Robert Douglass Jr.
Another activist who broke the glass ceiling in the 1800s was Robert Douglass Jr. He was born to Robert Douglass Sr. and Grace Bustill Douglass in 1809 into a family of activists in Philadelphia. His father was the lead campaigner against attempts by the American Colonization Society’s move to repatriate free African Americans to Africa in 1816, as reported by the New York Public Library.
Robert’s major at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts was portrait painting under the tutelage of renowned artist Thomas Sully. Robert rose to become a prominent painter, printmaker and photographer. The first painting he undertook was an oil painting of the Pennsylvania State Seal. His work which shot him to national attention had to do with his transparency of President George Washington Crossing the Delaware.
