James B. Beach of Litchfield, Connecticut

Label

This daguerreotype was taken in the Hartford, Connecticut, studio of Augustus Washington, the son of a former slave from Virginia. Washington overcame formidable financial and social obstacles to enroll in Dartmouth College briefly in 1843 and 1844. Because of mounting debts, he left the College prematurely and went on to became an accomplished daguerreotypist during a period in which the relatively new process dominated photographic portraiture. Convinced that newly established Liberia was “the only land in which we [as African Americans] can feel ourselves truly free,” he emigrated there in 1853 and became one of the young nation’s leading citizens.

Washington’s sitter, James B. Beach, is dressed and posed to impress. Adorned with top hat and silk cravat, he looks assuredly at the camera and holds his hand toward his chest in a quasi-Napoleonic stance—a gesture associated with ease. Might he have presented himself thus with the thought of giving this daguerreotype as a keepsake for Virginia Wheeler, whom he married in Litchfield, Connecticut, in 1851? According to an 1860 census, Beach was a clockmaker in Derby, Connecticut. He died three years later, shortly after having been wounded in the Civil War battle of LaFourche Crossing, Louisiana.

From the 2019 exhibition American Art, Colonial to Modern, curated by Barbara J. MacAdam, Jonathan L. Cohen Curator of American Art

This studio portrait of a stylish young man is by the free African American and South Asian daguerreotypist Augustus Washington, who made photographs to support his studies at Dartmouth. Ultimately unable to afford the College, he moved to Hartford, Connecticut, and set up his studio within a decade of the introduction of the photographic process to the world. Despite prospering as one of the leading daguerreotypists in the region, he grew very concerned about the threat to his and his family’s freedom following the enactment of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which led to numerous free Black people being kidnapped and sold into slavery. Eventually, this fear led to him and his family immigrating to Liberia, Africa.

From the 2026 exhibition Inhabiting Historical Time: Slavery and Its Afterlives, curated by Amelia Kahl (Barbara C. & Harvey P. Hood 1918 Senior Curator of Academic Programming) and Alisa Swindell (Associate Curator of Photography)

Course History

ARTH 41.04, European Art 1850-1900, Allan Doyle, Spring 2019

ARTH 41.04, European Art 1850-1900, Allan Doyle, Spring 2019

ARTH 48.02, History of Photography, Katie Hornstein, Winter 2020

HIST 7.32, Civil War Photographs, Robert Bonner, Winter 2022

English 30.01, African and African American Studies 34.01, Early Black American LIterature, Michael Chaney, Winter 2024

Art History 48.02, Histories of Photography, Katie Hornstein, Spring 2024

Art History 48.02, Histories of Photography, Katie Hornstein, Spring 2024

Art History 48.02, Histories of Photography, Katie Hornstein, Spring 2024

African and African American Studies 7.01, Picturing African American History, Michael Chaney, Spring 2024

Writing 5.20, Foundations at Dartmouth, Doug Moody, Fall 2024

Writing 5.23, Foundations of Dartmouth: Samson Occom, Edward Mitchell, and the History and Cultures of Native American, African American, and “Minority” Students at Dartmouth College, Doug Moody, Winter 2025

Exhibition History

American Art, Colonial to Modern, Israel Sack Gallery and Rush Family Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 26-July 21, 2019.

Inhabiting Historical Time: Slavery and Its Afterlives, Jaffe and Hall Galleries, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, December 20, 2025 - July 11, 2026.

Publication History

John R. Stomberg, The Hood Now: Art and Inquiry at Dartmouth, Hanover, New Hampshire: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, 2019, p. 119, ill. plate no. 50.

Provenance

Greg French Early Photography, Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts; sold to present collection, 2013.

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Subjects