Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Rev. W.F. Johnson: Blind Phrenologist, Abolitionist, and Picture Show Lecturer



Beginning in April 2016, the Library Company will host Common Touch, a multimedia and sensory exhibition curated by artist Teresa Jaynes. Generously funded by the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, the exhibition inspired by historical embossed and raised-letter documents for the visually impaired will explore the nature of perception. The following is a shared blog post from the CommonTouch website, where in anticipation of the forthcoming exhibition we have been showcasing relevant items from our historical collections documenting the blind and other communities with disabilities.     




 
Camera Obscura! [United States, ca. 1853]. Printed handbill. 11.5 x 5 in.

Picture shows a handbill illustrated with a decorative border. The document will be described from the top of the page to the bottom.  Text reads: Camera Obscura! [new line] There will be an Exhibition [new line] of  [new line]  Paintings! [new line] Given this [blank] Even[in]g, [new line]  at 7 o’clock, [blank] 185[blank] [new line]. In the [blank]  [new line] at [blank]. [new line] At which [new line] Prof. W. F. Johnson,  [new line] A Colored Gentleman, of the N. Y. In-[new line] stitute for the Blind, will introduce to the citizens [new line] of this vicinity, and the public generally, without [new line] reference to Party or Politics, Fifteen Scenes, illus-[new line] trative of some of the features of the American In- [new line] stitution of Slavery, accompanied by some ap- [new line]propriate odes, “The Slave Mothers’s La-[new line] ment,” “Appeal to Christina,” “Un- [new line] cle Tom’s Religion.” To conclude with ten interesting Changing [new line] Views, magnified, active, and as large as life. [new line] Admission One Shilling. [new line] Children Under 10 years of age sixpence. [new line] [picture of pointed finger] Complimentary to Press and Clergy. [new line] Opinion of the Press.- Mr. Johnson, has been a re- [new line] sident of our village, when at home, for some 20 years, during much of [new line] which time we have been acquainted with him. Blind since his youth, [new line] he has, with untiring perseverance [sic], educated himself. During three [new line] years’ residence in New York Institute for the blind, he made him [new line] self acquainted with the science of Phrenology, under the instruction of [new line]  Prof. Fowler. The independence and strength of character exhibited by [new line] Mr. J. in procuring an education, with the privilege of sight denied him, [new line] is worthy of admirati[o]n;  and those who know him, stand ready at all [new line] times to attend his lectures and exhibitions. He has an instructive and [new line] entertaining exhibition. – Ithaca Journal. [End of description]


The Library Company has several collecting strengths and many often intersect and intertwine as in the case of this handbill advertising a circa 1853 picture show presented by the blind African American abolitionist, professor, and minister William F. Johnson. Pertinent to our African American history, visual culture, and disability studies collections, the print represents the career of a man whose profession was comprised of intertwined roles of educator, abolitionist, and phrenologist.

Born free in Baltimore, Maryland in 1822 and blind from a young age, Johnson is most remembered for his revered position as Superintendent of the Brooklyn Colored Howard Orphan Asylum from 1870 to his death in 1903. His earlier career as a lecturer, typically using a camera obscura to provide an illustrated presentation, is often overshadowed by his later calling.

Before movie theaters, camera obscura rooms provided a similar visual experience. Composed of a darkened room in which a light was shown through illustrated glass plates, the camera allowed for the images on the plate to be reproduced in color on an inside wall. During the 1850s Johnson not only informed his audience with an exhibition of paintings of “fifteen scenes, illustrative of some of the features of the American Institution of Slavery,” but also created a verbal picture “without reference to Party or Politics.” to deepen the understanding of their context for their viewers.

By promoting the non-partisanship of his exhibition, Johnson marketed his presentation to a diverse crowd that would likely not have attended his lecture if advertised more stridently.  People curious to see a blind man lecture on illustrations, which he himself could not physically see, certainly comprised a segment of the audience.  Enticed by the spectacle of Johnson, the curious there less to learn about the life of a slave and more to see Johnson, still received a visual, and more resonant, lesson of the injustices of slavery.

Audience members also typically partook of Johnson’s skills as a phrenologist. Phrenology, a pseudoscience that linked bumps on a person's head to certain aspects of the individual's personality, character, and mental capacity, had not only been taught at Johnson’s alma mater the New York Institute for the Blind, but also at the Perkins Institute for the Blind in Massachusetts. Based on touch, phrenology allowed Johnson, an African American man who was blind and likely educated through his fingers, to educate his audience, in a poignant manner, about their personal identity as well as their character in a society that permitted slavery.

Although absent itself of much illustration, this handbill provides a picture of the man, the culture, and the society that fostered its production. The printed sheet implies Johnson’s savvy understanding of the visual and popular culture of his time to facilitate his mission to end slavery through the power of sight and touch.


Selected Sources:
William Hanks Levy,  Blindness and the Blind: Or A Treatise on the Science of Typhology. London: Chapman and Hall, 1872.

1870 and 1900 United States Federal Census, Ancestry.com

“From our Philadelphia Correspondent,” Provincial Freeman, June 23, 1855.

“The Howard Orphan Asylum,” New York Globe, June 14, 1884.

“New York and Brooklyn News,” Frederick Douglass’s Paper, February 2, 1855.

“Prof. W. F. Johnson,” The Christian Recorder, July 16, 1864.

“The Rev. W. F. Johnson,” New York Times, October 19, 1903.

Erika Piola
Associate Curator, Prints & Photographs
Co-director, VCP at LCP
 

Wednesday, September 23, 2015

The LCP Abolitionist Walking Tour: A Digital Humanities Intern Project

As the Digital Humanities Intern at the Library Company of Philadelphia (LCP) this summer I had the opportunity to build an online Abolitionist Walking Tour. This tour is based on the original walking tour students took part in with LCP Director Richard S. Newman during the NEH Summer Seminar for School Teachers. This summer seminar is now available in digital form at www.abolitionseminar.org, a web-based educational tool designed for students and educators. The tour consists of fifteen historic locations around the city of Philadelphia and highlights buildings, people, and events that played a role in the Abolitionist Movement in the United States of America - from the initial public protest of Quakers against slavery in 1688 through the organization of Black regiment training camps for the Civil War in 1863.

Considering that the majority of materials were already identified and audio recordings produced, my starting point was to determine the best program or app to work with. The goal was to structure our materials in relation to a location on a map, which would link the GPS point to the audio descriptions and relevant graphics and texts. We needed something that would be able to clearly connect the present-day locations and experience of Philadelphia with the history and collections held at LCP. I reviewed over 15 apps and potential designs that combined maps, tours, and history - all offering a wide range of services and structures, prices and flexibility. Each app had its pros and cons, but izi.TRAVEL was the best suited to meet our vision for the project.

izi.TRAVEL has a number of clear benefits. First, LCP can utilize it to produce outside walking tours and internal gallery tours. It is exciting to have a new outlet for sharing our expansive collections in a curated manner with new audiences. We can create an unlimited number of tours throughout Philadelphia and within our facilities that can be accessed for free by anyone with a smartphone or internet access around the world. Second, the structure of viewing each stop simply incorporates everything we want the user to be able to experience:  a walking route and directions, automatically (or manually) playing audio, and captions to the associated images with links to their official catalog records. Third, setting up the tour is quite easy on the creator’s end; while there are a few design quirks that I would prefer to make more consistent, it didn’t take much time to upload our materials in a clear format.

Learning about the different ways to organize and present LCP content to users is interesting in and of itself, but I was also fascinated by the information in the tour. In my academic research and previous work experience, I have largely focused on 20th century history, so looking intensely into 18th and 19th century materials was somewhat different. While searching beyond the already identified resources, I found (often with the support of helpful LCP staff) additional photographs, frontispieces of or promotions for relevant books, and original maps within the LCP collections that help tell a more complete story of the Abolitionist Movement in Philadelphia.  I think that some tour stops will be familiar to most people, like the Liberty Bell, but other essential figures like Frances Ellen Watkins Harper or the Adelphi Building, where the American Anti-Slavery Society was formed, will highlight valuable information to Philadelphians, tourists, and history aficionados who are interested in the shifting understanding of slavery in the city and the nation. 

I like the concept of layering history on top of our current experience of place, the way this walking tour can; it allows the way we move through our surroundings to be transformed.  It is important to consider how the world previously existed in the same spaces we now occupy, in part to give us a sense of how we came to this point.  A quote from the izi.TRAVEL website about their goals aligns with the Library Company’s mission: “We believe that every site or work of art has a story waiting to be told. That stories bring art, streets and cities to life. And that stories connect people.”  This tour will provide an innovative and exciting way to experience the history of the Abolitionist Movement in Philadelphia while connecting new audiences to the Library Company of Philadelphia collections.

Kate Philipson, 2015 Summer Digital Humanities Intern