckley might be included.  Meanwhile, I’m optimistic enough to hope that in future I can interest The Times’ editors in some other essays on my special area of interest:  how the Abolitionists (as well as pro-slavery advocates) used the fairly new “science” of photography to create propaganda to promote their views.  (Some essays I've already written on that subject for "A Rolling Crone" are listed at right under the heading "The Story Behind the Photograph".)