D
Dandy: Often geographically qualified as "Northern dandy," a phrase referencing free black males in the Northern portions of the United States, whose mode of dress was seen as meticulous and outlandishly ostentatious. The phrase betrays a white perspective. Eventually the figure (of a Northern dandy) was codified as a stock character of minstrelsy.
A male of the human species, who dresses himself like a doll, and who carries his character on his back. Noah Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1846.
Delineation: To draw the lines of a first draft in form or figure. This term initially seemed to have little need for adjectives to depict shades of meaning. However, later in the 19th century, when the term “representation” was often substituted for delineation, a “correct representation” apparently seemed to be a necessary qualification of the concept. It is important to note that a secondary meaning of delineation was defined as a translation of visual imagery and representations, into words. Transmutations of this sort have a storied history associated with rhetorical figures of ekphrasis. (See Ruth Webb, Ekphrasis, imagination and persuasion in ancient rhetorical theory and practice, Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2007.) Nelson Sizer, a 19th century phrenological examiner, compiled a remarkably large body of work that did not require the physical presence of the subject. Using photographs he “delineated more characters than any other man living, his record being over 250,000.” Nelson Sizer and H.S. Drayton, Heads and Faces, and How to Study Them: A Manual of Phrenology and Physiognomy for the People (New York: Fowler & Wells, 1887).