The following excerpts from contemporary nineteenth-century newspapers, magazines, diaries, and artists' notebooks discuss the first appearance of the daguerreotype in America. The earliest examples—from The New Yorker, The Knickerbocker, and the diary of Philip Hone of New York City in 1839—reflect both popular astonishment and an intense curiosity about the future of this new invention.

Also included is a history of the daguerreotype in America written by those who had a firsthand role in its history or who were eyewitnesses to its development. These descriptions are a part of artistic accounts and writings on the aesthetics of the daguerreotype by masters of the process or significant observers, such as Rembrandt Peale. These discussions are founded upon craft and technique and in some cases contain technical information.

The daguerreotype was a dual product of science and art, and the role of science—chemistry and optics—in its history cannot be underestimated. Science fosters experimentation, which led, with the daguerreotype, to the invention of a variety of devices for perfecting the actual image; to attempts at color photography, some of which were actually successful; and to the daguerreotyping of objects as distant and vast as the moon and stars and as close and microscopic as the tracheae of worms. Such work was important to the histories of photography and science, and consequently this selection includes scientific writings about the daguerreotype.

Just as science was an intellectual frontier of the nineteenth century, the American West was a physical frontier. Included here are texts that illustrate the daguerreotype's role in the westward movement. The final texts in this selection are laments for the daguerreotype's passing. Long after it had been replaced by the cheaper tintype and paper prints of a negative-based, reproducible photography, the daguerreotype remained a valued, if no longer practiced, tradition.

Contents

• "New Discovery in the Fine Arts," The New Yorker, April 13, 1839
• "New Discovery in the Fine Arts. The Daguerreotype," The New Yorker, April 20, 1839
• "The Daguerreotype," The Knickerbocker, December 1839
• The Diary of Philip Hone, December 4, 1839
• "Professor Draper on the Process of Daguerreotype and its application to takingPortraits from Life," Philosophical Magazine, September 1840
• S. D. Humphrey, "Lunar Daguerreotypes," Daguerreian Journal, November 1850
• John Werge, "Rambles Among the Studios of America," fromThe Evolution of Photography, 1890
• "Daguerreotyping in New York," Daguerreian Journal, November 1850
• J. H. Fitzgibbon, "Daguerreotyping," Western Journal and Civilian, 1851
• J. K. Fisher, "Photography, the Handmaid of Art," Photographic Art-Journal, January 1851
• L. L. Hill, "The Hillotype," from A Treatise on Heliochromy, 1851
• Jeremiah Gurney, A Letter, Daguerreian Journal, May 1851
• H. H. Snelling, "The Hillotype," Photographic Art-Journal, June 1851
• "Important Experiment. Daguerreotype of the Sun," Daguerreian Journal, August 15, 1851
• "The True Artist," Daguerreian Journal, August 1851
• J. H. Fitzgibbon, "Hillotype," Daguerreian Journal, October 1851
• R. H. Vance, Catalogue of Daguerreotype Panoramic Views in California, 1851
• John A. Whipple, "Preparing Plates by Steam," Photographic Art-Journal, May 1852
• John A. Whipple, "Microscopic Daguerreotypes,"Photographic Art-Journal, October 1852
• Marcus Root, "The Various Uses of the Daguerrean Art," Photographic Art-Journal, December 1852
• "Photography in the United States," Photographic Art-Journal, June 1853
• Marcus Root, "Qualifications of a First-Class Daguerreotypist," Photographic Art-Journal, August 1853
• Solomon Carvalho, from Incidents of Travel and Adventure in the Far West, 1853
• "Gossip" (Daguerreotypes at the Crystal Palace), Photographic Art-Journal, September 1853
• John Ross Dix, from Amusing and Thrilling Adventures of a California Artist While Daguerreotyping a Continent Amid Burning Deserts, Savages, and Perpetual Snows, And a Poetical Companion to the Pantoscope of California, Nebraska & Kansas, Salt Lake & the Mormons. From 1500 Daguerreotypes by J. Wesley Jones, Esq., 1854
• Gabriel Harrison, "The Dignity of our Art," Photographic Art-Journal, April 1854
• Albert S. Southworth, "Suggestions to Ladies Who Sit for Daguerreotypes," Lady's Almanac, 1854 and 1855
• "The Hillotype," Humphrey's Journal, August 1856
• Rembrandt Peale, "Portraiture," The Crayon, 1857
• D.D.T. Davie, "The Daguerreotype," from Secrets of the Dark Chamber, 1870
• Albert S. Southworth, "An Address to the National Photographic Association," 1870, Philadelphia Photographer, October 1871
• Albert S. Southworth, "An Address to the National Photographic Association," 1872,Philadelphia Photographer, June 1872
• Albert S. Southworth, ""Comments at the National Photographic Association," 1873,Philadelphia Photographer, September 1873
• Albert S. Southworth, "The Use of the Camera," Philadelphia Photographer, September 1873
• George Alfred Townsend, "Still Taking Pictures: Brady, the Grand Old Man of American Photography," The World, April 1891
• Albert S. Southworth, "Photography, Painting and Sculpture," Photographic Times, November 1897
• J. J. Hawes, "Stray Leaves from the Diary of the Oldest Professional Photographer in the World," Photo-Era, February 1906