DAAP Historian Develops New Insights Regarding Photography Pioneer
DAAP art historian Theresa Leininger-Miller has become a noted expert on one of the 19th-century's few African American photography pioneers. Her research on James Presley Ball has been presented and published nationally.
Leininger-Miller, associate professor in UC's internationally ranked College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning (DAAP), has become the nation's most noted researcher on Ball and has presented and published widely on Ball's creative contributions to the field of photography.
Ball left an impressive legacy as a creative artist and an astute businessman, according to Leininger-Miller. For instance, he was one of the few of his era to produce a series of photographs and/or panoramic paintings to pictorially tell a story. One of the most well-known of such works is an anti-slavery panorama that stretched 1,400 square yards and traveled the nation in the 1850s.
Another unusual artistic series, one produced in Montana in the 1890s, marks the creative height of Ball's career. He produced a series of cabinet cards focused on two murderers, depicting the men in the studio, walking to the place where they would be hung and also after their execution, still hooded and bound by leather straps.
Stated Leininger-Miller, "No one else was producing photographic series of this kind until a generation later. The fascinating question regarding this ground-breaking work by Ball was whether he created such images as an astute businessman offering a sensational product to the public or whether he was making a statement against capital punishment. Was he trying to humanize these men found guilty of murder? For instance, in a photo of one of these men in a coffin, Ball makes sure the corpse's wedding ring is in prominent view.
"And as for the anti-slavery panorama produced much earlier in his career, the social and political implications were profound; however, he marketed that work as a 'geography lesson' for children in order to make the work more palatable to a cross section of society. What becomes clear in the research is that this was a complex man producing advanced work negotiating the roles of artist and businessman."
And that complexity is what has kept Leininger-Miller on the research hunt regarding Ball for about 15 years now. She began this research in 1992 when she arrived at UC, in part, because the local historical society has more than 350 images by Ball, the largest such collection in the world.
"Ball lived and worked in Cincinnati from the late 1840s to the early 1870s. I'd originally learned of his work when doing research at the Schomburg Center for Research and History in Black Culture in New York City. So, when I returned to my hometown, I decided to view the original images here and see what entries the Cincinnati newspapers of the day might have regarding Ball," she explained.
From that beginning, Leininger-Miller's collective research has earned her both scholarly and popular audiences. She has presented her work at more than 20 academic conferences, museums, universities and civic institutions. In addition, she has spoken regarding Ball and his legacy on local television and radio and will soon be interviewed in New York for a PBS documentary on African American photographers.
In tracking Ball's career, Leininger-Miller received a Faculty Summer Research Grant to conduct studies related to Ball in London, Boston, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere. She's also received a University Research Council Grant to gather information in Minneapolis, Seattle and even to Honolulu where Ball worked from 1902 until his death in 1904. It seems he was always heading to new frontiers literally and figuratively, and Leininger-Miller has followed that trail to gain as complete a portrait of the photographer as possible.
Throughout his long career, Ball built businesses that catered to a wide variety of clients, from the highest and wealthiest members of society to the working class. He photographed celebrities of the day like Frederick Douglass, P.T. Barnum, actress/singer Jenny Lind as well as Ulysses Grant's family. It's even reported that while in London in 1856, Ball photographed Queen Victoria and Charles Dickens. Ball employed a workforce of up to nine, including his father, brothers, brother-in-law, son and daughter-in-law.
In so doing, he developed the first community of black photographers in America, with the largest daguerrean gallery in the Midwest. Ball's work was of such high technical and artistic quality that one of his outdoor images, of a Cincinnati confectionery, broke all auction records for a daguerreotype when it sold for $63,800 by Sotheby's in the early 1990s.
"The best part about this research is that it's a relatively untouched topic so I've been able to unearth a great deal of new information. It's also gratifying that Ball is getting his due. In creating a richer picture of who he was, he's become much more than a shadowy historical figure. He's a fascinating man who worked throughout the United States and abroad, winning awards for his images and serving as a leader in many communities... ."
- Read more about UC's art history program.
- Apply to UC's art history program.
- Read about UC's College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning's national and international rankings.
- Read the latest news from UC.