| Proslavery Propaganda II: Black Sexuality |
| INSTRUCTIONS: This assignment raises questions about a specific antiabolitionist propaganda strategy stemming from the anxieties of white men over the threat posed by free black sexuality. After examining the images below and reading their accompanying text, respond to one of the two questions. Then read the answers of three classmates who chose the same question. Explain in writing why you agree or disagree with their responses. |
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"Practical Amalgamation," a colored lithograph made by Edward W. Clay in 1839, presents a reversal of the existing "sexual order" under slavery. In this picture, the white male has lost control over the sexuality of black men and white women. According to Phillip Lapsansky, "this cartoon illustrates--and promotes--the antiabolitionists' deepest racial and sexual fears, showing a vigorous black man being fondled by a lovely and willing white woman; and, to underscore the revulsion of this misalliance, an effete, unappealing white man courts a grotesquely caricatured black woman."
Question #1: How do you think abolitionists of the 1840s would have responded to such an image? Write a one-paragraph response from the position of Douglass, Jacobs, or any other abolitionist of your choice. Draw upon the facts of that person's life, or details from his or her writing, to develop your answer.
Question #2: Clay's lithograph was meant to heighten the anxieties of white men. In your opinion, what specific details of the picture did the artist think would most disturb his audience? Which details do you find most disturbing or offensive, and why? |
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Question #3: Artists of the nineteenth century often included minor details in their drawings to develop themes or to comment upon the main elements of the composition. Write a paragraph about how the two dogs depicted in the bottom left corner of Clay's lithograph perform this function. In other words, how does Clay's depiction of these dogs reiterate the racial philosophy governing the overall image?
SourcesLapsansky, Phillip. "Graphic Discord: Abolitionist and Antiabolitionist Images." The Abolitionist Sisterhood: Women's Political Culture in Antebellum America. Ed. Jean Fagan Yellin and John C. Van Horne. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994. |
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