Photojournalist Charles “Teenie” Harris, and the Family Friend Working to Keep His Legacy Alive

In a career spanning 40 years as a photojournalist for the Pittsburgh Courier, one of the nation’s leading Black newspapers, Charles “Teenie” Harris amassed an unrivaled photographic archive. The Smithsonian credits him with creating “one of the largest and most significant visual records of 20th-century African American life.”

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“I always say, ‘Thank God for Teenie,’because with his photos, what you see is the truth,” says Charlene Foggie-Barnett, the Charles “Teenie” Harris Community Archivist at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh.

Conservatively estimated at 75,000 images but likely somewhere closer to 80,000, Harris’s prodigious output—pictures taken for the paper supplemented by his private studio work and general photographic curiosity—beautifully and poetically paints a picture of Black life in mid-20th-century America. With his lens focused on the Hill District, a predominantly Black neighborhood east of Pittsburgh’s downtown where Harris lived his entire life, the photographer captured cultural moments that held significance far beyond the area itself.

Charles “Teenie” Harris, Man, possibly Elder Beck, making V sign outside railroad station, possibly for Double V campaign, c. 1943

“He wasn’t shocked by what he had, but he hadn’t really seen it as a whole,” Foggie-Barnett says. Harris did have informal conversations with the Carnegie Museum of Art about acquiring his collection before he died in 1998 at the age of 89. The museum finished the process, with the help and blessing of his family and other community members, in 2001.

“Teenie knew he had key people in his photos, that he had captured Black life and the honesty of situations that may have been tweaked or contrived in other press outlets—white press and so on, the archivist continues. In later years, “it really hit him that he had made a difference, even though, in his eyes, he was just trying to work.”

The Carnegie Museum of Art’s posthumous acquisition was, symbolically, a rewarding payoff for an often thankless job. Harris was well respected locally but achieved little outside recognition—or financial stability—during his lifetime. The photographer faced a demanding schedule with generally low pay, and he often had to buy his own camera equipment, film, and developing supplies. However, this self-financing allowed him to retain ownership of his images, instead of the newspaper claiming rights to them–an arrangement that would prove significant in the long term.

Charles “Teenie” Harris, Mary Jean Shipman Brown (also known as Marie Jeanne), a Pittsburgh designer and business owner known for making fashionable hats, measures a customer in her shop at 7373 Hamilton Ave in Homewood, c.1960–1970

In recent years, Foggie-Barnett and the Carnegie Museum of Art have worked diligently to digitize and widely exhibit Harris’ images, placing them in context with broader documents of the Jim Crow and Civil Rights eras and bringing Harris’ work to the forefront. Last November the museum opened the Charles “Teenie” Harris Archive Gallery, a permanent exhibit on the second floor featuring a rotating display of Harris’s photographs, videos, and more. It’s a long-overdue move that solidifies the Carnegie Museum of Art’s commitment to preserving the legacy of this landmark photographer and significant historical figure.

Born in the Hill District in July 1908, Harris developed an early interest in photography alongside a passion for athletics, participating in semi-professional baseball and basketball teams during his teens and twenties. Throughout those years, he learned photography primarily through his own trial and error. In the late 1930s, the self-taught image-maker began selling his photographs to the Courier and the local weekly magazine Flash! At the same time, he opened his own private photo studio in the neighborhood, establishing himself as the documentarian of the Hill District among residents. He joined the Courier full-time in 1941, when he was in his early thirties, and his images were regularly featured in the paper until the early 1980s.

Charles “Teenie” Harris, Brooklyn Dodger Jackie Robinson on Forbes Field, Oakland, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, c. 1947

As a photojournalist, Harris skillfully documented key political and social events, including visits from Presidents Nixon and Kennedy and the Black Construction Coalition’s Black Monday protest in August 1969. He highlighted the vibrant cultural scene, known as a hub for jazz and the birthplace of bebop. His collection features images of iconic musicians in action, like Duke Ellington and Nina Simone, alongside local legends like Erroll Garner. Harris’s portraits of celebrities such as Lena Horne, Muhammad Ali, and Jackie Robinson are noted for their reflective or dryly humorous tone, revealing new aspects of fame.

Political events and celebrity visits often intertwine in his images in surprising ways. For instance, Harris frequently photographed the Citizens Committee on Hill District Renewal, which opposed urban renewal efforts that displaced thousands of Black residents and businesses in the late 1950s and early 1960s. During one event, Eartha Kitt visited Pittsburgh, and Harris, true to his nickname of “One Shot,” captured her leaping through a life-size poster in support of their cause.

Charles “Teenie” Harris, Eartha Kitt leaping through poster to launch a Citizens Committee on Hill District Renewal program, with police officer Harvey Adams, Vine and Colwell Streets, Hill District, May 1966

Harris’s archive is rounded out by shots of everyday life, thousands of casual vernacular photographs that, if not part of his extensive catalog, easily could have been lost to time. The collection includes studio portraits of Hill District soldiers returning from World War II and celebratory photos from neighborhood wedding receptions and other momentous family occasions. It also provides an inadvertent record of popular mid-century hairstyles via its images meant to hang in the windows of local salons.

Also of note are his remarkable portrayals of the Hill District’s queer community, including portraits of drag queens, like Maurice Wheeler and a performer known simply as “Glenda,” that demonstrate the photographer’s sensitivity and respect for his subjects, which come through whether he was capturing big-name celebrities, working-class neighbors, or underground performers. In one image from 1952, taken at the Granville Hotel, four queens stand proudly together, boldly facing the camera or laughing with one another. Another photograph, from the late 1940s, captures a group gathered around the Little Paris Club’s campy limousine, painted to advertise its upcoming all-star revue. Drag performers, clubgoers, and others in the group stand tall or lounge on the hood of the car and gaze at the camera with a sense of agency and unwavering confidence.

Charles “Teenie” Harris, Group portrait of four cross dressers, including Boxer Michael “Bronze Adonis” Phelan (Fields) farthest left, and possibly “Beulah” Maurice Taylor (Wheeler) on right, posed in front of piano in Granville Hotel, c. 1952

Foggie-Barnett, born and raised in the Hill District, knew Harris personally but never saw herself becoming the primary steward of his life’s work. “Teenie,” as she still calls him, was a family friend and a regular presence in her life from childhood onward. Her mother had grown up with Harris, and her dad, a local pastor whose parish sat catty-corner to the Courier office, would catch up with the photographer as he came to pick up assignments, eventually becoming a good friend. Harris photographed the family from time to time, and many of these photos ended up in his archive, among the numerous family and baby pictures that remained unidentified, stored in boxes with nondescript labels.

Foggie-Barnett moved to Los Angeles after college but later returned to Pittsburgh with her husband and three kids to settle down and care for her ailing father. There, she came across a call to the community: The Carnegie Museum of Art was hosting an event for residents to explore Harris’s vast collection and help the museum identify key people, places, and events.

“I literally took the family photos [captured by Harris] off my walls,” Foggie-Barnett says. She headed to the museum, expecting to encounter a crowd and have a neighborhood reunion of sorts. “Instead,” she remembers, “outside of a few family members and museum staff, I was the only one that showed up.”

Charles “Teenie” Harris, Charlene Foggie-Barnett, on her first birthday, in light colored dress and hair bow, seated on table beside cake with dancer on top, in parsonage of Wesley Center Church, January 5, 1959

Fearful that interest in preserving the archive was nonexistent, and worried that boatloads of valuable community history and folklore might be lost, Foggie-Barnett began volunteering at the museum. She helped staff sort through boxes of images and encouraged friends and community members to join her efforts, asking them to share their stories and memories, too.

Now, as the Carnegie Museum of Art’s full-time Harris archivist, she is responsible for organizing and identifying photographs in the collection as they’re digitized and made available for public view. She also writes essays to provide context about the history documented by Harris and curates presentations of his work at the Carnegie Museum of Art and other institutions. Most important, she encourages community members to share their unique insights and perspectives through oral histories, video interviews, and collaborative curatorial projects, striving to gather as many first-hand accounts of life in the Hill District as possible. Her motivations have been clear from the get-go: “If we didn’t tell our own stories,” she says, “how do we know what’s going to be told?”

Charles “Teenie” Harris, Alyce Brooks plays a mirrored piano at the Crawford Grill No. 1, 1401 Wylie Avenue, Hill District, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, c. 1945–1946

For instance, a 2015 exhibition revolving around cars delved deep into its subject thanks to the expertise of its curator, the late community member Kenneth L. Hawthorne. Hawthorne had serviced cars for Teenie and his brother as a young adult and later became vice president of Gulf Oil in Pittsburgh. He brought together a collection of images that told the story of transportation challenges and entrepreneurial endeavors in the Hill District, like Owl Cab, Pittsburgh’s Black-owned taxi service, established in 1948 in part as a response to Yellow Cab’s refusal to serve the neighborhood. Although Hawthorne had never envisioned himself as a museum curator, Foggie-Barnett recalls that incorporating his knowledge into the exhibition helped preserve the community’s legacy.

Harris’s remarkable collection is a treasure trove, but it would have remained underappreciated without institutional support and Foggie-Barnett’s knowledgeable, sensitive stewardship. “I can’t tell you what this role means to me,” she says. “When I pick up a photo of a person I know for an exhibition or another opportunity, I also know I’m helping this person’s legacy—not just Teenie’s—flourish in the world. I love it.”