Smithsonian Acquires Rare Antique Portraits From First Black Photographers

https://www.npr.org/sections/pictureshow/2021/08/29/ [login to see] /smithsonian-acquires-rare-antique-portraits-from-first-black-photographers
Larry West was looking for a hobby that would combine visual arts and American history. And he found it in 1975 at an antique store in Mamaroneck, N.Y. At that time, boxes of daguerreotypes — the first commercially successful photographic process, invented around 1839 — would just be sitting there, West says. So he bought one "that happened to be [of] an African American," he tells Weekend Edition. "And I was fascinated."

That purchase embarked a 45-year hobby and passion, with West collecting antique photographs from some of the early African American photographers, including James P. Ball, Glenalvin Goodridge and Augustus Washington.