Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture > Exhibitions

Stereotypes vs. Humantypes: Images of Blacks in the 19th and 20th Centuries

From May 12, 2007 through October 28, 2007
Exhibition Hall
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, 515 Malcolm X Boulevard, New York, NY 10037-1801 (directions)

Stereotypes vs. Humantypes Logo
Humantypes: Vaudevillians Ada and George Walker, 1905. Stereotypes: Topsy from a promotional poster for the Uncle Tom’s Cabin Company, mid-19th century; and Jim Crow, the stereotypical character portrayed in blackface by Thomas Dartmouth Rice (known as the “Father of American minstrelsy”) beginning in 1828.

For much of the 19th and early 20th centuries, stereotypical images of people of African descent dominated the public media, especially in the United States. Black men, women and children were portrayed as "coons," "mammies," and "pickaninnies" in the press, in children's and comic books, in marketing and advertising promotions, as well as film and television. Many of these mythological images persist today in the public consciousness and public eye. This exhibition uses vintage photographs of black people, as well as representational paintings, sculptures and other artworks to challenge these mythological images and present accurate, humanistic depictions of these maligned black folk. It also poses the question of why certain whites in western culture found it necessary to create such stereotypical images of their human forbearers.