How early Black Chicagoans used photography to redefine their image

Curious City

WBEZ Chicago

Investigation, Chicago, Radio, Arts, Society & Culture, Public, Education, Curious, City

4.6 • 661 Ratings

🗓️ 26 March 2026

⏱️ 15 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

At the turn of the 20th century, Black photographers were starting to make a name for themselves. Photographers like William E. Woodard, James Van Der Zee and Miles Webb were opening and running their own studios. In African American art history, the Harlem Renaissance in New York is often celebrated. But Chicago played a role in that as well. Photographs of Black life circulated in local and international publications at the time, and the photographers behind those images focused on the community, intentionally. “The photographers know of each other and are in some ways competing, yet they're also really supportive of each other's work,” said Amy Mooney, art history professor at Columbia College Chicago. In our last episode, we explored the first art galleries in Chicago. Many of those “established” spaces were owned by white people who exhibited works by white artists. But that didn’t mean skilled and prolific artists of color were scarce. Today, Mooney tells us more about the early Black photographers who opened up their studios to everyone.

Transcript

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0:00.0	What's up Chicago? And the Oscar goes to? I'm Erin Allen, and this is Curious City.
0:06.2	Sinners.
0:06.8	Autumn Dorald-Arquipa. Recently, Autumn Dorald Arkapaw won an Oscar for cinematography for the movie Sinners.
0:15.8	It was a historic moment. She's the first woman ever to win an award in that category in the Academy's
0:22.3	98 years. And she's of Filipino and Black Creole descent. When she was speaking to the press
0:29.3	right after the win, it was clear that the moment wasn't lost on her. A lot of little girls
0:34.0	that look like me will sleep really well tonight because they'll want to become cinematographers. And I know that. Like, I know that, you know, you know, you know, I'm here.
0:43.8	Quoting Karen O from the Yeah, Yeah, Yes, she said, you have to see you to be you. Autumn,
0:50.9	congrats. Last episode, we looked into the first art galleries in Chicago.
0:58.0	Unsurprisingly, those early established spaces in the 1800s were run by white people,
1:04.0	who mostly curated art by other white people.
1:07.0	But that didn't mean there wasn't a lot of art being made and displayed by black and indigenous people at that time.
1:13.6	So today, in the spirit of Autumn Dorald Arquapaw's historic win, we're going to look at a time in Chicago's history when black photography started to boom and what it meant for the community.
1:26.6	It really was an era of You have to see you to be you.
1:30.3	I think these images writ large, all of these images coming together and
1:37.3	circulating, definitely changed consciousness.
1:42.3	Amy Mooney is a professor of art history at Columbia College, Chicago.
1:46.0	She's working on a project with the Newberry Library called Say It With Pictures.
1:51.0	It focuses on African American commercial photography in Chicago at the turn of the 19th century.
1:57.0	Early on, photography was not considered fine art.
2:00.0	As Amy puts it, the medium was seen as a transcription of life.
2:04.6	But then things started to change.
	...

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