Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback

Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback (May 10, 1837 – December 21, 1921) was the first person of African American descent to become governor of a U.S. state. A Republican, he served as the 24th Governor of Louisiana from December 9, 1872, to January 13, 1873.

After the Civil war, Pinchback returned to New Orleans and became active in the Republican Party, participating in Reconstruction state conventions. In 1868, he organized the Fourth Ward Republican Club in New Orleans.

After his governorship, Pinchback remained active in politics and public service. In the elections of 1874 and 1876, Pinchback was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives and then the U.S. Senate, another pioneering accomplishment as the state's first African American representative to Washington. Both election results were contested, and his Democratic opponents were seated instead. It was the beginning of a reversal of the political gains African Americans had achieved since the war's end.

Nicholas Lemann, in Redemption: The Last Battle of the Civil War, described Pinchback as "an outsized figure: newspaper publisher, gambler, orator, speculator, dandy, mountebank.

Title: Gov. Pinchback Date Created / Published: [between 1870 and 1880] Medium: 1 negative : glass, wet collodion. Reproduction Number: LC-DIG-cwpbh-03857 (digital file from original neg.)

Rights Advisory: No known restrictions on publication.

This Image (or other media file) is in the public domain because its copyright has expired. This applies to the United States, where Works published prior to 1923 are copyright protected for a maximum of 75 years. See Circular 1 "COPYRIGHT BASICS" PDF from the U.S. Copyright Office. Works published before 1923 in this case c1875, are now in the public domain.

This file is also in the public domain in countries that figure copyright from the date of death of the artist (post mortem auctoris) in this case Mathew Brady (1823–1896) and that most commonly runs for a period of 50 to 70 years from December 31 of that year.

Call Number: LC-BH826- 3467. Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA

Notes: Title from unverified information on negative sleeve. Annotation from negative, penciled on tape: 2 of this. Forms part of Brady-Handy Photograph Collection (Library of Congress).

Format: Glass negatives--1870-1880. Portrait photographs--1870-1880. Collections: Brady-Handy Collection.

TEXT RESOURCE: P. B. S. Pinchback From Wikipedia