Annie Douglass

Annie Douglass, the youngest of Frederick and Anna Douglass's children, had her picture taken. Zoe Trodd, compiler and editor of Picturing Frederick Douglass, found the image in an archive in Louisiana. Last year, I saw it in an exhibit in Boston. Of course I took a picture. In fact, it is a picture of a picture of a picture.

The quality of my image is not very good (I did not have an iPhone then). Still, you get the idea here. This sweet, little girl in a plaid dress and plain pinafore, her hair in sausage curls, the image of her mother. Douglass in a Douglass pose, legs crossed, his arm around his daughter.  

I sometimes make up stories to go with the pictures, imagining what happened in the moments surrounding their composition. In the story I concoct with this one, Anna smooths out Annie's dress, arranges her curls. Annie was a little frightened, as children sometimes are, and her father agreed to sit with her. He coaches her, giving her last-minute encouragement under his breath just before the photographer takes the cap off of the lens. 

Did the whole family go down to the photographer for a sitting? Are the portraits of Anna and Rosetta part of the same session? Is one of the portraits of Anna? Did Anna also sit with Annie? Did Annie's siblings? How about the mysterious Charlotte, Anna's sister, who had her picture taken, as well? What became of that image?

How did this picture get to Baton Rouge? What became of other prints? What became of the original? Those are their own stories.