"Tribute to J.P. Ball"

"Tribute to J.P. Ball". . , This mural depicts James Presley "J.P." Ball (1825-1904), a free Black man who overcame the racism of his time to become a renowned photographer in the pre-Civil War era, when slavery was still legal in the United States and photography was a new technology., Ball was born a free Black man in Virginia in 1825. He studied photography under John B. Bailey, another free Black man, in what is now West Virginia, before opening a one-room studio in Cincinnati when he was 20. This first studio was not successful, but after several years building his career in other U.S. cities, Ball returned to open a new studio and gallery in Cincinnati on Fifth Street in 1849. Ball soon relocated his business to a bigger space that spanned multiple floors at 28 W. Fourth Street, less than a block from where you stand today. He called the gallery, which employed as many as nine workers, the "Great Daguerrean Gallery of the West." It quickly became one of the most well-known galleries in the U.S., Ball photographed many famous people, including Britain's Queen Victoria, writer Charles Dickens, abolitionist Frederick Douglass, and the family of Ulysses S. Grant. Ball also used his platform to speak out against slavery., He took thousands of photographs in his 50-year career, but only one photograph exists of J.P. Ball himself. The portrait shown here was taken when Ball was in his 70s, 30 years after he left Cincinnati to travel throughout the western United States. Ball died in Honolulu in 1904., The mural shows the daguerreotype photograph equipment Ball would have used. First, a chemically treated silver plate was inserted into the camera. Next, the camera lens cap was removed, exposing the plate to light. This triggered a chemical reaction in which the image of the person in front of the camera was transferred onto the plate, thereby creating the photograph.