Ball, James Presley
1825-1904 · Contribution: 1845-1900
Daguerreotypist and studio photographer
Built one of the first successful African American-owned photography studios in the country, operating “Ball’s Great Daguerrean Gallery of the West” in Cincinnati from 1849 and photographing subjects from Frederick Douglass to Queen Victoria over a 50-year, coast-to-coast career
Portraits are AI-generated interpretations, not photographs.
Quick facts
- Born
- c. 1825, Frederick County, Virginia
- Active since
- 1845
- Category
- Press & Photography
- Best known for
- Building one of the country's first successful Black-owned photography studios
Impact on the world
Ball demonstrated, in the 1850s, that a Black entrepreneur could own and run one of the finest photographic studios in America, and he used the new medium both as a business and as an instrument of abolition.
An alternative history
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Sources
- Source lookupFind
BlackPast.org
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