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Maurice Wallace: Pictures and Progress 

Pre-digital photography is commonly mistaken for an objective record of the world. But cameras don't take pictures by themselves: people, with their own prejudices and aspirations, click the trigger, and subjects of photographs, too, have agency. Dr. Maurice Wallace's new book, Pictures and Progress: Early Photography and the Making of African American Identity (Shawn Michelle Smith, co-editor), collects essays about these issues specific to race, as well as over 70 vintage African-American photos ranging from lynchings to family portraits to scenes from war and work. An associate professor of English and African-American studies at Duke University, Wallace has brought together a multidisciplinary range of authors writing on topics like Frederick Douglass' optimism for photography as a means toward social progress and racial equity, or the racist scientific photographic record of African-Americans. Four brief "snapshot" essays profile the work of early African-American photographers as well. Wallace discusses the book and signs copies at the main branch of the public library. —Chris Vitiello