This paper was written Spring Semester, 1999, under Michael Gagnon, in the History Department, at the University of Georgia, as a requirement for completion of History 4000, "Social History of Antebellum America." The views expressed in this paper are strictly the author's own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the instructor, the department, nor the university.

Photography is magical. It is one of mankind's most extraordinary discoveries; it is an artform, an avenue of communication and personal expression, a scientific tool, and a window into unseen past worlds. It conveys truth and often unveils secrets of the past, present, and future, and it arouses the emotions of the human heart.1 In fact, occasionally the photograph the only source of available information available to the historian; the photograph may supplement journals or other personal records kept by individuals. The photographic records of how people gave order to their lives yields a precise visual image of past society. It supplements interpretive material in understanding human behavior and revealing the important details usually omitted by the simple narrative; the body and facial expressions, small artifacts and relationships between the sitters in the pictures.

The photograph puts things in perspective. This essay will describe the invention of the daguerreotype as an early form of photography, and its maturation throughout the antebellum period and beyond, by viewing the reaction the antebellum South, and especially Athens, Georgia, to this new visual technology. Finally the paper will illustrate the introduction of the photograph in the western frontier, and the role of the photographer and his specific impact during the Civil War.

Daguerreotyping was as much chemistry as it was artistry. To make a daguerreotype the photographer took a buffed, silvered copperplate, and sensitized it with iodine fumes, exposed it in the camera, and developed the latent image in mercury vapor. He then fixed the image with sodium hyposulfite, rinsed the plate, and placed it under glass to prevent oxidation.2 The result was a positive, distinctive image that could only be duplicated by copying it in this same manner. Most successful daguerreotypists followed traditional precepts in their lighting techniques and used three types of light in their work: diffused, directed, and reflected. Also, the artist suppressed trivial details of the drapery or background, bringing the sitter into bold relief. However, the background for the photograph was carefully considered. Most daguerreotypists preferred the pyramidal composition that stemmed from the early Italian masters of painting. Often symbolic objects were used--a book, flowers, toys, a riding whip--to produce the correct mood. A fine daguerreotype portrait has a blending of light, shadow, and color so that its 'breath of life' transcends the realistic.3

The idea had long been entertained that there was some method by which the transient image of objects could be retained and made permanent, thus securing the beauty of the time. It was with this purpose that Dr. John W. Draper, D.W. Seager, Niepce, and Daguerre made their experiments.4 Jacques Mande Daguerre's invention was actually the culmination of two decades' work to secure an image by chemical means with a camera obscura. Joseph Nicephore Niepce made the world's first photograph on a pewter plate from his window at Gras, in France, in the summer of 1826. The two formed a partnership, and Daguerre carried on the burden of the work. He succeeded in taking still-life pictures in his studio in 1827. An account of his methods first appeared in the London Globe on August 23, 1839, and traveled to the U.S. on a steam packet, The British Queen that docked in New York City on September 20. D.W. Seager was the first to produce a daguerreotype in America on September 27th, and Samuel F.B. Morse and John W. Draper, professors at the University of the City of New York, were among those who took on the new artform. Draper relied on his chemistry background to reduce exposure time of the first daguerreotypes, while Morse had considerable influence as an artist and a practitioner of the art and succeeded in making this means of portraiture extremely popular during the following decades.5

Before the end of 1840, daguerreotype portraits were in business in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia; by the end of the decade, nearly every town had at least one studio. The daguerreotype was in general use until the mid-1850s when the ambrotype, the tintype, and the carte-de-viste superceded it. Benjamin R. Stevens and Lemuel Morse of Lowell, Massachusetts received a patent in 1842 for various coloring techniques. Thusly, daguerreotypes were coated with varnish or gum and tinted with paints or pigments. This type of daguerreotype proved to be the mainstay. In July 1845, James A. Cutting received a patent for his counter-reflection of the daguerreotype's silver surface. The ambrotype, as it was called, was actually a thin collidion negative on glass whose image reversed itself in light when the glass plate was placed on a black surface. Later this photograph was mounted in daguerreotype cases and was sold in varying sizes. These ambrotypes were thought of as immortal and imperishable and were the most popular form of photography until 1860.6 Henry Fox Talbot also derived his independent method of painting pictures with light called the talbotype or the calotype. This specific method used a tiny camera and paper sensitized with silver nitrate instead of metal. This procedure achieved translucent, postage stamp sized images, and gave pictures a softer, less distinct image than the daguerreotypes. The advantage of the talbotype was that it could be duplicated to any number of prints. Unfortunately, the talbotype generated little interest in America.7 However, James Wallace Black of Boston used Talbot's collodion process and sparked interest in the American public to envision what could be achieved artistically in the future, thus receiving a fairly positive reaction.

By 1860, with the onset of the Civil War, photography reached new heights. Matthew B. Brady, a New Yorker of Irish decent, was determined to cover the events. He was present at the first major battle of the war, Bull Run, and he sent his photographers into the field to capture the different sectors of war activity. However, because of the slow film emulsion of the period, action war shots were impossible. Cumbersome cameras, glass plates, tripods, and the darkroom wagon inhibited the photographers a great deal; instead they focused on camp life, the marshaling of troops and material, and the scenes of destruction of life and poverty caused by the war.8 Brady's portrayal of war was graphic, and it was quick to spark the public's awareness of the great loss of American lives. This achievement is also remembered as the first true form of photojournalism and widespread communication through photographs. Also during the war, soldiers began to carry around small portraits of loved ones, and those at home kept keepsakes of their menfolk. Jeremiah Gurney's carte-de-viste portraits were mounted on print paper and cut to a small size, 4 inches by 2 1/2 inches, and were met with extreme public approval until their passing popularity due to the tintype.9 This tintype was a blend of several other photographic processes and was placed on a thin sheet of iron covered with black lacquer. Like the daguerreotype, the tintype was a one-of-a-kind picture that could not be reproduced in quantity, but tintype artists used multi-lens cameras and registered up to 36 images on a single plate. This method outlasted most other processes and remained throughout the end of the century.10 After the war, many photographers moved west and became involved in the opening of the new frontier. Some found employment recording change while others documented the frontier before changes altered the environment or the inhabitants. Others concentrated on capturing the beauty of the West. When the Union Pacific Railroad began to push west from Omaha, Nebraska in 1866 and linked up with the Central Pacific Railroad at Promontory Point in Utah, photographers such as Alexander Gardner and Captain Andrew Joseph Russell were called upon to endure the harsh climate and working conditions of the rough terrain. Tom O'Sullivan, who had worked with Brady during the war, secured a position with Clarence King's Fortieth Parallel Survey, which studied every aspect of the new region.11

The daguerreotype arrived in the Athens area and was met with great curiosity and enthusiasm in 1841. An example of the national interest in the daguerreotype is present in the July 23, 1841 issue of the Southern Banner of Athens, Georgia that speaks of the arrival of J. H. Miffin's work. The advertisement states: "...Our citizens will have an opportunity of witnessing the wonderful operation of the Daguerreotype, in permanently fixing the reflections of objects, and especially in copying the human face with the most perfect accuracy."12 Miffin's pieces cost only three-fourths as much as other daguerreotypes, and several advertisements were placed this week in the paper to spark public interest. In March of the next year, a Mr. Paulsen placed articles in the same paper for his portraits that were said to be "correct" and "satisfactory." Paulsen was staying with a Mr. Sheats, and his specimens were held at the Book Store of Messers A. Chase & Co.13 Later that month in an article titled, "For Our Southern Banner," Mr. Chase, the editor of the paper, speaks of Mr. Paulsen's work by stating:

Later in the year, a Mr. Harrison and Mr. Porter exhibited their work for a few days at the rooms on College Avenue, under the Whig office.15 Visits from artists continued in Athens. By March 13, 1845, colored daguerreotypes surfaced in the area with the arrival of S. Broadbent. Again, all likenesses warranted perfection and complete satisfaction. Broadbent presented his work at King's store in Mitchell's new building. In May, an article was written to focus on Broadbent and his work. It stated:

Mentions of the daguerreotype are present throughout the remainder of 1845 and 1846; however, with the arrival of the ambrotype and tintype, these daguerreotype exhibits are not mentioned again in the Southern Banner.

The entire state of Georgia shared Athens' enthusiasm. In the 1840s photographers of varying degrees plied their new trade--or art-- in the large towns and cities and some rural areas. Daguerreotype artists from the North usually toured the South during the winter months because business was slow at home. Photography improved in the 1850s, and the ambrotypes and tintypes of 1854 and 1856 soon proliferated, ranging from five dollars to only 12 1/2 cents, depending on the quality. Before the Civil War, however, getting photographed was a serious endeavor and formal affair. Only rarely does an informal photograph hint at the informal side of some Georgians' personalities.17

Without large-scale public response, daguerreotypes would have been no more than charming novelty items and the picture makers only temporary hobbyists; nevertheless, the art of the daguerreotype caused an enormous national response, and impacted every individual in America in some way. The degree of public interest can be inferred by the rapid growth of professional activity in making daguerreotypes. It is estimated that by 1850, 2000 operators were professionally serving a population of approximately 23 million. By 1860, the U.S. Census listed 2650 daguerreotpyists and 504 other types of photographers.18 Daguerreotypists made available public visions of the character of America that no person could discern by any amount of personal observation. They were knowingly trying to comfort Americans with their own national interest; they acted as teachers to the public, and their art informed the public of taste. They recorded facts as truthfully as they could to define the spirit that existed under the visible surface. Ultimately, these artists taught Americans to be more completely American, and they recorded the changes that took place. Because he himself was a part of American life, the daguerreotypist brought about this ideal and was curious about the basic nature of his country. He followed the truth of nature, was equipped by interest and situation to discover and inform, and was moved by disposition and economics to be a universal man in defining the truth of life as he saw it through the lens of his camera.19

The daguerreotype medium provided a means of self-definition to each person, individually for himself and for his loved-ones. Photographs outlasted the limits of time, place, and mortality to offset the impermanence of human life and experience. There was a great deal of sentimental impulses that the daguerreotype was almost ideal to satisfy, giving immeasurable aid and memory. Daguerreotypes became catalysts for a variety of responses embodying the sentimental mood of the nineteenth century. These mirror pictures provided symbolic gratification that were looked at as magical; they were objects of emotion that humans reacted to almost as directly as they did to the sitter of the picture. Also, individuals interpreted their lives in new ways after the arrival of the daguerreotype, and the nation developed an awareness of itself because of millions of daguerreotypes and the affective symbols that they contained. A further resource for the growing popularity and public impact is the number of the pictures actually produced: by the peak of 1853, over three million daguerreotypes were being produced annually.20

By the 1850s Americans shared a nearly universal experience in having their picture taken. Small-scale studios were developed everywhere and were generally alike. Most separated their "operating rooms" from their reception rooms and chemical finishing areas, so that a fair investment was needed before establishing a practice. These studios were usually on the top floors of buildings, because of the need for skylights, but street entrances were made to be inviting and appealing to spectators. Americans outdid the rest of the world in the elaboration of their galleries and lavished on them, providing a proper atmosphere. Visitors were made to feel that an aura of a special occasion hovered over having one's likeness made. The goal of the artist was to present something finer than the visitor's everyday surroundings. Considerable attention was given to preparing the public even before they arrived at he studio. People knew that it was necessary to dress in colors that did not reflect too much light. For a lady, a dress needed to be of a dark material and lace work or embroidery was preferred to add beauty to the picture. Men were asked to wear dark vests and a cravat. Children wore plaid, dark-striped or figured dress. The image of the family was not to be spoiled. Children were in extreme danger of being over-exposed because of their small size; fine craftsmanship was difficult. Expressions on the faces of sitters also posed a problem. Afraid of blinking, many fixed stares occurred.

With the determination of many to project artificial personalities of the perfect American, the daguerreotypist faced many challenges. Such behavior on the part of the sitter is related to other attributes of national life-much as the studio reflected the décor of American homes. Taste of personal images echoed in other phases of life. Mark Twain, in Life on the Mississippi, comments on this relationship. Along with the assorted curiosities and modernities crowding each other in American parlors, he reflects on:

Twain's remarks reflect another national characteristic of the pictures themselves-the practice of visually concentrating attention on the sitter. Aside from jewelry or an occasional plant or book (used as specific symbols), elimination of pictorial elements that would distract from the main subject was a general practice. Also, some sitters felt prey to various weaknesses. It is observed to be a distinct connection between the type of falsity the sitter wished to portray and his basic psychology; a searching portrait could reveal something of the inner person. For example, persons surrounded by books were said to have a literary weakness, or the musical weakness, which usually was thought of when an individual held a musical instrument or was pictured in front of a piano. Thus it was the duty of the daguerreotypist to activate suitable moods and to provide congenial situations to help prepare the subject for the fullest rendering of his character in the final portrait.22 The key to many personal dissatisfactions was the lack of a good appearance that one idealized for him, which was not reflected in front of the camera lens. Unfortunately, one's self-image was probably not accurate, and the camera saw with the same eye of recognition that did the sitter's relatives and friends forever, like it or not. This urgency of affection to overcome physical and mortal boundaries of distance and time gave the daguerreotypist his most significant duty to the public; many felt that it was a sacred obligation. In 1854, the Webster brothers of Louisville, Kentucky declared it the legitimate business of the daguerreotypist to:

In some instances an image of a beloved person was carefully preserved for a lifetime as a token of feeling. Children were particularly apt subjects for this aspect of the daguerreotype. Infants were often the targets of daguerreotypes in case they soon passed away. Often, if a portrait had not been made before the child died, measures would be taken to provide the most accurate picture possible, and posthumous portraits became fairly common. In addition to being satisfied with sometimes-inadequate images, the public was grateful for any image at all. The daguerreotype was everywhere, and it was present in every aspect of every American's life.23 The daguerreotype became the intersection of time and place consciously frozen. It cheated reality by halting the motion of time. Of those things selected to be photographed, society tended to select the same things and the same images with the same messages-those of being true American individuals.

From the early years of photography in the 1840s to the end of the nineteenth century, thousands of men and women tried their hand at this art in the immense and varied area west of the Mississippi River and created an experience that was much different than photography elsewhere. William Henry Jackson, Timothy O'Sullivan, Eadweard Muybridge, Carelton E. Watkins, Adam Clark Vroman, and Ansel Adams may be the best known of all of the western image-makers. Many of these people had humble beginnings, and some were well to do when they entered the west; others had lives somewhere in-between. Together, though, they were known as the "jacks-of-all-trades," as noted by a writer in 1858:

Some were explorers, using their cameras to document and reveal the West's unique geography while others were pioneer journalists who recorded the progress of the transcontinental railroad and the general transformation of the frontier. One researcher lists over 2600 photographers in California alone.25 To succeed in western photography, blatant self-promotion was essential. Each photographer ballyhooed his product as being the latest and the finest imaginable. The traveling photographer, in particular, used flashy, insistent notices in local newspapers, with banners and broadsides. Photographers announced their exact arrival and their exact departure, so that it was impossible to be unclear on the limits of the coming engagement. Usually gregarious and popular, the traveling man provided color and excitement-often in the form of the most recent gossip-to isolated western communities. As time passed, the photographer took his place in the everyday fabric of the frontier, such as the blacksmith or the butcher down the street. When the community became more established, the business of photography became more formal. Many tent photographers took advantage of new towns to settle in permanent locations as resident gallery owners. Still, many combined their photography with other occupations. For example, Jonathon Eldridge ran a furniture store and undertaking parlor and published the weekly newspaper in addition to his activities as a portrait photographer. Also, when times were slow, Charles Wallace Jacob Johnson made extra money as a musician. Even when a photographer enjoyed the benefits of a permanent gallery, adaptability was still an asset because some were forced to trade photographs for deer horns, bear robes, wood, butter, or eggs to ensure survival in the growing towns. Many, too, became partners. This made it easier to attract clients because each photographer in the West competed with every other photographer in the West. When two photographers joined forces, more people trusted them to produce a quality product and purchased their pictures from them.26 Though the photograph proved itself to be quite an asset in the West, the public reaction, because of the uniqueness of the frontier, was unique to the feelings of the rest of the nation.

Related to the experience in the West, the Civil War was the turning point for American photography. It introduced the realistic treatment of disturbing subject matter of significant import. Very literally, the Civil War introduced the discipline of photojournalism, at least in the United States, and regulated the meaning of the images by combining them with words. When the war broke out in 1861, photography was only two decades old. Its chemistry was still unpredictable, which frustrated the photographers in the field. However, the experience trained a force of photographers to work in the field under the most dramatic and difficult of circumstances, a skill that proved invaluable to the western explorations of the late 1860s and 1870s. The outbreak of the war created an immediate and tremendous demand for photographs, not only for personal portraits for the newly enlisted soldiers and their families, but also for the likenesses of the political and military leaders of both sides. Fortunately for the photographers, because of the new wet-collodian process, photographic technology could meet the challenge. Tintypes also gained popularity in the war because they were light and virtually indestructible. Matthew Brady's studios were in an excellent position to supply the public's demands. He was the first American photographer to realize the unique opportunity that the Civil War provided to develop and exploit a demand for pictures of the war itself. O'Sullivan was probably the greatest photographer that the war produced, and he was able to create an enormous body of images that detail almost every aspect of the war: the battlefields, the wounded, the dead, artillery units, fortifications, railheads, war camps-virtually everything but battle itself. The major impact of the photograph was that the statistics of lost American lives became more comprehensible, and they were reduced to simple and compelling human terms. Especially important was the coverage of the Battle of Antietam that showed the "hushed, reverent groups standing around these weird bodies of carnage, bending down to look into the pale faces of the dead, chained by the strange spell that dwells in dead men's eyes."27 Except for one group, all of the dead were Confederate soldiers-not merely numbers, but faces that used to smile. Oliver Wendell Holmes spoke of these specific photographs by stating:

Thusly, the photographs became more substantial in content. Even a glance at the photograph shows a great deal of poetic license: the bodies were ghastly to behold, swollen and blackened from their decomposition, with grotesque, almost inhuman figures. Because of the advances in photography of the time, the nation was able to understand the destruction of the Civil War. 29

In explaining the specific impacts of different types of photography in different regions and situations throughout American history, this essay intends to present the true national craze that became known as the daguerreotype. As the United States grew, so did the daguerreotype and the number of those who practiced its trade. With its maturation, the daguerreotype became more popular and more practical, and transformed from a formal affair of few people to the photograph of the masses. Truly the photograph proved to be a national phenomenon. Excitement grew with the documentation of newly established western lands, and especially with graphic images of the American Civil War. The impact of the photograph is permanently etched in American history and provides a principle means of unlocking the antebellum past.

1. Ed Holm, "Photography:Mirror of the Past: 150 Years of Photography in America,"American History Illustrated, 24(5), in AMERICA HISTORY AND LIFE [database on-line], UGA library, SUBSCRIPTION file; accessed April 7, 1999.

2. Madelyn Moeller, "Photography and History: Using Photographs in Interpreting Our Cultural Past,"Journal of American Culture 6(1), in AMERICAN HISTORY AND LIFE [database on-line], UGA library, SUBSCRIPTION file, accessed on April 7, 1999.

3. Kathleen Collins,Shadow and Substance: Essays on the History of the Photography(Michigan: Amorphous Institute Press, 1990), 69.

4. Albert Bisbee, The History and Practice of Daguerreotyping, (New York: Arno Press, 1973), 2-3.

5. Steven B. Jereckie, American Photography:1840-1900, (Worchester: Worchester Art Museum, 1976).

6. Jareckie, American Photography: 1840-1900, 8.

7. Moeller, Photography and History, 30.

8. Jackerie, American Photography: 1840-1900, 14.

9. Jareckie, American Photography:1840-1900, 18.

10. Moeller, Photography and History, 48, 51.

11. Moeller, Photography and History, 52. Jackerie, American Photography, 19-21.

12. "Daguerreotype," Southern Banner 23 July 1842, pg. 2, col. 5.

13. "Daguerreotype Miniature Portraits," Southern Banner 25 March 1842, pg. 3, col. 3.

14. "For the Southern Banner," Southern Banner 18 March 1842, pg. 3, col. 2.

15. "Novel Exhibition," Southern Banner, 5 August 1842, pg. 2, col. 6.

16. "Daguerreotype Miniatures," Southern Banner, 29 May 1845, pg. 2, col. 6.

17. F.N. Boney, "Exposing Our Past: Antebellum Photography in Goergia," Georgia Historical Quarterly, 13(4), in AMERICA HISTORY AND LIFE [database on-line], UGA Library, SUBSCRIPTION file, accessed April 7, 1999.

18. Richard Rudisill, Mirror Image: the Influence of the Daguerreotype on American Society, (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press), 197.

19. Boney, Exposing Our Past, 196.

20. Ibid.

21. Boney, Exposing Our Past, 207.

22. Boney, Exposing Our Past, 208.

23. Boney, Exposing Our Past, 216.

24. Peter E. Palmquist, "Western Photographers, I, American West 1981 18(3), in AMERICA HISTORY AND LIFE [database on-line], UGA Library, SUBSCRIPTION file, accessed on April 7, 1999.

25. Ibid.

26. Ibid.

27. William P. Stapp, "These Terrible Mementos: Civil War Photography," Chicago History 9(4), in AMERICA HISTORY AND LIFE [database on-line], UGA Library, SUBSCRIPTION file, accessed on April 7, 1999.

28. Ibid.

29. Ibid.