When the American Negro Exhibit at the Exposition Universalle de 1900 was first unveiled in Paris, France, it just about caught everyone off guard.
Gone were the ladies who comprised The Help, and the sweating, hard working day laborers of the American South. Also absent were all traces of the indigenous Africans who had found representation in the previous years. This year, they were nowhere to be found because they had been replaced with a new updated version of black folks who were more educated, sleek and urbane.
They were the business owners, social mavens and members of a solid black middle class who had experienced a level of obvious success and were now living new lives with new prospects. They had a new look and a new attitude because they were New Negroes and they wanted everybody to know it. More precisely, the African American scholar and philosopher, W.E.B. Dubois wanted folk to know it and the Askew family of Atlanta were there to co-sign it. Moreover, in the case of the Askews, they had the extra advantage of being quite lovely to look at. Yes, indeed, they were pretty as pictures!
Dubois called them "typical Negro faces" with typical Negro lives, but families like the Askews were more typical of what Dubois would soon call the Talented Tenth - a designated leadership class of African Americans marked by the academic and socio-political changes of their communities.
100 years later, there isn't much available information about the Askews of Atlanta, and for that reason alone, this cannot be an exhaustive blog post about that family. Instead, it's all about an intriguing gaze at a collection of vintage photographs of a particularly attractive black family at the turn of the 20th Century. However, in order to add a little context to the content, we would do well to examine the history of Dubois' involvement with the exhibits just a little bit more before we can proceed any further.
When Dubois was first approached to represent the American Negro in Paris, he considered it the perfect platform to counter the prevalent negative images of the American black man and seized the opportunity. It is commonly thought that Dubois was the original head Negro in charge of organizing the exhibit, but that distinction actually belongs to Daniel Alexander Payne Murray, the Assistant Librarian of Congress, and to educator and lawyer, Thomas Calloway. They enlisted Dubois, and assembled graphs, books, charts and photographs of African Americans primarily in Atlanta, GA, but also from other cities like Richmond, VA, Knoxville, TN and Washington D.C.
The photos were of young students and their teachers at schools like Fisk, Hampton and Howard, religious leaders at church and business owners at work, home and at play. There were also posed images of dark, dashing gentlemen and lighter-hued femme fatales. They were images of a people in progress, who just 35 years before had mostly been bondsmen. True, it was an image that did not accurately reflect the majority of African Americans at home but it was an image that thoroughly confounded the narrow view that most white folks had of black folks. Roughly 360 photos out of almost 500 were used in the exhibit.
Many of the participating photographers as well as their sitters were never identified, and so it remains to this day. For decades, the photos became the stuff of legend - talked about but never seen. Most people didn't know that they were still in their original flipbooks, continually collecting dust at the Library of Congress where they had been stored untouched since 1909. No special effort had been made to preserve them, yet they remained surprisingly intact.
Once Deborah Willis, photo historian extraordinaire, got wind of it and became involved, a staff was organized to digitize and preserve them for book inclusions and future viewing. In the process, Willis was also responsible for the breakthough identification of the work and family of the pioneer African American photographer, Thomas E. Askew (above).
Thomas and Mary Askew lived at 114 Summit Avenue in Fulton County, GA., in a mostly black neighborhood of teachers, grocery store owners and pullman car porters. Thomas, now known as Atlanta's first African American photographer, was working in his chosen profession as early as 1880 in certain photography studios around the downtown Atlanta area, while Mary worked as a seamstress. They were married with children as early as 1870, with three surviving daughters and six sons. The Askews were obviously racially mixed typifying the vision and image Dubois wanted to convey to the world. Most of the children posed for their father and their images were eventually included in the Paris Exhibit.
In 1900, the family unit on Summit Avenue would have included Jennie, the oldest daughter, their widowed daughter Minnie Askew-Davis and her young daughter Georgia Davis, sons Robert, Arthur, Norman, Everett, the twins Walter and Clarence, and Nellie, the youngest daughter, who was only four years older than her neice, Georgia. For a time, at least, the boys held such atypical jobs for young black men of that time such as shipping clerks, stenographers and floral designers. Minnie followed in her mother's footsteps and worked as a seamstress for a private family. Shown here are the twins, Clarence (seated) and Walter (standing). Robert is also standing while Arthur has center stage with Norman off to the right. Also pictured is a neighbor supposedly named Jake Sansome. This particular photo is known as the "Summit Avenue Ensemble."
The Askews were beautiful, cultured, refined and very fashion conscious black people. Thomas Askew usually photographed his male subjects very closely cropped, with a side illumination of their faces to be admired, desired and worthy of emulation.
In contrast, female sitters were often posed in domestic spaces or parlor settings with thier wedding rings visible as an extra symbol of respectability. In coming to the Askew studio, which was eventually operated out of their Summit Avenue home, one could literally choose to look just like them against a backdrop of lace curtains, art books and Empire style furniture. Maybe this is an image of Jenny Askew or maybe it's Minnie Askew-Davis.
Children were always soft and composed, impeccably groomed and dressed in the most stylish of clothing. This image is thought to be Nellie Askew, the youngest Askew daughter, but who says it isn't their granddaughter, Georgia Davis, since they were so close in age.
Three years after Thomas Askew's death, the Great Fire of 1917 destroyed the Askew home and all of the photographic equipment and negatives. It is believed that the man's personal history and that of his family went up in flames as well. Askew's existing work is now held in the Paris Exhibit collection as well as in private collections in Atlanta. Mary Askew died in 1922 around the age of 68. The sons and daughters? Are there any known surviving descendants? I don't know!
The Exposition in Paris of 1900 was a grand over the top affair. There was much to see and the so-called Negro Exhibit was small potatoes compared to the impressive pavillions that dominated the great fair grounds. It is of no surprise that the exhibit got hardly any white press in America, and if it weren't for the black American press, nobody would have ever known at all.
Only Black America knew that Dubois was awarded a gold medal for "Collaborator as Compiler of Georgia Negro Exhibit" before everything had even been properly displayed, or that Thomas Calloway had also won a gold medal for the general conception of the exhibit. Only Black America cared that once everything had been unpacked and displayed, the Negro Exhibit in Paris walked away with a Grand Prix for the entire collection, a Grand Prix for Hampton University, and a total of fifteen gold, silver and bronze medals.
Thanks, Corey. Yes, this is a part of Black American history that most White folks know nothing about...actually, maybe most Black folks know nothing about it either. Black Americans helped to create so-called "American middle-class values and styles of living". Even before slavery ended there were free Black folks who were successful when they were often under threat envious Whites (Remember Rosewood Florida and the bombing of the Black suburb of Oklahoma City)?
Even with the current refined First Lady of the United States you still have some ignorant Whites who want to talk about food stamps and welfare. And you know the stinkin', pug faced Republican pig I'm talking about. (Funny thing is back then all Black folks like the Askews who could vote were Republicans, but not like these present day Herman Cain idiots.)
Posted by: Derrick from Philly | January 25, 2012 at 04:48 PM