January 18, 1987
By Susan J. Dehler
Vigo County Historical Society
Picturing the past
Photos in 1850’s were art indeed
In 1858, Terre Haute’s first city directory contained a list of daguerrean artists who specialized in “ambrotypes, sphereotypes, and melainotypes.” The 20th century ear these terms have a foreign sound to them, but in the 19th century they represented the new invention of photography. The firm of Alschuler and Nicoloy located on the north side of Main Street in Terre Haute boasted, in an advertisement, of quality likenesses “which cannot be excelled East or West” and offered instructions “given in the Art on reasonable terms.”
This ad is a good illustration of the old debate: Is photography an art or a science? While Alschuler and Nicoloy were know as daguerrean artists and their studio a “fine art gallery,” their claim was to be able to teach their skill to anyone who could afford instruction. Photograph, then, was a medium available to the average person who could master a technical skill.
The invention of a camera device actually came from drawing. One such device was the camera obscura which was first described as an artist’s aid in 1553. The camera obscura was originally a large, darkened room which the artists could enter, but it became portable in the 17th and 18th centuries.
The technique was simple: light entered a 2-foot box through a pinhole or lens which formed and image. This image was reflected by a mirror onto ground glass outside of the camera and could be traced by the artist onto thin paper. With the use of such a device, “artistic” ability was open to the masses.
As Beaumont Newhall notes in his “History of Photography,” “The middle class wanted portraits; mechanical devices to eliminate the need for lengthy artistic training were put in its hands, so draftsman, if not an artist.”
The next step toward the development of photography was discovering the chemical means of fixing the camera image “permanently.” Light was already known to change the nature of many substances. In 1727, the German natural philosopher Johann Heinrich Schulze experiments with silver salts and their sensitivity to light.
Many individuals conducted photographic experiments, but one of the earliest and most famous was the French painter Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre. His technique fixed the image within the camera obscura onto a silver-plated sheet of copper and the positive print was known as a daguerreotype.
Although other pioneers discovered similar processes at that time, Daguerre’s received the most notoriety. In 1839, the French Academy persuaded the government to buy Daguerre’s invention with the stipulation that the public could use the procedure for free.
At first, architecture and landscapes were the only feasible subject matter. Long exposures made photographing people difficult--subjects would be required to sit perfectly still and with a natural pose from four to eight minutes. Technical improvements were soon made and exposure time reduced to 25 seconds. Portrait studios soon opened throughout Europe and the United States.
However, daguerreotypes were fragile and protected under glass in velvet-lined cases. They were expensive and not easy to duplicate. Eventually other techniques gave way: calotype negatives on paper allowed mass production prints; ambrotypes (on glass); and melainotypes (tintypes).
The photograph albums on display in the Victorian Parlor in the Historical Museum of the Wabash Valley are representative of the mid-to-late 19th century. They probably contained carte-de-visite photographs which “dealt the death blow to the daguerreotypes.” These small paper prints were pasted on a mount measuring 4 by 2 1/2 inches. They are so named because they are of the common “visiting card” size.
Photo albums were introduced in the home around 1860 and the carte-de-visites which they displayed were generally portraits of relatives and friends.
The Historical Museum of the Wabash Valley, 1411 S. Sixth St., is open from 1 to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday.