Hansen, Austin

Van Der Zee, James Augustus

1886-1983

Produced the most comprehensive photographic chronicle of the Harlem Renaissance, running his Harlem studio from 1916 for over four decades and creating stylized portraits that both documented and helped shape the era's image of Black middle-class aspiration and pride

Harris, Charles “Teenie”

1908-1998

Spent roughly four decades as staff and freelance photographer for the Pittsburgh Courier, amassing an archive of nearly 80,000 images — now held by the Carnegie Museum of Art — that forms one of the largest and richest visual chronicles of 20th-century Black urban life in the United States

McNeill, Robert H.

1917-2005

Documented Black community life in Washington, D.C., for more than four decades while producing what became a foundational visual record of African American life in Depression-era Virginia for the Works Progress Administration’s 1940 publication The Negro in Virginia

Scurlock, Addison Norton

1883-1964

Built the Scurlock Studio into the definitive photographic chronicle of Black Washington, D.C., for six decades, becoming Howard University's official photographer and the portraitist whose work signified having “arrived socially” in the city's Black community