Roberts, Richard Samuel
1880-1936 · Contribution: 1920-1936
Portrait photographer
Operated a Columbia, South Carolina, portrait studio from 1922 to 1936 that produced what became, after a chance 1977 rediscovery of his glass-plate negatives, the most comprehensive surviving photographic record of a Southern Black middle class community in the early 20th century
Portraits are AI-generated interpretations, not photographs.
Quick facts
- Born
- 1880 (Fernandina, Florida area)
- Active since
- 1920
- Category
- Press & Photography
- Best known for
- The most comprehensive surviving photographic record of a Southern Black middle-class community
Impact on the world
Roberts created, in obscurity, one of the richest surviving visual portraits of the segregation-era Black South, dignified images of an entire community that would otherwise have gone unrecorded.
An alternative history
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Sources
- Source lookupFind
University of South Carolina
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