History of Photography through Arts and Culture

  • Earliest Record of Photography in England

    Thomas Wedgwood and Humphrey Davies presented a report "An Account of Method of Copying Paintings Upon Glass, and Making Profiles by the Agency upon Nitrate of Silver." This paper was the first to publish the concept of the chemical action of light might be utilized for copying images. They were unable to stop the images from turning black when further exposed however. The problem remained to be permanence of the image.
  • Lousiana Purchase

    United States agrees to pay France $15 million for the Louisiana Territory, which extends west from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains and comprises about 830,000 sq mi. As a result, the U.S. nearly doubles in size.
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    Lewis and Clark Expedition

    The Lewis and Clark Expedition from May 1804 to September 1806, also known as the Corps of Discovery Expedition, was the first American expedition to cross the western portion of the United States
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    War of 1812

    War of 1812, was a conflict fought between the United States and Great Britain over British violations of U.S. maritime rights.
  • Oldest Known Photograph

    Oldest Known Photograph
    "View from the Window at Le Gras" is the world's oldest surviving photograph but many consider this the world's first photograph. This shot was taken from an upstairs window at his estate in Burgundy.
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    Trail of Tears

    In 1830, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, which required the various Indian tribes in today’s southeastern United States to give up their lands in exchange for federal territory which was located west of the Mississippi River. The impact of the resulting Cherokee “Trail of Tears” was devastating. The tragic relocation was completed by the end of March 1839, and resettlement of tribal members in Oklahoma began soon afterward.
  • First Photograph by Fox Talbot

    First Photograph by Fox Talbot
    This is the first known image made by Henry Fox Talbot in 1835.

    This latticed window is in Lacock Abbey at his family home.
  • First Photograph of Person

    First Photograph of Person
    This photo was taken by Daguerre in 1838 and is thought it be the first photograph of a human. The man in the photograph was captured because he was getting his shoes shined and stood there long enough to be captured by the camera's long exposure.
  • Photography was presented to the world

    The Daguerrotype was publicly announced in in 1839 by Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre and Francois Agaro. For his accomplishment, Daguerre was awarded a lifelong pension from the French government.
  • The Calotype Patented

    Daguerre took little part in developing photography further after his invention. However, the same could not be said for Talbot. The Calotype produced a negative, from which many prints could be made.
  • First Licensed Public Daguerrotype Studio Opens

    Richard Beard opened the first Daguerrotype studio. Studio portraiture quickly rose in popularity and exploded a successful and vibrant new industry.
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    Hill and Adamson's collaborative work made some of the earliest anthropological work

    Robert Adamson and David Octavius Hill produced some 130 calotype photographs of the fishing town, Newhaven. This is considered the first social-documentary use of photography. The project was praised for it's visually inventive use.
  • Samuel Morse Sent the First Telegraphic Message

    The message was "What hath God wrought?"
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    Mexican-American War

    U.S. declares war on Mexico in effort to gain California and other territory in Southwest.
  • Wet Collodion Process was Invented

    The Wet Collodion process was invented by Englishman Frederick Scott Archer in 1851 This process allowed photographers to produce beautifully detailed images on paper and to print an unlimited number of copies. This method was widely used and popular from the 1850s-1880s.
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    The Crimean War was the First War to be Photographed

    The Crimean War was the first to produce a large number of photographs. The best known photographer from this war is Roger Fenton, who created "The Valley of the Shadow of Death"
  • Tableaux Vivant

    Tableaux Vivant
    Tableaux Vivant is another attempt to establish photography as an art form, french for "living picture", this was a popular style for photographers. Since the invention of photography, tableaux vivants have remained a popular method to recreate old paintings as photographs and to create new narrative scenes in a tableau style captured as photograph.The most well known photograph depicting a tableaux vivant style is Oscar Rejlander’s "The Two Ways of Life" created in 1857.
  • Earliest Known Aerial Photograph

    Earliest Known Aerial Photograph
    The earliest known aerial photograph was taken by James Wallace Black. Although, French photographer Nadar is the one who pioneered aerial photography. None of his photographs survived.
  • Abraham Lincoln is Elected President

    Abraham Lincoln is Elected President
    Abraham Lincoln was elected on this day. His election spurred on the most brutal and deadliest war in American history. Soon after he was elected, South Carolina seceded from the Union and was then followed by the Civil War. Photo by Mathew Brady.
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    American Civil War

    The American Civil Way was fought between the northern states (the union) and southern states (the confederate) because the northern states wanted to end the enslavement of black people.
  • "The Dead of Antietam"

    "The Dead of Antietam", photographs by Alexander Gardner and displayed by Mathew Brady were shocked and are considered influential in how wars are covered today
  • Emancipation Proclamation

    Emancipation Proclamation is issued, freeing slaves in the Confederate states.
  • Leading Lady of Photography

    Julia Margaret Cameron is considered a pioneer in photography for her soft focus and illustrative photographs. Cameron is thought to have inspired Pictorialism. Cameron received her first camera in 1863 at age 48.
  • The Pictorialist Movement Began to Push Photography into an Art Form

    Pictorialism aimed to make photographs into evocative and emotive art and rejected the idea that a photo needed to be sharp and completely in focus. This term was first popularized by Henry Peach Robinson's 1868 book "Pictorial Effect in Photography."
  • Alexander Graham Bell patents the telephone

    And changed our lives forever.
  • “You Press the Button, We do the Rest”

    George Eastman, founder of Kodak, introduced this slogan in 1888. Up until this point, photography was a complicated process and with the introduction of the Eastman Kodak, anyone could do photography easily. Customers had to simply take their 12 pictures, send their camera to the Kodak factory in Rochester New York.Thanks to this slogan, the Kodak camera became wildly popular and Eastman and his Kodak company revolutionized the photography business.
  • The Photo-Secession Movement

    The Photo-Secession Movement was a group of American photographers who believed that photography was a fine art.
    The goal of the movement was to hold exhibitions.
    The first exhibition of the Photo-Secession was opened by the art Alfred Stieglitz at New York City’s National Arts Club.