Booker T. Washington and the art of self-representation

Booker T. Washington embraced photography as the artistic medium to represent himself and Tuskegee Institute because it was economical, technical, utilitarian, and aesthetic. It was the right form for a man who preached a gospel of thrift, industry, self-sufficiency, and beauty. New advancements in photography at the end of the nineteenth century allowed Washington to be simultaneously better known and more elusive, that is, an international celebrity with a multitude of identities.; Washington produced and directed photographic images by considering region, race, and class. Initially, he crafted an image of Victorian grace as a fund-raising strategy which appealed to elite white America's policy of gradual reform. The economic and cultural results of Tuskegee's industrial curriculum became the basis for publicity photographs. As Washington entered the last decade of his life, he gradually shifted his efforts toward speaking directly to black audiences through the cameras of black photographers. He shed the passive role he presented to the white world and challenged racist popular culture by visually demonstrating social and cultural equality.; Washington should be credited with not only launching the careers of several black photographers but also establishing the early aesthetic of the New Negro. From 1895–1915, Washington served as the central figure in African-American culture, supporting black artists telling black stories in an aesthetic which showed that blacks could equal whites by the prevailing Victorian standards.