Ansel Adams born / Angelina Grimké born - February 20

On this day in 1902, renowned photographer Ansel Adams was born. / On this day in 1805, American abolitionist and women's rights advocate Angelina Grimké was born.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, y'all, we're rerunning two episodes today. Enjoy the show.
Greetings everyone, welcome to this day in History class, where
we bring you a new tidbit from history every day.

(00:20):
The day was February nineteen o two. A child by
the name of Ansel Adams was born to Olive Bray
and Charles Hitchcock Adams in San Francisco, California. Adams would
turn out to be a renowned landscape photographer and a
crusader for wilderness conservation. Adams was born into a wealthy family,

(00:45):
as his grandfather was a successful timber baron, but his
family fortune took a hit in nineteen o seven after
a financial crisis in the United States, and they struggled
trying to recoup what they had lost. As a child,
Ansel had a hard time at school. He was kicked

(01:05):
out of several schools for bad behavior, so he started
taking lessons with private tutors and family members at age twelve,
and early on he was drawn to music. He taught
himself to play the piano, started taking piano lessons and
had no problem focusing his efforts on training to become
a professional musician. But playing the piano was not the

(01:30):
art form he would eventually become famous for. Adams was
already smitten with nature as a child. He took long
walks around Golden Gate, hiked the sand dunes, and went
to the beach, among other escapades and the outdoors. In
nineteen sixteen, Adams visited Yosemite National Park for the first time.

(01:53):
He had read the book In the Heart of the
Sierras by James Mason Hutchings and persuaded his parents to
take him to the park, and he was immediately taken
with the landscape. On that trip, he would take pictures
of the scenery with the Kodak number one box Brownie
his parents had given him, and from that point on

(02:14):
Ansel would only dive deeper into his love for nature
and photography. In nineteen nineteen, Adams joined the Sierra Club,
an organization that promotes outdoor activities and advocates for environmental
protection and preservation. He became super active in the club,
and his first published photos and writings were released in

(02:36):
nineteen twenty two in the club's bullets In. Adams soon
became the trip photographer on high trips or wilderness excursions
that the Sierra Club hosted every summer, uniting his passions
for the great outdoors and photography. In nineteen twenty seven,
Ansel climbed four thousand feet to get to the spot

(02:57):
where he would take a photo called Monolith the Face
of Half Dome. Adams would call the photo his first visualization,
or the first time he attempted to convey his feelings
and vision in a photograph. An Sol will right I
saw the photograph as a brooding form with deep shadows

(03:17):
in a distant, sharp white peak against a dark sky.
That photo would turn out to mark a seminal moment
in Adam's life and career. Adams still had an interest
in music, but by the late nineteen twenties he began
to focus more heavily on his photography projects informed relationships

(03:39):
with people who influenced his artwork. Patron of the arts
Albert M. Bender encouraged Ansel to keep pursuing photography and
provided Ansel with the funds to do so. In ninety
Ansel married Virginia Best. That same year, Adams had his
first solo exhibition at the Sierra Club's headquarters. Anselill also

(04:04):
begin traveling to the American Southwest to work with writer
Mary Hunter. Austin, and they published the book Taos Pueblo
in nineteen thirty. Adams had been practicing pictorialism in his work,
using soft focused techniques, filters, and heavy manipulation, but in
nineteen thirty he met photographer Paul Strand, whose work influenced

(04:28):
him to pursue a style called straight photography, where the
focus is sharp and scenes do not appear manipulated. This
would be the style he would go on to champion
in later years. Adams said the following in his essay
a personal Credo. A great photograph is a full expression

(04:48):
of what one feels about what is being photographed in
the deepest sense, and is thereby a true expression of
what one feels about life and its entirety. And the
expression of what one feels should be set forth in
terms of simple devotion to the medium, A statement of
the utmost clarity and perfection possible under the conditions of

(05:10):
creation and production. That will explain why I have no
patience with unnecessary complications of technique or presentation. Over the years,
Ansel and his work gained more popularity and he collaborated
with more artists. He joined a group called F sixty
four with other noted photographers, and though it was short lived,

(05:35):
the group brought straight photography to the art world's attention.
Adams had his first New York show in nineteen thirty three,
published his first series of technical articles in nineteen thirty four,
and launched his first widely distributed book in nineteen thirty five.
He worked long hours and has been described as a

(05:57):
party man, But as the story goes, for so many artists,
just because he was so popular didn't mean he was
making the money to match that. He took commercial photography
jobs Throughout his life. Adams technical mastery and artistry were
set in stone. He went on to develop the zone system,

(06:18):
a photographic technique to get proper exposure in development, and
produced many technical manuals on photography. But he also fought
for environmental conservation. He advocated for new parks, pushed back
against unnecessary highways, and wrote letters in support of conservation
to editors and politicians. His photos influenced public awareness on

(06:43):
issues of natural landscape preservation. He even documented life at
a Japanese American internment camp. Ansel Adams died in nineteen
eighty four in California, but his advocacy and artwork left
an imprint for la your generations of artists and environmentalists.

(07:04):
I'm Eaves, Jeff Cote and hopefully you know a little
more about history today than you did yesterday. And if
you're so inclined, you can follow us at T D
I h C Podcast on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Thanks
again for listening, and I hope you come back tomorrow

(07:25):
for more delicious morsels of history. Hi, I'm Eves and
you're listening to This Day in History Class, a show

(07:46):
that makes time travel a little bit easier. The day
was February oh five American abolitionist Angelina grim Key was born.
She's not to be confused with her great niece, Angelina

(08:06):
Wild grim Key, who was born in eighteen eighty and
was a writer who gained popularity during the Harlem Renaissance.
The Angelina grim Key were talking about today was a
white Southern woman who was an activist and women's rights advocate.
Grim Key was born in Charleston, South Carolina to a
slave owning family. She was the fourteenth and last child

(08:28):
born to John Fochhole grim Key and Mary Smith grim Key.
Her father was a Revolutionary War veteran and a prominent
politician and judge in South Carolina. Her mother came from
a wealthy family that included Governor grim Key's family had
a home in Charleston and a plantation in the country.

(08:49):
Enslaved people worked the land producing rice and cotton. They
also worked as household servants. Grim Key's parents were fully
invested in following the dictates of white upper class society
in the South. Her father prohibited Angelina and her sisters
from getting an education. Angelina was very close to her
older sister Sarah, as they witnessed the atrocities of slavery

(09:12):
that their parents were complicit in their opposition to the
institution group. In eighteen nineteen, Sarah went to Philadelphia and
New Jersey with their father, who was sick and seeking
medical assistance. Their father died in New Jersey, but Sarah
stayed in Philadelphia for a while and was introduced to Quakerism.

(09:32):
Quakers are members of a religious group with Christian roots
in mid seventeenth century England. They were largely concerned with
human rights and often held anti slavery views. Sarah soon
joined the Quakers, returning to South Carolina briefly before she
moved to Philadelphia Following Sarah's lead. Angelina also became a
Quaker in eighteen twenty nine after having difficulty advocating for

(09:57):
the anti slavery cause in the South. She also moved
to Philadelphia. There, she joined the Philadelphia Female Anti Slavery Society.
In eighty five, grim Key wrote a letter to William
Lloyd Garrison, a founder of the American Anti Slavery Society
and publisher of the abolitionist newspaper The Liberator. In the letter,

(10:18):
she praised Garrison and wrote about slavery and abolitionism. Garrison
published it without her consent, and it got a lot
of pushback from the Quaker community, who did not approve
of her radical support of abolitionism. Despite this disapproval and
the fact that she had not asked for her letter
to be printed, the letter gained national attention and Angelina

(10:41):
became more involved with the abolitionist movement. She read more
anti slavery texts and went to lectures. In eighteen thirty six,
she published the pamphlet and appealed to Christian women of
the South, condemning slavery and urging Southern women to free
enslaved people and pay them wages. She continued to write

(11:03):
abolitionist pamphlets and speak out against slavery. Angelina and Sarah
began giving anti slavery lectures and organizing women's anti slavery
groups around the Northeast. They toured in New York, New Jersey,
and Massachusetts. Though many of their lectures were attended by
women only, some of their lectures were attended by men

(11:24):
and women. Their lectures were already controversial, since they said
slavery was anti Christian, exposed the horrors of slavery and
criticized slaveholding Southerners and Northerners who were complicit in a system,
but their lectures in front of so called mixed audiences
also fueled accusations of unwomanly behavior. The sisters began to

(11:46):
link the anti slavery cause to the issue of women's rights.
They continued writing and spoke at the Anti Slavery Convention
of American Women, even as their role as outspoken women
in the movement was heavily criticized. Angelina married Thomas Weld,
another abolitionist, in eighteen thirty eight, and the next year

(12:07):
the sisters published the book American Slavery As It Is
Testimony from a thousand witnesses They also continued circulating anti
slavery petitions and attending meetings, but they stopped giving public
lectures on the cause and retreated from the forefront of
abolitionist activism. Angelina supported Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War

(12:30):
and advocated for women's rights in suffrage. After the war.
She also helped run a couple of schools with Sarah.
She died in Boston in eighteen seventy nine. I'm Eve
Jeffcote and hopefully you know a little more about history
today than you did yesterday. Have a hard time staying
present as you mindlessly scrolled through social media. Lucky for

(12:51):
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(13:16):
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