378
universities. The fi rst folios were awarded a silver medal
at the 1873 Vienna World Exhibition.
The project gathered photographs from all over the
world. The BGAEU appealed to the German expatriate
community with anthropological interests to collect
and submit photographs. These were sent to Berlin,
and forwarded to Dammann by the BGAEU. Sources
varied widely. Some donors were scientists, such as
Gustav Fritsch whose photographs of south African
groups comprise some nine folios of the Album. Some
appear to have been submitted by the photographers
themselves. Others were from the existing collections
in Berlin or from the Museum Godeffroy in Hamburg.
The majority were sent in by German traders and colo-
nial offi cers, including many images from commercial
photographers, the stock-in-trade of the ‘ethnic’ carte de
visite market available locally. This resulted in a wide
range of photographic styles, from the anthropometric
to the naturalistic and ‘domestic,’ being absorbed into
precisely scientifi c meanings. While the Album presents
a racial classifi cation and refl ects German anthropologi-
cal thinking of the period, it lacks taxonomic precision
—a serendipitous element being determined by its
simultaneous collection and publication.
Although some of the photographs were made from
original negatives, many were from copy negatives
made of prints submitted for the project. There is a
clear qualitative difference. The method can be seen in
surviving whole plate negatives made by Friedrich in
1874–6. Prints were laid out on newspaper and copy
negatives made. These were printed and then trimmed,
mostly to standard carte de visite or cabinet sizes. While
donor- photographers or scientists presumably gave their
permission, overall the Album demonstrated the level
of unauthorised copying and lack of global copyright
protection for photographers at this period, which, in
part, made it possible. Some copy prints survive on
Dammann’s studio card; printed, in red, in typical style
of the period.
Friedrich Dammann, who lived in England, only
appears to have got involved with the project after the
death of Carl in April 1874 He liaised with the BGAEU
and undertook some of the production. However as the
last folios appeared by September 1874, it is not clear
how much input he had to the Alum itself. Like Carl, it
is not known how and where he learned photography but
he appears to have been a competent operator.
While the heart of the project were the great Ger-
man folios, there were other very different editions.
An English popular edition, The Races of Man: Eth-
nological Photographic Gallery of the Various Races,
was published in London 1875 by Trübner. It comprised
24 plates, measuring 24 × 32 cm, and contained 167
photographs. There is a clearer evolutionary narrative
starting with ‘Civilised’ Europeans and ending with
Australians, Melanesians and Micronesians. Although
Carl’s name appears on the title page, it was produced by
Friedrich and includes material not in the Album, added
to the project after 1874. Friedrich was also responsible
for a ‘schools’ edition’ Anthropologisches Schul-Album
in Photographien (n.d. 1875/6?). Although the same
format as The Races of Man, the 179 photographs used
and its intellectual shape had more in common with the
Album. It also includes material not published in the
Album. Friedrich must also have been responsible for
the realization of the 1876 Ethnologischer Atlas säm-
mtlicher Menschen-Racen in photographien although
it was published under Carl’s name by Meissner of
Hamburg.
Overall the dissemination outside Germany was not
extensive. Several copies of the Album and the other edi-
tions survive. While some of the material was returned
to Berlin in the 1880s, and is in the collections of the
BGAEU and the Museum für Völkerkunde, the residue
of carte de visite prints and copy negatives made in the
latter stages of the project by Friedrich, were bought
from his executors in 1901 by Pitt Rivers Museum,
University of Oxford. The project remains the most
remarkable collaborative anthropological and photo-
graphic endeavour of the nineteenth century.
Elizabeth Edwards
See also: Albumen Print; and Ethnography.Further Reading
Iles, Chrissie & Roberts, Russell (eds.). In Visible Light: Pho-
tography and Classifi cation in Art, Science and the Everyday.
Oxford: Museum of Modern Art. 1997. (especially essays by
R.Roberts and E. Edwards)
Theye, Thomas (ed.). Der geraubte Schatten: Photographie
als ethnographisches Dokument, Munich, Stadtmuseums.
1989.
Theye, Thomas. ‘Einige Neuigkeiten zu Leben und Werk der
Brüder Carl Victor und Friedrich Dammann’ Mitteilungen
aus dem Museum für Völkerkunde Hamburg Band 24/25:
247–84. 1994/5.DANCER, JOHN BENJAMIN (1812–1887)
English innovator and inventor of
microphotography
Like many of his contemporaries in the early Victorian
period John Benjamin Dancer used his enquiring mind
over a broad spectrum of scientifi c endeavours to make
inventions and develop innovations that have since
become fundamental to our lives. While the invention
of photography was clearly the province of Nicephore
Niepce, Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre and William
Henry Fox Talbot, Dancer falls into the second wave
of innovators who developed the process on further,
frequently with the minimum of information.