Robert Harlan

Robert James Harlan (December 12, 1816 – September 21, 1897) was a civil rights activist and politician in Cincinnati, Ohio in the 1870s-1890s. He was born a slave but was allowed free movement and employment on the plantation of Kentucky politician James Harlan, who raised him and may have been his father or half-brother.

He speculated in Cincinnati real estate and earned enough to purchase Ball's First Class Photographic and Daguerreotype Gallery where he employed a number of well known photographers including Charles Waldeck, James Landy, Leon Vanloo and Robert Duncanson. An Advertisement in the local paper read “Duncanson, a Gentleman well-known in this city as a painter of high merit, is now connected with this Establishment.”

In 1857 the partnership got nasty and Ball left & opened a studio with his brother and then moving from Cincinnati. Another newspaper talks about $4000. own by Ball . 143,000 today. Duncanson stayed and did his painting and colorizing photographs until 1859 or 1860 when the company dissolved.

Harlan proudly advertised his coup in a 1857 newspaper to attract customers: " Duncanson, a gentleman well-known in this city as a painter of high merit, is connected with this establishment."

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