353
ricks, owner of successful studios in New York and Paris,
opened another in Havana in 1857.
In Cuba, Fredricks worked with several partners
including George Penabert, Augusto Daries and Sam-
uel Cohner. Fredricks had traveled and photographed
widely in South America, and was known for his cartes
de visite and his outdoor views. His images of mod-
ern buildings and public works were meant to refl ect
national progress and achievement. It was a method
of dispelling negative stereotypes and encouraging
foreign investment in Latin America. In the 1850s,
increasing interest in travel created a market for the
new stereoview format. New York photography pub-
lisher E. Anthony sent George Barnard to Cuba where
he recorded numerous images of people and places.
These later appeared in Anthony’s stereoviews without
photographer attribution.
As in other countries, the business of photography
attracted an increasing number of practitioners. The
Havana Annual of 1859 listed seventeen daguerreotyp-
ists including two women, Encarnación Irastegui and
Francisca Madero. The 1860 Havana Directory included
photographers L. Cabrera, Juan B. Fernández & Co.,
O.B. Loomis, as well as the studios of José Cotera and
Carlos Serpa and a photographic museum managed by
José López Molina. By 1884, twenty-seven photogra-
phers were listed in a directory of the island.
Growing interest in photography among Cubans led
to the formation of associations, as well as to exhibi-
tions and publications. One photograph made by Cohner
shows the photographer Fredricks at a gathering of the
Cuban Photographic Society c.1860. The fi rst exhibition
of Cuban photography was held in 1868 and in 1882
Domingo Figarola published The Photographic Bulle-
tin, the fi rst Cuban photography journal. The following
year, The Association of Amateur Photographers was
formed in Havana.
A second generation of Cuban photographers in-
cluded Esteban Mestre’s son Narciso, whose studio
was prominent in Havana in the 1870s. Father and son
left an important record of Cuban architecture and city
views. In the provinces, Bavastro and Agüero photo-
graphed parts of Santiago in eastern Cuba; and Jacinto
Cotera in the 1870s, and Salay y Roig toward the end
of the century, were among those who had studios in
Cienfuegos.
Between 1868 and 1898, Cubans fought to achieve
independence from Spain. The main confl icts are re-
membered as the War of ‘68 and the War of ‘95. The
fi rst was recorded by numerous foreign and Cuban
photographers including the fi rms of Fredricks y Daries;
and individual photographers Elias Ibañez, Andres Oca,
Leopoldo Varela y Suárez, José Robles and Esteban and
Narciso Mestre. The war of 1895–1898 was documented
by photographers such as José Gómez de la Carrera,
Gegorio Casañas, Ramón Carreras, Luis López, and the
fi rm of Otero y Colominas.
During the Cuban-Spanish War, publishers of ste-
reoscopic views used that medium to both inform and
propagandize to audiences eager for vivid images of
events in Cuba and other Spanish territories involved
in the confl ict. Historian Sarmiento Ramírez notes that
while many of the photographs from the ’95 War were
posed, they do provide valuable documentary evidence
regarding the quotidian life of both warring sides as
well as a record of people, places and events related to
the confl ict. In 1898, after the ship Maine was blown
up by persons unknown, the United States entered the
confl ict. Spain surrendered to the U.S. in 1899 and the
latter offi cially governed Cuba between 1899 and 1902.
According to researcher James Swick, during that time
U.S. stereoview publishers used the medium to “rein-
force both the image of a ‘benevolent’ empire and the
racial stereotypes that provided much of its ideological
justifi cation.”
During the War of ’95, cameras served a new purpose,
recording not only battles, but also human rights abuses.
When the Spanish general Valeriano Weyler placed
Cuban families in “reconcentration” camps, the new
Kodak cameras were smuggled in and used to make a
dramatic record of dismal camp conditions and the in-
humane treatment of the incarcerated. Both photoeditor
Ramiro Fernández and curator Gary Libby, have noted
that those images laid a cornerstone for photojournal-
ism in Cuba. The images also contributed to the wide
use of photography as a propaganda tool later in the
twentieth century.
According to Rufi no del Valle Valdés, president of
the Fondo Cubano de la Imagen Fotográfi ca, the his-
tory of early Cuban photography is under-researched.
In addition, United States foreign policy prevents
what does exist from being widely distributed in the
United States and economic conditions limit what can
be published in Cuba. Cuban-born Ramiro Fernández,
now living in New York, owns a signifi cant collection
of Cuban photographs from the daguerreotype era on-
ward. His collection of photographs from 1860–1920,
was exhibited at the Museum of Arts and Sciences in
Daytona Beach, Florida in 1988. The catalogue of the
exhibition includes a useful chronology of the history
of photography in Cuba.
Yolanda Retter
with contributions from Ramiro FernándezFurther Reading
Gesualdo, Vicente, Historia de la Fotografi a en América. Buenos
Aires: Editorial Sui Generis, 1990.
Levine, Robert, Cuba in the 1850s: Through the Lens of Charles
DeForest Fredricks. Tampa: FL:University of South Florida
Press, 1990.