National Portrait Gallery says: Douglass likely sat for this photograph by John White Hurn on January 14, 1862, when he spoke at National Hall in Philadelphia, a block from Hurn’s studio. Hurn photographed Douglass again in 1866 and 1873, for a total of nine extant photographs, the most of any Douglass photographer.
Hurn was also a telegraph operator and aided Douglass’s 1859 escape after news broke of John Brown’s capture at Harpers Ferry. Douglass had arrived in Philadelphia on October 17, a day after Brown launched his attack, and Hurn refused to deliver a telegram ordering Philadelphia’s sheriff to arrest Douglass as a conspirator in Brown’s raid. Hurn also warned Douglass about the situation and prompted him to flee by train to Rochester, New York, and then to Canada and England.
John W. Hurn (1823–1887)
Albumen silver print, 1862
Collection of Gregory French
