Deborah Willis and Carla Williams The Black Female Body in Photographs from Worlds Fairs and Expositions in "Race, Photography, and American Culture," exposure , volume 33, 1/2, Daytona Beach, Florida: Society for Photographic Education I. Introduction In the nineteenth century, the body of the black female symbolized three themescolonialism, scientific evolution, and sexualityand her representation in art and photography followed along these prescribed lines. Almost exclusively, black women were depicted in two ways: as nudes, generally of an ethnographic nature, or (usually) clothed in the company of a nude or sexually suggestive white female. The black woman occupied, like a prop or piece of drapery, through her real status as servant/slave/colonized subject, the lowest rung in a socio-economic hierarchy, serving the ends of private pleasure or economic/imperial domination. A number of significant developments in Western culture that coincided with the invention of photography contributed to the way in which black women were regarded and visualized. The births of popular culture and modern visual pornography, the development of the natural sciences and the related disciplines of ethnology and anthropology, and the abolition of slavery both in the colonies and at home were all practically simultaneous, and each served to compartmentalize, objectify, and categorize any manifestations of difference from the European ideal. In addition, with new industrial-based economies in Europe and the United States and the subsequent urbanization of their populations, a middle class was born and with it the modern notion of a popular culture specific to its interests. | |
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