FLORESTINE PERRAULT COLLINGS

Collings (1895-1988) owned and operated a studio in New Orleans from 1920 to 1949, photographing families and visiting World War II soldiers, and becoming one of Louisiana's most respected photographers. She had originally opened her first studio in the living room of her home, using relatives as subjects for portraits.

DANIEL FREEMAN

Freeman (1868-?) was a painter and society photographer who opened his first studio in Washington, D.C., where he taught photography and started the Washington Amateur Art Society. He also represented the District of Columbia in an exhibition at the 1895 Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta.

KING DANIEL GANAWAY

Ganaway (1883-1944) was a butler in Chicago who learned photography on his days off. His "Spirit of Transportation," one of two photographs in the 15th annual exhibition at Wanamaker's Department Store in Philadelphia in 1921, won first prize, besting the work of others who would become some of the most prominent artists in photographic history. Ganaway later worked for the newspaper The Chicago Bee and managed the Chicago Bureau Art Studio.

CHARLES "TEENIE" HARRIS

Harris (1908-1998) was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and began photographing in the early 1930s. He opened a photography studio in his home city with $350 he borrowed from his brother. In 1936 he joined the staff of the Pittsburgh Courier, one of the few black-owned weekly newspapers at that time to have a national circulation, and quickly built an unprecedented rapport with Pittsburgh's African-American community. He worked for that newspaper until 1975, including the era when it was the nation's biggest black newspaper. Harris' images created a historically and sociologically accurate record of African-American history from 1931 to 1971, chronicling life through the complicated era of desegregation and again into the time of re-segregation. He is also known for his work as a photographer of Negro League baseball. The dapper photographer whose thousands of images captured celebrities and chronicled decades of black life in Pittsburgh died two weeks shy of this 90th birthday at the house where he had lived most of his life.

ROBERT H. McNEILL

McNeill (1917- ) was born in Washington, D.C., the son of a prominent doctor and a school teacher. He became interested in photography at a young age, after observing a demonstration on developing photographs. McNeill attended Howard University as a pre-med student for a few years, but eventually left for the New York Photography Institute. He returned to Washington a year later and set up a free lance business first out of his father's house then in his own studio. As a free lance artist during the 1930's and 40's, he developed an instinct to find a political, social, religious or community event in Washington's black community as well as get the pictures of interest to the newspaper readers. He photographed famous entertainers and sports figures as well as civil protests and political appointments.