Black Heritage Project Lesson* for ARTH 1008 Black Art History
Created by Olivia Chiang, Professor, Art History, CT State Community College Manchester
While this course is currently run as an asynchronous online class and authentic Place-Based Education is not intrinsic to the course, by integrating local and specific sites in Hartford to larger, national, and international conversations, students are able to connect their own experiences to collective narratives and histories. The assignment also seeks to link the personal with local history and experience of place with national and global history.
Through the integration of Black Heritage Project material, students address the Course Objectives of ARTH 1008 in the Week 6 and 7 modules of the course, titled: “1800s- African American Communities in New England.” These modules include content on Black communities in Nantucket, Bridgeport’s “Little Liberia,” and finally Hartford, specifically the Talcott Street School and Church. Students are invited to explore the temporary reconstruction of the Talcott Street School in 1991 by the contemporary artist, Mel Chin, as a way of visualizing where the school stood in relation to landmarks today.
In the Week 6 module, students read several resources provided by the BHP curriculum, including Henry Louis Gates Jr's contribution to the Vision & Justice civic curriculum packet titled, "Frederick Douglass's Camera Obscura", and are also provided with the longer essay version as well. This essay introduces students to the broader context of 19th-century photographic portraiture and its role in combatting racist imagery of African Americans. I also supplement the BHP-provided materials with a short Metropolitan Museum entry on a photograph of Sojourner Truth, titled: "I Sell the Shadow to Support the Substance."
From there, students read David O. White's article on Augustus Washington. In addition, students are asked to read through the Smithsonian Institution’s digital exhibition: A Durable Momento: Portraits by Augustus Washington, African American Daguerreotypist.
Students are informed that it was Washington took the famous photographic portrait of John Brown at his studio in Hartford in the 1840s.
At this juncture, we focus on Washington’s portraits of the Liberian Senate, such as this one of Chancy Brown from 1856-1858.
Some further context on photography in West Africa is also provided.
In Week 6, students are asked to respond to the following questions and to engage in a conversation with their classmates via the Blackboard Discussion Board:
After reading the articles presented this week, particularly about Augustus Washington and the Talcott Street School and Church community, please respond to the posted questions in conversation with your classmates:
Part I:
1. Did the readings this week change or affect your understanding of Connecticut history? New England history? American history? If so, in what way(s)?
2. Were you aware of the vibrant 19th-century Black community, including a church, a school, and businesses, that existed downtown, right in the vicinity of where CT State Capital exists today?
3. How does this change your understanding of the city of Hartford today?
4. What did you learn about Augustus Washington this week?
5. Please select one of Washington's portrait of the Liberian Congress. Please describe that photographic portrait in one to two paragraphs.
Part II:
Please read your classmate's descriptions of Augustus Washington's portraits of the Liberian Congress. Please select one description.
1. What did that description bring to light about the sitter?
2. How are they presented? Who do you think had agency in how the sitter was presented?
3. How does your classmate's description compare with yours?
For extra credit, students are encouraged to visit the "Nutmeg Pulpit" exhibition at the CTState Capital campus, to take a selfie in front of a section of the exhibition and share 3 of the most interesting/surprising/powerful things that they learned from the exhibit.
Week 7’s module of the course has the students complete the Midterm Project (please see attached). This Midterm Assignment, which focuses on the theme of Identity and its creation through portraiture, is a development of the original assignment design that came out of the BHP workshops. The goal of the assignment is to not only allow students to analyze a series of specific works that relate to class content from Modules 1-6, but to also allow students to consider their own personal expressions of self and how they communicate their identities through photographic portraiture.
*Lesson plan developed as part of the HHP’s Black Heritage Project, paid for by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
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