“‘Take from the slave-holder his slavery’: Lewis Payne, iconography, and radicalisation”

Description

One of the most famous photographs to emerge from the huge visual record of the Civil War is not an image of a battlefield or from a soldier’s camp, but must surely be Alexander Gardner’s 1865 portrait of Lewis Payne (real name Lewis Powell), one of the conspirators in the Lincoln assassination. A forgettable image when taken, it was made famous by its inclusion in Roland Barthes’ 1980 book La
Chambre Claire (Camera Lucida) and thus is well known to art and literature students across the world.

In his book, Barthes glosses Powell’s biography to a great extent, eliding any reference to the Civil War, the Booth plot, and in particular the white supremacy that drove the plotters’ actions. This fits the contemporary iconicity of the Payne portrait, which has become representative of a stoic resignation in the face of execution, helped by its apparent modernity in style and composition. Yet the photograph we appreciate today belies the turbulent circumstances of its creation, and in particular Powell’s background and his vulnerability to Booth. An account of this vulnerability formed the core of his defence at trial, and it has striking parallels with our contemporary understanding of radicalisation and
young males. The research presented in this paper explores the context of the photograph and its production, and how this informs (or does not) our contemporary understanding of Powell’s actions and their significance.

Period	2023
Event title	British Association of American Studies Annual Conference
Event type	Conference
Location	Keele, United KingdomShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International