The American daguerreotype as something completely new: a mechanical invention that produced an image, a hybrid of fine art and science and technology. The daguerreotype, invented in France, came to America in 1839. By 1851, this early photographic method had been improved by American daguerreotypists to such a degree that it was often referred to as “the American process.” The daguerreotype—now perhaps mostly associated with stiffly posed portraits of serious-visaged nineteenth-century personages—was an extremely detailed photographic image, produced though a complicated process involving a copper plate, light-sensitive chemicals, and mercury fumes. It was, as Sarah Kate Gillespie shows in this generously illustrated history, something wholly and remarkably new: a product of science and innovative technology that resulted in a visual object. It was a hybrid, with roots in both fine art and science, and it interacted in reciprocally formative ways with fine art, science, and technology. Gillespie maps the evolution of the daguerreotype, as medium and as profession, from its introduction to the ascendancy of the “American process,” tracing its relationship to other fields and the professionalization of those fields. She does so by recounting the activities of a series of American daguerreotypists, including fine artists, scientists, and mechanical tinkerers. She describes, for example, experiments undertaken by Samuel F. B. Morse as he made the transition from artist to inventor; how artists made use of the daguerreotype, both borrowing conventions from fine art and establishing new ones for a new medium; the use of the daguerreotype in various sciences, particularly astronomy; and technological innovators who drew on their work in the mechanical arts. By the 1860s, the daguerreotype had been supplanted by newer technologies. Its rise (and fall) represents an early instance of the ever-constant stream of emerging visual technologies.

In the eight essays that accompany the images, leading art, photographic, and social historians provide diverse and perceptive readings of the role that the daguerreotype played in shaping America's self-image. Editor John Wood addresses the American portrait, David Stannard writes on sex and death in the daguerreotype, Peter Palmquist reviews the role of daguerreotypes in the settlement of the American West, John Stilgoe discusses landscape and daguerreotypes, Dolores Kilgo offers an alternative aesthetic to daguerreotypes, John Graf focuses on the militia as a social institution depicted visually in nineteenth-century America, Brooks Johnson deals with daguerreian images of Americans at work, and Jeanne Verhulst reveals how modern-day artists have revived the daguerreotype.

Upon its introduction in 1839, the daguerreotype was hailed as a magical reflection of reality. Today, these early examples of the first practical photographic process offer fascinating windows into the past. The daguerreotypes collected here not only document the birth of photography and its aesthetic and historical legacy but also provide insight into French art and culture. Lavishly illustrated, this volume is the first complete catalog of the French daguerreotype collection of the International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House. Janet E. Buerger uses this remarkable collection of images to produce a cultural history of the daguerreotype's most learned following—an elite group of mid-nineteenth-century intellectuals who sought to understand and develop the usefulness, potential, and beauty of this camera image. This varied group, including entrepreneurs, painters, scientists, and historians, enables Buerger to trace the influence of photography into virtually every area of nineteenth-century European intellectual life.

Newhall discusses the initial introduction of the daguerreotype in America in 1839, the beginnings of the daguerreotype industry, the entrepreneurs and innovators, the incredible Broadway daguerreotype galleries, the explorers, the quest for a color process, and more. In America, Daguerre's initial technique became greatly modified; the new process that evolved is described in detail in a special chapter. Originally published in 1961, this third edition contains all of the original text and illustrations plus sixteen additional pages of plates, corrections, and minor text revisions.

In this text, Keith F. Davis examines photography's social history and aesthetic development in an era of rapid national growth. He demonstrates how key themes and genres - including the business of daguerreian portraiture, the markets for Civil War images, and the art of Western landscape photography - reflected the concerns and values of nineteenth-century society. Photographers of this era expressed a new national consciousness while, at the same time, helping to shape it. They also explored the visual language of a radically new medium, laying the foundation for all of photography's subsequent history.