-
Born in Warren County, New York
-
Left home for Saratoga and became student of a prominent artist, William Page, then they both traveled to New York City
-
Opened his own studio, "Daguerrean Miniature Gallery"
On the corner of Broadway and Fulton street, Brady's gallery was an instant success. Daguerrean is a direct positive made in the camera on a silvered copper plate -
Published his first book
Gallery of Illustrious Americans, a collection of "twenty four of the most eminent citizens of the American republic".The book included pictures of Henry Clay and Andrew Jackson -
Brady went to Washington D.C.
There he met and later married Juliette Handy (woman displayed with Brady's hand on shoulder) other woman in the photograph is a sitter, Mrs. Haggerty, it is assumed this picture was made for celebration of the marriage -
Opened the National Photographic Art Gallery in Washington D.C.
Like many events in Brady's life, After many failures at trying to open this studio, he finally succeeded. -
Brady opens 4th and last New York Studio on Broadway near Tenth Street
Calls it the National Portrait Gallery. Photographs presidential candidates, including Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln. Photographs Edward, the Prince of Wales, and his entourage, the first British royalty to visit America.He and his assistants would ultimately photograph every American president but one from John Quincy Adams to William McKinley — 18 in all. -
Period: to
Civil War
Many of Brady's photographers quit because he refused to give them credit for photographs they had set up without him. Brady's war during the war is sometimes described as a curator- he spent most of his time collecting the work of the other close to 300 photographers and securing copyrights to their photographs. Brady considered any photograph to which he owned the rights a part of his body of work. During the American Civil War Brady spent over $100,000 in obtaining 10,000 prints. -
Was granted permission to work on a photographic record of the Civil War.
He would hire a team of assistants to travel the countryside in horse-drawn wagons filled with photographic chemicals and darkrooms and get as close to the fighting as possible. It was said that his eye-sight was crumbling, so that is why he hired other people and barely took any photographs but got credited alone for the most part. -
Brady and President Lincoln
Brady was known to be Abraham Lincoln's favorite photographer of all time. Even before Lincoln became president and he was just a senator, Brady took his 35 photographs for his campaign. Most of the photographs taken of Lincoln ever were taken by Mathew Brady. -
First Battle of Bull Run
Mathew Brady was there in the heat of the first battle of the Civil War willingly wanting to capture the action. In the mist in doing what he felt was his duty he nearly got captured by the enemy, -
Brady's Business
Brady had no business to photograph the war and would've been better off just continuing his successful career, the only explanation given for going is one of his most famous quotes " “I felt I had to go,” he later said, “a spirit in my feet said go, and I went.” -
Photographs the battlfields of Gettysburg
First Day of Gettysburg -
Photographs Robert E. Lee in Richmond days after the Surrender of Appomattix
In that same year, Brady photographed Lincoln's funeral procession. -
Photographs Red Cloud and his warriors in Washington
-
Juliette Died and left Brady devastated
He then became lonely and an alcoholic. -
Mathew Brady dies.
Matthew Brady became an alcoholic and died the charity ward of Presbyterian Hospital in New York. He was a poor man, suffering from alcoholism and loneliness. Towards the end of Brady's life he once said about the photographs he took: "No one will ever know what they cost me; some of them almost cost me my life."
