Frances Benjamin Johnston

Johnston was a professional photographer, noted for her portraits of Washington politicians and her images of coal miners, ironworkers, and women laborers in New England textile mills. In 1899, Hampton Institute commissioned her to make photographs at the school for an exhibition about contemporary African American life that was to be shown at the Paris Exposition of 1900. This picture exemplifies Johnston’s classical sense of composition and her practice of carefully arranging her subjects. Her complete control over the scene is readily apparent, yet the grace of the men’s poses—evenly bathed in natural light—seems to justify her artifice.

Hampton Institute had been established in Hampton, Virginia, in 1868, three years after the Civil War ended, when the educator and philanthropist Samuel C. Armstrong persuaded the American Missionary Association to fund a school for the vocational training of African Americans. Armstrong admired the “excellent qualities and capacities” of the freed black soldiers who had fought in the war under his command, and he believed that education was essential to them if they were to achieve productive independence.