Daguerreotype of American anti-slavery militant John Brown, 1846-1847

"I...am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land can never be purged away but with blood. I had, as I now think, vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed, it might be done."

John Brown.

Yet our record bloodshed in the Civil War soon to come still wouldn't be enough to completely remove it all. Sure slavery was abolished, but things were still horrible for so many reasons for the following 100 years, and somewhat still are today.
- I blame Reconstruction ending too soon, honestly.
- It was only abolished for the unincarcerated.

He stood there frozen for a few minutes, that's how long the exposure time was before they discovered/invented materials that are more sensitive to light... and then of course, found ways to mass-produce them. Maybe he stood there five minutes?

Gotta wonder how his day was going before tidying up and being asked to stand there like a statue while staring straight at the box in front of him, and how it went after that. In that environment so familiar yet still utterly alien to our eyes. What did he have for dinner that evening. How were the restaurants and bars of the era?

It was a world of steam power but that predated electricity, except maybe for the telegraph, transmitting its' mysteriously instantaneous messages in Morse code wherever the country-spanning wires were laid out, and no further. A world where horses were as abundant as cars are today. A world whose nighttime was lit by candlelight and oil-lamp.

Yes and he chose a particularly challenging pose to hold for a Daguerreotype! Many subjects back then preferred to sit in a very relaxed pose and they even used a small stand to hold the subject’s head still!
I love daguerrotypes, they’re such a vivid look into the past. Exposures outdoors in bright sunlight only took a few seconds, but as this one appears to be taken indoors he would have indeed needed to stand there for quite a while. That’s probably why his left hand is blurry (he’s holding the flag in his right hand - daguerrotypes were laterally mirrored).
Also, see the faint parallel lines all over the picture? Those are faint marks made by the photographer as he was polishing the plate just prior to sensitizing it and loading it into the camera.

Damn he only lived 1 year. Must have had super Jack disease.

#JohnBrownDidNothingWrong

I have seen too much spirit photography and thought the flag was supposed to be a ghost at first lmao.

Looking like Abe Lincoln without the beard.

Uh, I mean, John Brown wasn't exactly fighting his war with legal guns, so the modern context of liberals being in favor of gun control isn't all that applicable. "Beecher's Bibles" were illegally shipped into Bleeding Kansas, John Brown butchered a few slavers with a broadsword (very metal), and his most prominent action involved raiding a government armory in order to get guns.
Think on this my gun grabbing friends; What if the local cops or feds thought they were walking into your home might be Ruby Ridge II Bugaloo?
Not sure that defending a white nationalist twat is really the left take you want here.

What flag is that?

The Smithsonian says...
The portrait, taken in Washington’s Hartford, Connecticut, studio in 1846 or 1847, exudes an intensity consistent with the subject’s fanaticism. He appears very much as one might expect—angry and determined. In the image, Brown raises his right hand, as if taking an oath; in the other hand, he holds a banner thought to be the flag of the Subterranean Pass-Way, his militant alternative to the Underground Railroad.