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Publishing of Wedgwood & Davy Experiments
Thomas Wedgwood and Humphrey Davy collaborated to experiment with light-sensitive materials. Their goal was to fix an image's shadow by casting it onto a piece of paper or leather that had been immersed in silver nitrate solution. They found that while the silver nitrate did help leave an imprint of the image onto the surface, it was not permanent as the solution continued to react to light. -
Industrial Continuous Assembly Line Process
A manufacturing process utilizing interchangeable parts as a semi-finished assembly moves from work station to work station. This revolutionized the manufacturing process as complex machines could be put together by semi-skilled labor instead of artisans and craftsman. This meant a machine could be made quicker, cheaper, and at greater volume. -
Camera Lucida
Camera Lucida is a light room made up of a rod that a glass prism was affixed to and had two silver sides that reflected the scene to the viewer. The scene could be displayed on a piece of paper and be able to be traced by an artist. It was an early tool used by drawing artists to recreate a scene. It was also a much more compact and easier tool than the camera obscura that took up much more space and was an early dark room. -
Niépce receives patent for pyréolophore
Niépce and his brother Claude worked on an internal combustion engine that was planned to power riverboats. It was created to rival the steam engines on most riverboats by burning vegetable oil or similar oil. This invention of an internal combustion engine would be part of the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. -
Lithography
Niépce changed his course after receiving a patent for his combustion riverboat engine. He turned his attention to lithography which was a new technique for reproducing images. He explored lithography techniques from the 18th century and experimented with new ways create images with light-sensitive chemicals. -
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Julia Margaret Cameron
Julia Margaret Cameron took up photography later in her life after getting her education and raising a family. She experimented with the medium through textures and lighting to recreate historic and literary figures in her subjects. Most of her subjects were women rather than men because of women's lack of identity and authority outside their homes and partners at the time. -
Industrial Revolution Begins
The Industrial Revolution was marked by the change from an agrarian society to an industrialized manufacturing society. It brought a surge of new machines, technology, and jobs to urban societies. It also brought societal changes such as the creation of unions, labor laws, and new class divisions. -
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Matthew Brady
Matthew Brady is most well known for his battlefield photography during the American Civil War and photographing well known public figures of his time. He took many photographs of individuals and groups of soldiers at the time depicting what wartime was like for the patriotic soldiers. He became best known for his photograph of Abraham Lincoln after rumors of what the presidential candidate looked like ran rampant amongst the public. -
Latent Image
Jacques Mandé Daguerre collaborated with Niépce and continued his experimental work after his death. One experiment he focused on was creating an image on a surface using silver plates, silver-plated copper plates, and iodine. This method rendered an image on the silver plates but was not visible until the image was further treated. -
Daguerreotype
Jacques Mandé Daguerre created one of the first image processes through his experiment with Niépce and the use of his materials. He created a daguerreotype by placing a silver-plated copper plate silver side down over a closed box that contained iodine. The iodine and silver plating combined to create silver iodide that was light-sensitive. Daguerre could ten use the plate with a camera obscura and expose it to light and capture an image. -
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The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals
Charles Darwin published a scientific study he had been working on for several decades that focused on the physical signs of emotional states across all humans. He hypothesized that each state of emotion did not differ from human to human but rather each would express the same emotion in the same way. Part of his research involved photographing individuals depicting different emotions such as sadness and happiness. -
Gum-bichromate Process
Gum-bichromate process was a photographic process that rendered an image to look like it had been hand-painted instead of captured from a camera. This process was achieved by using dichromatics (salts) in the development process of a photograph. This style of image was made popular during the Pictorialism movement of the early 20th century. -
Calotype
Similar to the daguerreotype, Henry Fox Talbot created a photographic print from a latent image but instead of a single image, he created a negative that could be used to create many prints. His Calotype process was patented in 1841 and became the standard for modern photography with the seemingly endless use of a single negative to create many prints. -
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Westward Expansion
In the early 1840s, trails to the west, Oregon Trail, Mormon Trail, and California trail, were open to colonization and settlement. This led to a large migration of people looking to create new lives in the western land that was promised to them through the Monroe Doctrine and the idea of Manifest Destiny. It also led to the addition of twenty states to the United States over the next eighty years. -
California Gold Rush
Sutter's Mill became the spark of the California Gold Rush in 1848. It encouraged a westward movement of many individuals seeking to strike gold in the untouched land or create a fresh start in a new land throughout the following year. Because of the popularity and great migration to the west, California eventually joined the United States as the 31st state in 1851. -
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Stereograph
Stereographs helped in the surge of photography in the late 19th century because it gave the public a desire to see the world. A stereograph was a photographic viewing device that took two of the same photograph and placed them in the device so that the left eye was looking at one photo and the right eye looking at the other. This technique gave the illusion of receding space and the device and photographs skyrocketed to popularity in the mid 1800s. -
Tableaux Vivants
Tableaux vivants translates to living picture and was a popular subject for photographers. It required actors to create a scene and hold their pose for up to twenty seconds to give time for the camera to capture the scene. Scenes from literature and history were recreated using tableaux vivants by such photographers as William Lake Price. -
Tintype
A popular and cheap photograph, the tintype became popular during the American Civil War era. Photographs were created on thin sheets of iron and their name came from the colloquial term used for iron sheets. Tintype photographs were lightweight photographs and could be developed cheaply during the era. -
Carte-de-visite
Cartes-de-visite were early forms of postcards. French photographer André Adolphe Eugéne Disdéri patented this type of photograph in 1854 and planned for it to be attached to the back of a visiting card. However, with it's popularity and fairly cheap price to create, the carte-de-visite became extremely popular and utilized less retouching and more full-body and set photography. -
Single Lens Reflex Camera
The single-lens reflex camera was revolutionary for modern photography. It allowed the photographer to see the scene they were capturing through the lens via a mirror inside the camera. Soon after acquiring it's popularity, the single-lens reflex camera became the standard for news photographers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. -
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American Civil War
The American Civil War broke out over the argument between Northern and Southern states about states' rights regarding slavery. Southern states decided to secede from the union but the sitting president at the time, Abraham Lincoln, argued they were not legally allowed to do so. The two sides of the country fought over the next several years until the South surrendered after the North demonstrated their ability to control the flow of supplies to the South. -
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Franco-Prussian War
The Franco-Prussian War lasted six months and was a conflict between the kingdom of Prussia, part of present-day Germany, and the French empire. The kingdom of Prussia and allies concocted a scheme to unify with Germany under one empire by provoking France into declaring war against the kingdom of Prussia. The scheme worked to unite Germany with the kingdom of Prussia and would eventually lead to two world wars in the 20th century. -
Dry Plates
Dry plates were a completely new process to photograph development. Instead of using a wet process near the time of intended exposure, the dry plate process allowed plates to be manufactured en mass and stored for a longer time before a photographer intended to expose them. It also allowed the exposure time to be reduced from several seconds to a mere fraction of a second allowing action to be captured more readily. -
No. 1 Kodak
Eastman Dry Plate Company took advantage of the dry plate method and began to manufacture the first Kodak camera. The No. 1 Kodak featured a fixed focus and the first roll of film. The roll of film was paper coated in light-sensitive material and created individual images on each of the 100 exposures it was equipped with. -
Roosevelt Election Campaign
Theodore Roosevelt had become president in 1901 after President McKinnley was assassinated in office. After he finished McKinnley's term, President Roosevelt campaigned for his re-election. During this time, he took advantage of the widely popular use of photography and invited print and photo press to his campaign events. -
Assassination Attempt on New York City Mayor
New York City Mayor, WIlliam Jay Gaynor, had an attempt on his life during travel to a European vacation. Photographer William Warnecke captured the aftermath of the assassination after a stranger stepped forward towards the mayor and shot him. The mayor recovered from the incident but lingering issues resulting from the assassination attempt took his life three years later.
