CHICO, Calif.—As a part of Black History Month, California State University, Chico, Calif., currently holds a photo exhibition featuring a series of black-and-white photographs taken in Lincoln, Neb., between 1910 and 1925.

This is a very big deal and validates the images as a major part of African-American history in America.—Douglas Keister

Titled Black and White in Black and White, the exhibit presents a series of photos that were scanned and printed from glass-plate negatives. The pictures are part of Douglas Keister’s collection of glass plate negatives, 1910–1925, and are on display for the first time publicly until Feb. 24, in the university’s Humanities Center Gallery.

In the beginning of February, the new African American Museum at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., expressed interest in acquiring 30 to 50 of the images. “This is a very big deal and validates the images as a major part of African-American history in America,” Keister wrote in an email.

The photographer was unknown for some time. Based on similar photographs and written records, he was later identified as John Johnson from Lincoln, a black laborer who also listed himself as a photographer.

Story of a Treasure

Keister, the owner of the negatives used for the exhibit, acquired them as a high school junior from a friend who had purchased them at a garage sale in 1965. Keister set up a darkroom in his parents’ basement in Lincoln and made some of his first prints from the negatives.

Three years later, he decided to pursue a career in professional photography. He stored the negatives in shoeboxes in the same basement and left them behind to move to California and pursue his dream.

In 1999, 34 years later, Keister’s mother saw a story in the Lincoln Journal Star about a student who discovered 36 glass negatives in a closet. The paper called them a “significant find.” After his mother sent him a clipping of the article, Keister contacted the Nebraska State Historical Society. They examined his collection of 280 glass plate negatives and verified that they were taken by the same photographer, deeming Keister’s collection a state treasure.

“For years I’ve been working on getting a proper stage to show a selection of the photographs as large-scale prints,” Keister wrote. “That has now happened thanks to the sponsorship of Chico State University.”

The University hopes to be able to find a way to allow the exhibition to travel.

 

Carefully Set-Up Shots

The collection of photographs portray everyday life in the African-American and immigrant communities in Lincoln between 1910 and 1925. The pictures feature musicians, families, children, a hairdresser, workers in the town, and other everyday subjects.

For the exhibit, each picture was carefully researched and has an informative caption that tells you more about the picture. One image, taken at Lincoln High School, shows a class of school children of both races. Lincoln’s public schools were all racially integrated at the time.

The African-Americans portrayed in the photographs are gracefully captured and convey noble bearing.

If you look carefully, you notice that a rock was used to prop open the screen door, and a throw rug was placed under her feet. The doorway is very dark, and the contrast frames the bright white colors beautifully. Lighting is taken into consideration in all of the pictures as well as composition and tone.

At first glance, the pictures may seem mostly ordinary. But when you look closer, you get a rare glance into a different era. Using clues from the pictures themselves, you can see that the photographer carefully set up each shot. For example, the picture “Woman in White” depicts a black woman dressed all in white, standing in a doorway.

When you look closer at these photographs, you also see all sorts of interesting details about everyday life. The original glass negatives were large and in very good shape, so details such as what food the people are eating, details of clothing, brand labels on glass-bottled sodas, and book and magazine titles are discernible.

Another interesting contribution to the exhibit is an antique camera set up in one corner, similar to the one used to take the original pictures. There are also two glass cases that hold antique glass negatives and chemical developers similar to the ones used in creating the original glass plate negatives featured in the exhibit.

One photograph titled “Honoring an Elder” is of a very old woman, and the caption tells you she was most likely born into slavery. The pictures take you on a journey, and for your time at the gallery, you feel like you are right there in Lincoln in the early 1900s.

Fae Frazier Price is a freelance writer and lives in California.

See: Black&White in Black&White