Bedou, Arthur Paul

Impact on the world

A largely self-taught photographer whose 1900 image of a solar eclipse first brought him wide notice, Bedou came to Booker T. Washington’s attention in 1903 and was chosen as his traveling photographer over rival candidate C.M. Battey, also profiled in this collection, in part for his ability to capture unfolding events dynamically rather than only posed portraits; he accompanied Washington on his summer tours across the South, producing an album of each trip and photographing figures including George Washington Carver, Theodore Roosevelt, and Andrew Carnegie along the way. After Washington’s death, Bedou opened his own New Orleans studio, becoming, in the words of local chroniclers, so associated with meticulous, patient portraiture that slow photographers were nicknamed “a Bedou” around the city; he served as official photographer for Xavier University of Louisiana for four decades, the National Negro Business League, the National Baptist Convention, and countless Black Creole family milestones, with his work regularly appearing in the Louisiana Weekly and the Times-Picayune.

Life & background

Born July 6, 1882, in New Orleans to a poor family with little access to formal education, Bedou taught himself photography and began working professionally around 1899. He served as Booker T. Washington’s personal photographer and, subsequently, Tuskegee Institute’s official photographer from roughly 1908 until shortly after Washington’s 1915 death, then built a prosperous New Orleans studio practice and real estate portfolio; he died in his native city on July 2, 1966, at age 83, leaving much of his fortune to Xavier University of Louisiana, which maintains an extensive archive of his work and a scholarship in his name.

Sources

1. African American Registry; CreoleGen; Tuskegee University Archives