History of Photography
History of Photography
A World History of Photography
The Story Behind the Pictures 1827-1991
THE EARLY YEARS:
TECHNOLOGY, VISION, USERS
What is the secret of the invention? What is the substance endowed with
such astonishing sensibility to the rays of light, that it not only penetrates itself with them,
but preserves their impression; performs at once the function of the eye and the optic nerve
—the material instrument of sensation and sensation itself?
"Photogenic Drawing" 1839
IN THE YEAR 1839, two remarkable processes that
would revolutionize our perceptions of reality were announced separately
in London and Paris; both represented responses to the challenge of
permanently capturing the fleeting images reflected into the camera
obscura. The two systems involved the application of long-recognized
optical and chemical principles, but aside from this they were only
superficially related. The outcome of one process was a unique,
unduplicatable, laterally reversed monochrome picture on a metal plate
that was called a daguerreotype after one of its inventors, Louis Jacques
Mande Daguerre (pi. No1) (see Profile). The other system produced an image
on paper that was also monochromatic and tonally as well as laterally
reversed—a negative. When placed in contact with another chemically
treated surface and exposed to sunlight, the negative image was
transferred in reverse, resulting in a picture with normal spatial and
tonal values. The result of this procedure was called photogenic drawing
and evolved into the calotype, or Talbotype, named after its inventor,
William Henry Fox Talbot (pi. no. 2) (see Profile). For reasons to be
examined later in the chapter, Talbot's negative-positive process
initially was less popular than Daguerre's unique picture on metal, but it
was Talbot's system that provided the basis for all substantive
developments in photography.
1. JEAN BAPTISTE SABATIER-BLOT. Portrait
of Louis Jacques Monde Daguerre, 1844. Daguerreotype.
International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House.
2. ANTOINE CLAUDET.
Portrait of William Henry Fox Talbot, c. 1844.
Daguerreotype. Fox Talbot Museum, Lacock, England.
By the time it was announced in 1839, Western
industrialized society was ready for photography. The camera's images
appeared and remained viable because they filled cultural and sociological
needs that were not being met by pictures created by hand. The photograph
was the ultimate response to a social and cultural appetite for a more
accurate and real-looking representation of reality, a need that had its
origins in the Renaissance. When the idealized representations of the
spiritual universe that inspired the medieval mind no longer served the
purposes of increasingly secular societies, their places were taken by
paintings and graphic works that portrayed actuality with greater
verisimilitude. To render buildings, topography, and figures accurately
and in correct proportion, and to suggest objects and figures in spatial
relationships as seen by the eye rather than the mind, 15th-century
painters devised a system of perspective drawing as well as an optical
device called the camera obscura that projected distant scenes onto a flat
surface (see A Short Technical History, Part I)—both means remained in use
until well into the 19th century. Realistic depiction in the visual arts
was stimulated and assisted also by the climate of scientific inquiry that
had emerged in the 16th century and was supported by the middle class
during the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution of the late 18th
century. Investigations into plant and animal life on the part of
anatomists, botanists, and physiologists resulted in a body of knowledge
concerning the internal structure as well as superficial appearance of
living things, improving artists' capacity to portray organisms credibly.
As physical scientists explored aspects of heat, light, and the solar
spectrum, painters became increasingly aware of the visual effects of
weather conditions, sunlight and moonlight, atmosphere, and, eventually,
the nature of color itself.
This evolution toward naturalism in representation
can be seen clearly in artists' treatment of landscape. Considered a
necessary but not very important clement in the painting of religious and
classical themes in the 16th and 17th centuries, landscape had become
valued for itself by the beginning of the 19th. This interest derived
initially from a romantic view of the wonders of the universe and became
more scientific as painters began to regard clouds, trees, rocks, and
topography as worthy of close study, as exemplified in a pencil drawing of
tree growth by Daguerre himself (pi. no. 3). When the English landscapist
John Constable observed that "Painting is a science and should be pursued
as an inquiry' into the laws of nature," he voiced a respect for truth
that brought into conjunction the aims of art and science and helped
prepare the way for photography. For if nature was to be studied
dispassionately, if it was to be presented truthfully, what better means
than the accurate and disinterested "eye" of the camera?
3. Louis JACQUES MANDE DAGUERRE.
Woodland Scene, n.d.
Pencil on paper.
International Museum of Photography
at George Eastman House, Rochester, N.Y.
The aims of graphic art and the need for
photography converged in yet another respect in the 19th century. In
accord with the charge of French Realist painter Gustave Courbet that it
was necessary "to be of one's time," many artists rejected the old
historical themes for new subjects dealing with mundane events in
contemporary life. In addition to renouncing traditional subject matter,
they also sought new ways to depict figures in natural and lifelike poses,
to capture ephemeral facial and gestural expression, and to represent
effects of actual conditions of illumination—information that the camera
image was able to record for them soon after the middle of the century.
Another circumstance that prepared the way for
photography's acceptance was the change in art patronage and the emergence
of a large new audience for pictorial images. As the church and noble
families diminished in power and influence, their place as patrons of the
arts was taken by the growing middle class. Less schooled in aesthetic
matters than the aristocrats, this group preferred immediately
comprehensible images of a variety of diverting subjects. To supply the
popular demand for such works, engravings and (after 1820) lithographs
portraying anecdotal scenes, landscapes, familiar structures, and exotic
monuments were published as illustrations in inexpensive periodicals and
made available in portfolios and individually without texts. When the
photograph arrived on the scene, it slipped comfortably into place, both
literally and figuratively, among these graphic images designed to satisfy
middle-class cravings for instructive and entertaining pictures.
Though the birth of photography was accompanied by
incertitude about scientific and technical matters and was plagued by
political and social rivalries between the French and the British, the new
pictorial technology appealed enormously to the public imagination from
the first. As photographs increasingly came to depict the same kinds of
imagery as engravings and lithographs, they superseded the handmade
product because they were more accurate in the transcription of detail and
less expensive to produce and therefore to purchase. The eagerness with
which photography was accepted and the recognition of its importance in
providing factual information insured unremitting efforts during the
remainder of the century to improve its procedures and expand its
The invention of the daguerreotype was revealed in
an announcement published in January, 1839, in the official bulletin of
the French Academy of Sciences, after Daguerre had succeeded in
interesting several scientist-politicians, among them Francois Arago, in
the new process of making pictures. Arago was an eminent astronomer,
concerned with the scientific aspects of light, who also was a member of
the French Chamber of Deputies. As spokesman for an enlightened group
convinced that researches in physics and chemistry were steppingstones to
national economic supremacy, Arago engineered the purchase by France of
the process that Daguerre had perfected on his own after the death of his
original partner, Joseph Nicephore Niepce (pi. no. 4) (see A Short
Technical History, Part I). Then on August 19, 1839, with the inventor at
his side, Arago presented the invention to a joint meeting of the
Academies of Sciences and of Fine Arts (pi. no. 5) ; the process was later
demonstrated to gatherings of artists, intellectuals, and politicians at
weekly meetings at the Conservatoire desArts et Metiers.
5. UNKNOWN. Joint Meeting of the Academies of Sciences and
Fine Arts in the Institute of France, Paris, August 19, 1839.
Engraving. Gemsheim Collection, Humanities Research Center,
University of Texas, Austin.
4. LEONARD-FRANCOIS BERGER. Portrait of Joseph Sktphore NUpce,
1854. Oil on Canvas. Musee Nicephore Nicpce,
Ville de Chalon-sur-Saone, France.
The marvel being unveiled was the result of years of experimentation
that had begun in the 1820s when Niepce had endeavored to produce an image
by exposing to light a treated metal plate that he subsequently hoped to
etch and print on a press. He succeeded in making an image of a dovecote
(pi. no. 6) in an exposure that took more than eight hours, which accounts
for the strange disposition of shadows on this now barely discernible
first extant photo-graph. When his researches into heliography, as he
called it, reached a standstill, he formed a partnership with the painter
Daguerre, who, independently, had become obsessed with the idea of making
the image seen in the camera obscura permanent. Daguerre's fascination
with this prob-lem, and with the effects of light in general, is under-standable
in view of his activities as a painter of stage sets and illusionistic
scenery for The Diorama, a popular visual entertainment in Paris. Evolved
from the panorama, a circular painted scene surrounding the viewers, The
Diorama contrived to suggest three-dimensionality and atmospheric effects
through the action of light on a scries of realistically painted flat
scrims. The everyday world was effectively transcended as the public,
seated in a darkened room, focused on a painted scene that genuinely
appeared to be animated by storms and sunsets.
In promoting The Diorama into one of Europe's most
popular entertainments, Daguerre had shown himself to be a shrewd
entrepreneur, able to gauge public taste and balance technical, financial,
and artistic considerations, and he continued this role with respect to
the new invention. He understood, as his partner Niepce had not, that its
progress and acceptance would be influenced as much by promotional skill
as by intrinsic merit. After the death of Niepce in 1833, Daguerre
continued working on the technical problems of creating images with
light, finally achieving a practicable process that he offered to sell in
1838, first for a lump sum and then by subscription. When these attempts
failed, he altered his course to a more politically inspired one, a move
that culminated in the acquisition of the process by the French government
and led to the painter's presence beside Arago at the gathering of
notables in the Palace of the Institute in August, 1839.
In an electric atmosphere, Arago outlined
Daguerre's methods of obtaining pictures (basically, by "exposing" a
silver-coated copper plate sensitized in iodine vapor and "developing" its
latent image by fuming in mercurv vapor), enumerated potential uses, and
prophetically emphasized unforeseen developments to be expected. The
making of inexpensive portraits was one possibility keenly desired, but in
1839 the length of time required to obtain a daguerreotype image ranged
from five to 60 minutes, depending on the coloring of the subject and the
strength of the light—a factor making it impossible to capture true human
appearance, expression, or movement. For instance, in one of two views
from his window of the Boulevard du Temple (pi. no. 7) that Daguerre made
in 1838, the only human visible is the immobile figure of a man with a
foot resting on a pump, all other figures having departed the scene too
quickly to have left an imprint during the relatively long exposure.
Therefore, efforts to make the process practicable for portraiture were
undertaken immediately (see Chapter 2).
Shortly after the public announcement, Daguerre
published a manual on daguerreotyping, which proved to many of his
readers that the process was more easily written about than executed.
Nevertheless, despite the additional difficulty of transporting unwieldly
cameras and equipment to suitable locales—not to mention the expenditure
of considerable time and money—the process immedi¬ately attracted devotees
among the well-to-do, who rushed to purchase newly invented cameras,
plates, chemicals, and especially the manual—about 9,000 of which were
sold within the first three months. Interest was so keen that within two
years a variety of cameras, in addition to the model designed by Daguerre
and produced by Alphonse Giroux in Paris, were manufactured in France,
Germany, Austria, and the United States. Several knowledgeable opticians
quickly designed achromatic (non-distorting) lenses for the new cameras,
including the Chevalier brothers in Paris and Andrew Ross in London, all
of whom had been providing optical glass for a wide range of other needs,
as well as the Austrian scientist Josef Max Petzval, a newcomer. Focusing
on monuments and scenery, daguerreotype enthusiasts were soon to be seen
in such numbers in Paris, the countryside, and abroad that by December,
1839, the French press already characterized the phenomenon as a craze or
"daguerreotypomanie" (pi. no. 8).
6. Joseph Nicephore Niepce. View from His Window
at Le Gras, c. 1827. Heliograph. Gernsheim Collection.
Humanities Research Center, University of Texas, Austin.
JOSEPH NICEPHORE NIEPCE
(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
Nicéphore Niépce (March 7, 1765 – July 5, 1833) was a French inventor,
most noted as the inventor of photography and a pioneer in the field. He
is well-known for taking some of the earliest photographs, dating to the
Joseph Niépce was born on 7 March 1765 in Chalon-sur-Saône, France. He
created the first permanent photograph, of the exterior of his home,
around 1826. The photograph was made using a camera obscura and a sheet of
pewter coated with bitumen of Judea, an asphalt that when exposed to
light, hardened permanently. This first photograph was captured during an
eight hour exposure, taking so much time that the sun passed overhead and
thus illuminating both sides of the courtyard.
Niépce did not have a steady enough hand to trace the inverted images
created by the camera obscura, as was popular in his day, so he looked for
a way to capture an image permanently. He experimented with lithography,
which led him in his attempt to take a photograph using a camera obscura.
Niépce also experimented with silver chloride, which hardens when exposed
to light, but eventually looked to the bitumen, which he used in his first
successful attempt at capturing nature photographically. He dissolved the
bitumen in lavender oil, a solvent often used in varnishes, and coated the
sheet of pewter with this light capturing mixture, he placed the sheet
inside a camera obscura to capture the picture, and eight hours later
removed it and washed it with lavender oil to remove the unexposed
He began experimenting to set optical images in 1793. Some of his early
experiments made images, but they faded very fast. It was said that he
made the first long lasting images in 1824. The earliest known example of
a Niépce photograph (or any other photograph) was created in June or July
of 1827 or 1826, according to some information. Niépce called his process
heliography, which literally means "sun writing".
Starting in 1829 he began collaborating on improved photographic processes
with Louis Daguerre, and together they developed the physautotype, a
process that used lavender oil. The partnership lasted until Niépce’s
death in 1833. At this point Daguerre continued with experimentation, and
in 1839 revealed to the public his new process for taking pictures, which
he called the Daguerreotype, after himself, and for a good many years
Niépce received no credit for what was essentially his invention. Niépce’s
son eventually fought for and won his father's right to be credited for
this invention, but Niépce’s name was never as well known as was
In 2002, an earlier remaining photograph which had been taken by Niépce
was found in a French photograph collection. The photograph was found to
been taken in 1825, and it was an image of an engraving of a young boy
leading a horse into a stable. The photograph itself later sold for
450,000 euros at an auction.
View from the Study Window, 1827
7. Louis JACQUES MANDE DAGUERRE. Boulevard du
Temple, Paris, c. 1838.
Daguerreotype. Bayerisches NationaJmuscum, Munich.
LOUIS JACQUES MANDE
(From Wikipedia, the
Daguerre (November 18, 1787 – July 10, 1851) was a French artist and
chemist, recognized for his invention of the daguerreotype process of
Daguerre was born in Cormeilles-en-Parisis, Val-d'Oise, France. He
apprenticed in architecture, theater design, and panoramic painting.
Exceedingly adept at his skill for theatrical illusion, he became a
celebrated designer for the theater and later came to invent the
Diorama, which opened in Paris in July 1822.
In 1827, Joseph Nicéphore Niépce produced the world's first permanent
photograph (known as a Heliograph). Daguerre partnered with Niépce two
years later, beginning a four-year cooperation. Niépce died suddenly in
1833. The main reason for the "partnership", as far as Daguerre was
concerned, was connected to his already famous dioramas. Niepce was a
printer and his process was based on a faster way to produce printing
plates. Daguerre thought that the process developed by Niepce could help
speed up his diorama creation.
Daguerre announced the latest perfection of the Daguerreotype, after
years of experimentation, in 1839, with the French Academy of Sciences
announcing the process on January 9 of that year. Daguerre's patent was
acquired by the French Government, and, on August 19, 1839, the French
Government announced the invention was a gift "Free to the World."
Though Daguerre obtained a pension from the Government, the deceased
Niépce did not. Eventually his son fought for and won a pension from the
government recognizing his father's work.
Daguerre died in Bry-sur-Marne, 12 km from Paris. A monument marks his
The work on the Daguerre process was taking place at the same time as
that of Fox Talbot in England on the calotype process. Both men knew
that they were working on a process that would revolutionize the art
world. The Grand Tours which were so popular were illustrated by
drawings of scenes and the "photographic" process would improve the
quality and ease with which these popular holiday memories could be
To protect his own invention, Daguerre himself registered the patent for
Britain on August 12 (a week before France declared it "Free to the
World"), and this greatly slowed the development of photography in that
nation. Great Britain was to be the only place the patent was enforced.
Antoine Claudet was one of the few people legally able to take
Daguerre did not need to make money from the invention to live, since he
had been pensioned by the French government. Fox Talbot spent a
considerable amount of money on his process (est. £5,000 in 1830s money)
and was keen to recover the costs which the Daguerre patent blocked.
The first permanent photograph was made in 1826 by Joseph Nicéphore
Niépce, building on a discovery by Johann Heinrich Schultz (1724): a
silver and chalk mixture darkens under exposure to light. Niépce and
Daguerre refined this process. Daguerre first exposed silver-coated
copper plates to iodine, obtaining silver iodide. Then he exposed them
to light for several minutes. Then he coated the plate with mercury
vapor heated to 75° Celsius, to amalgate the mercury with the silver,
finally fixing the image in salt water. These ideas led to the famous
The resultant plate produced a mirror-like exact reproduction of the
scene. The image was a mirror of the original scene. The image could
only be viewed at an angle and needed protection from the air and
fingerprints so was encased in a glass-fronted box.
Some ambrotypes were passed off as Daguerreotypes by being placed in
these type of boxes. But the process was cheaper involving a weakly
developed negative being placed on back card or paper to appear as a
positive. Tintypes also were "boxed" as Daguerrotypes.
Daguerreotypes were usually portraits; the rarer views are much
sought-after and are more expensive. The portrait process took several
minutes and required the subjects to remain stock still. Samuel Morse
was astonished to learn that Daguerrotypes of streets of Paris did not
show any humans, until he realized that due to the long exposure times
all moving objects became invisible. The time was later reduced with the
"faster" lenses such as the Petzval's portrait lens, the first
mathematically calculated lens.
The Daguerreotype was the Polaroid of the day, producing a single image
which was not reproducible (unlike the Talbot process). Despite this
drawback, millions of Daguerreotypes were produced. By 1851, the year of
Daguerre's death, the Fox Talbot negative process was refined by the
development of the wet collodion process, whereby a glass negative
enabled a limitless number of sharp prints to be made. These
developments made the Daguerreotype redundant and the process very soon
Boulevard du Temple, 1838
8. THeODORE MAURISSET. La Daguerreotypomanie,
December, 1839. Lithograph.
Gemsheim Collection, Humanities Research Center, University of Texas,
One of the more accomplished of the gentlemen amateurs who were
intrigued by daguerreotyping was Baron Jean Baptiste Louis Gros, who made
the first daguerreotype images of the Parthenon while on a diplomatic
mission to Greece in 1840. After returning to Paris, he was fasci¬nated by
his realization that, unlike hand-drawn pictures, camera images on close
inspection yielded minute details of which the observer may not have been
aware when the exposure was made; far removed from the Acropolis, he found
that he could identify sculptural elements from the Parthenon by examining
his daguerreotypes with a magnifying glass. The surpassing clarity of
detail, which in fact still is the daguerreotype's most appealing feature,
led Gros to concentrate on interior views and landscapes whose special
distinction lies in their exquisite attention to details (pi. no. 9).
At the August meeting of the Academies, Arago had
announced that the new process would be donated to the world—the seemingly
generous gift of the government of Louis Philippe, the Citizen King.
However, it soon became apparent that before British subjects could use
the process they would have to purchase a franchise from Daguerre's agent.
Much has been written about the chauvinism of Daguerre and the French in
making this stipulation, but it should be seen in the context of the
unrelenting competition between the French and British ruling-classes for
scientific and economic supremacy. The licensing provision reflected,
also, an awareness among the French that across the Channel the eminent
scientist Talbot had come up with another method of producing pictures by
the interaction of light and chemicals.
Regularly scheduled demonstrations of Daguerre's
process and an exhibition of his plates took place in London in October,
1839, at the Adelaide Gallery and the Royal Institution, the two forums
devoted to popularizing new discoveries in science. Daguerre's manual,
which had appeared in translation in September (one of 40 versions
published within the first year), was in great demand, but other than
portraitists, whose activities will be discussed in the next chapter, few
individuals in England and Scotland clamored to make daguerreotypes for
amusement. Talbot, aware since January of Daguerre's invention from
reports in the French and British press and from correspondence, visited
the exhibition at the Adelaide Gallery and purchased the equipment
necessary for making daguerreo-types; however, even though he praised it
as a "splendid" discovery, he does not appear to have tried out the
Reaction to the daguerreotype in German-speaking
cities was both official and affirmative, with decided interest expressed
by the ruling monarchs of Austria and Prussia. Returning from a visit to
Paris in April, 1839, Louis Sachse, owner of a lithographic firm, arranged
for French cameras, plates, and daguerreotype images to be sent to Berlin
by mid-year; a few months later, views taken with locally constructed
apparatus also were being shown. However, even though urban scenes in a
number of cities were recorded quite early, among them an 1851 view of
Berlin by Wilhelm Halffter (pi. no. 10), daguerreotyping for personal
enjoyment was less prevalent in Central Europe because the bourgeoisie
were neither as affluent nor as industrially advanced as their French
counterparts. As in all countries, German interest in the daguerreotype
centered on expectations for a simple way to make portraits.
Avid interest in the new picture-making process, a
description of which had appeared in scientific journals following the
January announcement in Paris, motivated Anton Martin, librarian of the
Vienna Polytechnic Institute, to attempt daguerreotype images in the
summer of 1839, even before Daguerre had fully disclosed his procedures
or had his plates exhibited in Vienna that fall. Winter Landscape (pi. no.
11), a view made two years later by Martin, is mundane in subject matter
and artlessly organized. But by the 1830s this kind of scene already had
begun to appeal to artists, and it is possible that the documentary camera
image, exemplified by this work, hastened the renunciation of romantic
themes and bravura treatment of topographical scenes in the graphic arts.
9. JEAN BAPTISTE LOUIS GROS. Bridge and Boats on
the Thames, 1851.
Daguerreotype. Bibliotheque Nationak, Paris
10. WILHELM HALFFTER. Statue of Frederick the
Great, Berlin, May 31, 1851.
Daguerreotype. Agfa-Gcvacrt Foto-Historama,
11. ANTON MARTIN. Winter Landscape, Vienna, c.
Daguerreotype. Museum fur Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg
One of the earliest Europeans to embrace and
extend the possibilities of the daguerreotype was the Swiss engraver
Johann Baptist Isenring who, between 1840 and 1843, exhibited plates of
native scenery, colored by hand, in Augsburg, Munich, Stuttgart, and
Vienna. He also was among the first to publish aquatint views (pi. no. 12)
based on daguerreotypes, signaling the form in which the unique image
would begin to reach a larger public. His subject matter, too, anticipated
the attraction that Continental landscape was to have for a great many
photographers working between 1850 and 1880, many of whom continued the
tradition begun in the late 18th century of publishing landscape views.
Curiosity about the new picture processes was
pronounced among scientists, artists, and travelers in Italy. In addition
to translations of French manuals, which started to appear in 1840,
visitors from the north brought along that own equipment for bytli the
daguerreotype and Talbot's negative-positive process. Among the early
Italian daguerrconpists. Lorenzo Suscipj was commissioned to make views
of the Roman mini for English philologist Alexander John Ellis. Indeed,
the presence of classical ruins and die interesting mb, of French,
British, German, and American nationals living and traveling in Rome and
Florence during mid-century gave Italian photography in all processes a
unique character in that the rapid com-mercialization of scenic views and
genre subjects became possible. For example, within ten years of the
introduction of photography, camera images had taken the place of the
etchings engravings and lithographs of ruins that tourist
traditionally had purchased.
As one moved farther east and north from Paris
daguerreotyping activity became less common. News of the discovery,
reprinted from the January notices in the French press, reached Croatia,
Hungary Lidiuania. and Serbia in February, 1839, and Denmark. Estonia,
Finland, and Po-land during the summit, with the result that a number of
scientific papers on the process began to appear in these localities. In
Russia experimentation succeeded in producing a less expensive method of
obtaining images on nipper and brass rather dian silver., and by 1845 a
Russian dague-rcotypist felt confident enough to exhibit landscape views
of the Caucasus Mountains in in Paris show. Nevertheless, early
photography in all these distant realms reflected the absence of a large
and stable middle class. Only in the three primary industrial
powers—England, France, and die United States—was this group able to
sustain die investment of time and energy necessary to do clop the medium
technically and in terms of significant use.
12. JOHANN BAPTIST ISENRING. View of Zurich, n.d.
Aquatint. Burgerbibliotek Bern, Switzerland.
The Daguerreotype in America
As had been the case with other technologies
originat-ing in Europe, Americans not only embraced the daguerreotype,
but quickly proceeded to turn it to commercial advantage. The view that
"the soft finish and delicate definition of a Daguerreotype has never yet
been equalled by any other style of picture produced by actinic agency,"
which appeared in the photographic magazine Humphrey's Journal in 1859,
was only one expression of an opinion held especially by the first
generation of American photographers. Daguerreotyping remained the process
of choice for 20 years—long beyond the time that Europeans had turned to
the more flexible negative-positive technology. The reasons for this
loyalty are not entirely clear, but a contributing factor must have been
the excellent quality attained by American daguerreotypists. The sparkling
North American light, envied by fogenshrouded Londoners, was said to have
been partly responsible, but social and cultural factors undoubtedly were
more significant. Considered a mirror of reality, the crisp, realistic
detail of the daguerreotype accorded with the taste of a society that
distrusted handmade art as hinting of luxuriousness and was enamored of
almost everything related to practical science. With its mixture of
mechanical tinkering and chemical cookery, the daguerreotype posed an
appealing challenge to a popu-lace that was upwardly and spatially mobile
despite periods of economic depression. As a means of livelihood, it
combined easily with other manual occupations such as case-or watchmaking,
and those who wished to follow a western star were to find it a
practicable occupation while on the move.
Some Americans had higher aspirations for the
daguerreotype. As an image produced by light, it appeared in their minds
to conjoin the Emersonian concept of the "divine hand of nature" with the
practicality of scientific positivism. Some hoped that the new medium
might help define the unique aspects of American history and experience as
expressed in the faces of the citizenry. Others believed that because it
was a picture made by machine it would avoid too great artifice and, at
the same time, would not demonstrate the obvious provinciality of outlook
and training that often characterized native graphic art at mid-century.
13. PHOTOGRAPHER UNKNOWN. Portrait of Samuel F. B. Morse, c. 1845.
Daguerreotype. Collection Mrs. Joseph Carson, Philadelphia.
The daguerreotype reached America after it had
been seen and praised by Samuel F. B. Morse (pi. no. 13), a skillful
painter who also invented the electromagnetic telegraph. His enthusiastic
advocacy in letters to his brother in the spring of 1839 helped spur
interest in the first manuals and descriptions that arrived in New York
late in September by packet ship from England. By early October, details
were available in the press, enabling Morse and others to attempt
daguerreotyping, but although he worked with esteemed scientist John
William Draper and taught others, including Mathew Brady, few images
produced by Morse himself have survived.
Another factor that contributed to the rapid
improvement of the daguerreotype in the United States was the arrival in
November, 1839, of the French agent Francois Gouraud, with franchises for
the sale of equipment. His demonstrations, along with exhibitions of
Daguerre's images, evoked interest in the many cities where they were
held, even though Americans did not consider it necessary to purchase
rights or use authorized equipment in order to make daguerreotypes. As in
Europe, technical progress was associated with portraiture, but
improvement also was apparent in images of historical and contemporary
monuments and structures. Owing to the primitive nature of his equipment
and the experimental state of the technique, engraver Joseph Saxton's very
early view of the Arsenal and Cupola of the Philadelphia Central High
School (pi. no. 14), made in October, 1839, is not nearly as crisply
defined as John Plumbe's Capitol Building (pi. no. 15) of 1845/46 and
William and Frederick Langenheim's 1844 View of the Girard Bank, occupied
by the Philadelphia Militia (pi. no. 16).
Plumbe, a visionary businessman who built and then
lost a small daguerrcotyping empire, was interested mainly in portraits,
but the Langenheim brothers, of German extraction, hoped to improve
American photographic technology by introducing German daguerreotype
cameras, the calotype, and photography on glass. John Adams Whipple, of
Boston, was similarly concerned with expanding the frontiers of the
medium. In addition to a partnership in a fine portrait practice, Whipple
attempted to make daguerreotypes by artificial light and to experiment
with images on albumencoated glass. His special interest was
astrophotography; in March, 1851, after three years of experimentation,
he produced successful daguerreotypes of the moon (pi. no. 17). The
Langenheims and Whipple were among the small group of Americans who
realized the drawbacks of the daguerreotype; the populace, however, was
too engrossed by the seeming fidelity of "the mirror with a memory" to
deplore its limitations.
14. JOSEPH SAXTON. Arsenal and Cupola, Philadelphia Central High
School, October 16, 1839.
Daguerreotype. Historical Society of
15. JOHN PLUMBE. Capitol Building, Washington, D.C., 1845-46.
Daguerreotype. Library' of Congress, Washington, D.C.
16. WILLIAM and FREDERICK LANGENHEIM. Gtrard Bank, May, 1844.
Daguerreotype. Library Company of Philadelphia.
17. JOHN ADAMS WHIPPLE. Moon, 1851.
Daguerreotype. Science Museum,