22 portraits of notable Black American for home or classroom display, likely from One Hundred Pictures of Distinguished Negroes.

A visual pantheon of noted Black Americans

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Associated Publishers, Inc. of Washington, D.C., were founded by the “Father of Black History,” Carter G. Woodson. Beginning by at least the 1930s, the Associated Publishers continuously published portraits of prominent African Americans, from photographs and engravings, in both small to large formats —establishing a visual pantheon of noted historical and contemporary figures.

This suite of twenty-two images possibly came from the firm’s One Hundred Pictures of Distinguished Negroes set. We believe that these portraits were marketed in multiple ways; under various names, quantities, and image selections and throughout various decades. Some of these portraits may have been from leftover plates published in Woodson’s The Negro in Our History which went through many revised and expanded editions. Whether some of these “sets” or “kits” were augmented by plates from any of these editions is an interesting question.

The roster is notable: Richard Wright; Richard Allen; reformer James McCune Smith; inventor Elijah J. McCoy; Underground Railroad agent William Still; Congressmen John M. Langston of Virginia, Robert C. De Large of South Carolina, Josiah T. Walls of Florida, and Robert Nix of Philadelphia; editor Henry Highland Garnett; author William Wells Brown; Frederick Douglass; Sojourner Truth; Harriett Tubman; bank president Maggie L. Walker; author Kelly Miller; editor Charles S. Johnson; UN activist Ralph Bunche; General B.O. Davis; scientist George Washington Carver; Tuskegee principal R.R. Moton; and Martin Luther King, Jr., here described as a “Militant Leader”.

Price: $350.00