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Baltimore City slave trade

source slave+boys3.ph

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As early as in the 19th century the living conditions for the lower classes were the subject of photography. Jacob Riis and Lewis Hine were the two main photographers showcasing the lives of the poor in America. While Riis chose to focus on immigrants, Hine looked at using photography to change child labour laws.

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Social documentary photography has its roots in the 19th Century work of Henry Mayhew, Jacob Riis, and Lewis Hine, but began to take further form through the photographic practice of the Farm Security Administration (FSA) in the USA. The FSA hired photographers and writers to report and document the plight of poor farmers. Under Roy Stryker, the Information Division of the FSA adopted a goal of "introducing America to Americans."

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Lewis Hine was an American sociologist and photographer.

Hine led his sociology classes to Ellis Island in New York Harbor, photographing the thousands of immigrants who arrived each day. Between 1904 and 1909, Hine took over 200 plates (photographs) and came to the realization that documentary photography could be employed as a tool for social change and reform.

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End of slavery but the beginning of racism and "discrimination systemic"

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End of slavery but the beginning of racism and "discrimination systemic"

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When President Abraham Lincoln passed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 it allowed slaves to join the Union Army and freed any slave from rebel states and by 1865 all slaves were freed and slavery was ended by the formal consent of the Thirteenth Amendement. However later on in 1876 "The Jim Crow Law which were state and local segregation laws" cause a separation between blacks and whites. Black people were treated as being less important and were at a disadvantage. This law also lead to lynchings which were "extrajudicial executions of black men, women and children and sympathetic whites" this had cause 2,000 - 20,000 people being killed.

source http://www.historynet.com/black-history

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Thomas Johnson holding a whip and chain which were used to punish slaves

Source http://spartacus-educational.com/USAjohnsonJ2.jpg

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"Slaveholders whipped, shackled, hanged, beat, burned, mutilated, branded, and imprisoned slaves. Slave women were often subject to rape and sexual   abuse.

Punishment was often meted out in response to disobedience or perceived infractions, but sometimes abuse was carried out simply to reassert the dominance of the master or overseer."

Source
https://www.boundless.com/u-s-history/textbooks/boundless-u-s-history-textbook/slavery-in-the-antebellum-u-s-1820-1840-16/slavery-in-the-u-s-122/treatment-of-slaves-in-the-united-states-652-9460/

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Unequal laws between slaves and Westerns

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Unequal laws between slaves and Westerns

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"Any slave found guilty of arson, rape of a white woman, or conspiracy to rebel was put to death. However, since the slave woman was chattel, a white man who raped her was guilty only of a trespass on the master's property. Rape was common on the plantation, and very few cases were ever reported."

Source   http://www.ushistory.org/us/27b.asp

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"The key is that cotton and slaves helped define each other, at least in the cotton South. By the 1850s, slavery and cotton had become so intertwined, that the very idea of change—be it crop diversity, anti-slavery ideologies, economic diversification, or the increasingly staggering cost of purchasing and maintaining slaves—became anathema to the Southern economic and cultural identity.

Slaves communicated in the slave markets of the urban South, and worked together to help their families, ease their loads, or simply frustrate their owners. Simple actions of resistance, such as breaking a hoe, running a wagon off the road, causing a delay in production due to injury, running away, or even pregnancy, provided a language shared by nearly all slaves in the agricultural workforce, a sense of unity that remained unsaid, but was acted out daily

Without slavery, many thought, “blacks” (the word most often used for “slaves” in regular conversation) would become violent, aimless, and uncontrollable."

Source http://www.americanyawp.com/text/11-the-cotton-revolution/

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Link between Poverty and Slavery/Racism

-Institutional/systemic oppression

People focused on surviving = primary concern

Changing their circumstances = secondary concern, as they don’t have the power or control

Photography used in two ways: Either to create change in people’s circumstances or to keep them in their current position, by showing them as 'different' or 'undeserving' of being helped.

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Advertisement for slaves in Kentucky in 1855

source https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/a7/b4/a9/a7b4a933d74c93fb19990c7face94686.jpg

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where slaves would be bought in Atlanta Georgia 1864

source https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/51/Slave_Market-Atlanta_Georgia_1864.jpg

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Slave workers

source http://cdn.history.com/sites/2/2016/05/Contrabands_at_Headquarters_of_General_Lafayette_by_Mathew_Brady-A.jpeg

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Riis was a contradiction. He was an immigrant in America and when he first moved there was homeless for a while and in extreme poverty. This meant he empathised with those he photographed. He published “How the Other Half Lives” to show to the middle class the reality of other people's lives in a bid to change policies and be rid of extreme poverty.

But he also used stereotypes to his advantage. He presented his photographs light-heartedly and  “Audiences treated the lectures - and the press reviewed them - as entertainment”. “He separated the impoverished into two categories: those deserving of assistance and everyone else. He also never outright called for any government intervention, even though it came anyway.

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Article discussing Jacob Riis and racial stereotypes of African-Americans
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~ma04/wood/ykid/riis_blacks.htm

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"These appalling social conditions were not accidental but purposeful through a profitable union of industrialists who were anxious to take advantage of the unending tide of cheap labor and politicians who benefited from abetting the financially powerful. Absentee landlords ruled supreme over this lucrative territory, buildings earned nothing but revenue because the tenants could not demand improvements or upkeep.

All of the political and social and economic powers worked in concert to keep the suppressed newcomers in living conditions so terrible that they would not rebel or protest because, packed in a small area often swept by epidemics, they were so preoccupied with mere survival."

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Homeless boys, Jacob Riis

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the scars the had remained due to the punishments he had received.

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Intersectionality is a concept often used in critical theories to describe the ways in which oppressive institutions (racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, xenophobia, classism, etc.) are interconnected and cannot be examined separately from one another.

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1. 1

2. :  companionship or association with one's fellows :  friendly or intimate intercourse :  company

3. 2

4. :  a voluntary association of individuals for common ends; especially  :  an organized group working together or periodically meeting because of common interests, beliefs, or profession

5. 3

6. a :  an enduring and cooperating social group whose members have developed organized patterns of relationships through interaction with one another

7. b :  a community, nation, or broad grouping of people having common traditions, institutions, and collective activities and interests

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The common view at the time of mid 1800s was that poverty and the people affected by it were a hindrance and a barrier to New York City’s development. What was written in a New York Times article and what was believed at the time was that “Christianity, Education, Work, are the remedies…” But due to systematic oppression and inequality of different groups this was not possible. Upper class or prosperous people tried to justify this by saying that these people were lazy or deserving of this, or that their situation was almost genetic.

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Acceptable
Likely
Qualified
Suitable

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equality the opposite of inequality

noun, plural equalities.

1.

the state or quality of being equal; correspondence in quantity, degree, value, rank, or ability:

promoting equality of opportunity in the workplace.

2.

uniform character, as of motion or surface.

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"All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others" - George Orwell
A comment on the injustice of everyone seemingly having equal rights but in reality certain groups have privileges and are treated differently.

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inequality

noun

1.

the condition of being unequal; lack of equality;disparity:inequality of size.

2.

1. social or economic disparity:inequality between the rich and the poor;widening income inequality in America.

2. unequal opportunity or treatment resultingfrom this disparity:inequality in healthcare and education.

3.

disparity or relative inadequacy in naturalendowments:a startling inequality of intellect, talents, andphysical stamina.

4.

injustice; partiality.

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Slavery began in 1619 in America where Africans would be sent to America to become slaves as they were cheap labour. People in the south side of North America were the ones who relied a lot on slaves for labour. Most slaves lived in farms or plantation, they were restricted in what they could do and were not given the right to read or write these restrictions we applied to make the slaves dependant to their masters. Slaves who got married to other slaves and had families were often separated by having members of the family sold or removed by their masters. Most slaves were treated brutally in particular those who disobeyed their masters. Women were sexually abused by their masters. Africans were taken to America to become slaves as they wer

Source http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/slavery

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Immigration of 12 million people to Ellis Island resulted in widespread poverty, poor housing, and exploitative labour. Riis was a journalist and viewed himself as such, (not as a photographer), but as an immigrant himself from Denmark he conveys a personal connection to the people in his photographs, taken throughout New York.

His work had an effect on society at the time as “Revealing New York’s Other Half, A Complete Catalogue of his Photograhs” states “pioneering journalism about the conditions of the poor immeasurably advanced American social reform in the 19th and early 20th centuries”.

“He used photographs of squalid conditions in the poorest parts of New York City to convince middle class audiences of the need for action”.

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Sojourner Truth 1864

source https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcR1Q7bxGHv_C7Cg8x5SoItnhJAyvgjlRyptCYCFRbX2u_6GxEi7

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Sojourner Truth and Frederick Douglass were both very important and strong individuals as they had fought for what they had believed in and were able to get their freedom. Both of these individuals were subjected to slavery when they were children however had been able to escape. They had made themselves into commodities to promote human rights and anti-slavery. They both preached about their experiences as a slave and anti-slavery which they were successful in conveying how wrong it was to have slaves. They both also supported and were active on promoting women's rights.

source http://www.biography.com/people/frederick-douglass-9278324
http://www.biography.com/people/sojourner-truth-9511284

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"Weekly food rations -- usually corn meal, lard, some meat, molasses, peas, greens, and flour -- were distributed every Saturday. Vegetable patches or gardens, if permitted by the owner, supplied fresh produce to add to the rations. Morning meals were prepared and consumed at daybreak in the slaves' cabins. The day's other meals were usually prepared in a central cookhouse by an elderly man or woman no longer capable of strenuous labor in the field. Recalled a former enslaved man: "The peas, the beans, the turnips, the potatoes, all seasoned up with meats and sometimes a ham bone, was cooked in a big iron kettle and when meal time come they all gathered around the pot for a-plenty of helpings!" This took place at noon, or whenever the field slaves were given a break from work. At the day's end, some semblance of family dinner would be prepared by a wife or mother in individual cabins. The diets, high in fat and starch, were not nutritionally sound and could lead to ailments, including scurvy and rickets. Enslaved people in all regions and time periods often did not have enough to eat; some resorted to stealing food from the master. House slaves could slip food from leftovers in the kitchen, but had to be very careful not to get caught, for harsh punishments awaited such an offence. "

Children would only receive proper clothing once they reached adolescence. While Elderly slaves who could not work in the fields would not have shoes or an extra layer of clothing during Winter. However many field works did not get enough clothing.

Field slaves worked from sunrise to sunset. During harvest they would work for eighteen hours a day which was the same for men and women. Pregnant women were still expected to work until child birth and would have to carry their children on their backs as they worked. Once children were the age of twelve they had to work too. They were able to get Sunday's and some times parts of Saturday. They may also get one or two hours off if the day was hot.
source http://www.pbs.org/wnet/slavery/experience/living/history2.html
https://www.slideshare.net/xiwishyouwerebeautiful/daily-life-of-a-slave

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"From the 1830s to the 1860s, a movement to abolish slavery in America gained strength in the northern United States, led by free blacks such as Frederick Douglass and white supporters such as William Lloyd Garrison, founder of the radical newspaper The Liberator, and Harriet Beecher Stowe, who published the bestselling antislavery novel “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” (1852). While many abolitionists based their activism on the belief that slaveholding was a sin, others were more inclined to the non-religious “free-labor” argument, which held that slaveholding was regressive, inefficient and made little economic sense."

source http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/slavery

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This is a slave collar which slaves who did not obey their masters would wear as a form of punishment

source 57e461f8a7df8bd735af8cf4b05f4bd8.jpg

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"Street Arabs in Night Quarters" (1888-1889)

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"Street Arabs in Night Quarters" (1888-1889)

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Frederick Douglass

source http://americainclass.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/FrederickDouglass1855.jpeg

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Society treated people unequally for economic reasons, as they benefitted from controlling people. There were powerful people who knew this was wrong and used their skills, knowledge and influence to try and change it. The use of photography and preaching of information led to some changes in peoples lives and society. However, inequality was cemented into society so much that change would be very difficult to accomplish overall. But this does not discredit photography's role in creating change. It allowed a discussion to take place but people's views were too set in stone to change and they were unwilling to think differently. Photography showed the truth and emphasised why these inequalities were bad, but ultimatley it was only those in power that could create real change.