Daniel Freeman: DC's 1st Black Photographer

Advert for his photography studio was in the May 9, 1915 edition of the Washington Post.

Daniel Freeman, was a painter and sought after society photographer and the first African American to open his own photography studio in Washington D.C., He was also a teacher who taught photography at Frelinghuysen University and started the Washington Amateur Art Society. He represented the District of Columbia in an exhibition at the 1895 Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta.

The son of Thomas Freeman and Sarah Payne, Daniel Freeman (1868 - 1926), was an artist and photographer based in Washington, D.C. Born in Alexandria, Virginia his family later moved to Washington, D.C., At 13 he attended drawing classes in the public school system in the District. He studied photography under the direction of E. J. Pullman, and began a business in 1885. He also taught photography and organized the Washington Amateur Art Society. In 1895 Freeman, known as the first black photographer in Washington, D.C., exhibited his works in the Negro Building at the 1895 Atlanta Exposition.

His work recorded the customs and scenery of turn-of-the-century Washington. Freeman, opened a studio in DC in 1885, developed the unusual technique of placing a charcoal sketch over the photographic image. Several of his works, including portraits of Frederick Douglass and John Mercer Langston, a Virginia congressman during Reconstruction, remain in private collections.

By 1901, at the age of 33, Freeman, also owned a bicycle shop, a framing business, in addition to a photography studio on 14th Street in downtown DC. He was also a Mason, president of the Social Temperance League, and, according to contemporary accounts, the ninth-best rifle shot in the country.

He married Gertrude Mead, on October 28, 1903 at the 19th Street Baptist Church in the District. I'm unaware if the couple had children.

Freeman died June 3, 1926 and is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in Washington, DC.

Source: Cowan's Auctions; Worthpoint; Washington Post (May 1915)