Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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/ McCORMICK MESSENGER. McCORMICK, S. C., THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 1938 Next Year The Will Be Celebrated Centennial of Photography And in His Recently-Published Book, "Photography and the American Scene," Dr. Robert Taft Has Not Only Given an Authoritative Account of the First 50 Years of Picture-Taking but Has Made an Important Contribution to the Social History of the United States. © Western Newspaper Union. By ELMO SCOTT WATSON I N JANUARY, 1939, will be celebrated the 100th birth day of “the greatest boon ever conferred upon the com mon man in recent years.” That benefaction, according to John Richard Green, the historian who made this state ment, was photography. Throughout photography’s centennial year of 1939 we Americans, who are probably the most “picture-minded” people in the world, will be asking such questions as “Who was the inventor of photography — how was it started—who were the pio neers in the field—who did most to bring it to its present high stage of development?” Fortunately for us the answers to those questions, and many others, are to be found in a recently - published book, which is one of the most im portant contributions to the social history of the United States that has appeared in recent years. It is “Photog raphy and the American Scene — A Social History, 1839-1889,” written by Robert Taft and published by the Macmillan company. Six years ago Dr. Taft, who as professor of chemistry at the Uni versity of Kansas has always been interested in the history of photography from a purely tech nical standpoint, was reading an account of the explorations of Gen. John C. Fremont, the so- called “Pathfinder of the West.” A question arose in his mind as to the first use of photography in the exploration of the West and when he sought enlighten ment on this point he found a cu rious dearth of information about it. He then began to accumulate data on the subject. Out of that grew his history of American photography—a monumental vol ume of 546 pages illustrated with more than 300 pictures, a book as distinguished for its lively and readable style as for the scholar- liness of the research back of it. Importance of Photography. In the introduction Dr. Taft de clares that Green, the historian, “can not be far wrong” in his estimate of the importance of photography to the common man. He says: “Photography affects the lives of modern individuals so extensively that it is difficult to enumerate all of its uses. In addition to preserving for us the portraits of loved ones, it illus trates our newspapers, our mag azines, our books. It enables the physician to record the inner structure of man and thus aids in alleviating man’s ills. By its means, man has been able to study the infinitely small, to ex plore the outer reaches of space, to discover planets, and to reveal the structure of atoms. Crime has been detected through its agency as readily as have flaws in metal structures. It has re corded the past, educated our youth and last, but not least, it has given us the most popular form of amusement ever de vised.” Louis Jacques Mande Da guerre, the Frenchman, little re alized how all of those benefits would come from the process, the discovery of which he announced in January, 1839, and which was to immortalize his name in the word “daguerreotype.” He was a painter of the diorama, a suc cession of scenes painted on a canvas which was caused to pass slowly before the eyes of the ob server. Seeking a way to repro duce scenes upon the canvas without the labor of painting them, Daguerre began a series of experiments to find such a meth od. Then he learned that an other Frenchman, Joseph Nice- phore Niepce, was engaged in a similar quest. The two men de cided to join forces and in 1829 formed a partnership which was to continue for 10 years. Niepce died in 1833 but Daguerre contin ued his experiments which even tually enabled him to “reproduce the most minute details of a scene with an exactitude and sharpness well-nigh incredible.” That was the characterization of his process by Arago, secre tary of the French Academy of Sciences and the most influential French scientist of the time, who was instrumental in securing from his government an annuity of 6,000 francs (later increased to 10,000) for Daguerre and one of 4,000 for Niepce’s heirs. In re turn for this Daguerre was to de scribe his process publicly and make it available to anyone who Samuel F. B. Morse, inventor of the telegraph, and his first daguerreotype camera, which is now in the United States National museum. (Photograph by A. Bogardus, New York, 1871.) might wish to use it. Daguerre did not describe hid process publicly until August 19, 1839, but already word of the new marvel had been spread through the popular and scientific press of France and England, and the news reached America as early as March, 1839. The editor of the Knickerbocker, a New York magazine, declared that the da guerreotype’s “exquisite perfec tion almost transcends the bounds of sober belief.” Enters S. F. B. Morse. One of the accounts in an American newspaper (the New York Observer for April 20, 1839) was written by a man who was to play an important part in the development of photography in this country. He was Samuel Fin ley Breese Morse, destined for fu- MATHEW B. BPADY ture fame as the inventor of the telegraph. Morse, who had al ready achieved fame as a por trait painter, had gone abroad in the summer of 1838 to se cure patents in England and France for his “electro-magnetic telegraph” on which he had been working for several years. After securing a French patent, he re mained in Paris for several months while negotiating with the Russian government for a con tract for his invention and dur ing this time Daguerre made his historic announcement. Morse, who as a portrait paint er had experimented, unsuccess fully, with the same idea, was im mediately interested in the Frenchman’s discovery, and sought an interview with the sug gestion that if Daguerre would show him his daguerreotypes, Morse would demonstrate his tel egraph. Daguerre consented and from this interview grew the sto ry that the Frenchman “gener ously imparted the secret of the new art to the American by whom it was carried across the ocean and successfully introduced into the United States.” After examining all of availa ble evidence in regard to the claims made in behalf of Morse and others for the title of “the first person to make a successful daguerreotype in the United States,” Dr. Taft awards that dis tinction to D. W. Seager, an Eng lishman living in New York in 1839. On September 27, Seager made a picture which showed a part of St. Paul’s church, the sur rounding shrubbery and houses, and a corner of the Astor house. The First Portrait. The author of “Photography and the American Scene” also examines the evidence in an at tempt to answer the question “Who made the first photograph ic portrait?” That honor has also been claimed for Morse and for Professor John W. Draper who made the famous portrait of his sister, Miss Dorothy Catherine Draper, which has often been re produced as “the first photograph ic portrait.” But according to Dr. Taft, it was not. That honor goes to Alexander S. Wolcott of New York, an instrument maker and manufacturer of dental supplies who became interested in daguer- reotypy when his partner, John Johnson, secured a copy of Da guerre’s directions for making pictures by his new process. On October 7, 1839, Wolcott made a successful profile portrait of John son and this Taft calls the “first.” But more important than estab lishing these “historic firsts” is the complete story of the devel opment of the various photo graphic processes which Dr. Taft’s book gives—“not primarir ly from a technical viewpoint) but from that of social history” as he explains. “I have endeav ored to trace, however imperfect ly, the effects of photography upon the social history of Amer ica and in turn the effect of so cial life upon the progress of pho tography.” So in this book we read how Yankee ingenuity soon made the American daguerreotypes superi or to those made in any other country and how this first phase of photography reached its zenith in the work of Mathew B. Brady to whose studio came all of the great and near-great, as well as distinguished foreign visitors, to have their portraits made. Brady’s greatest fame, of course, rests upon the work he did in making a pictorial history of the Civil war. Dr. Taft, while giving full credit to him as a photo graphic historian, also rescues from oblivion the names of many of the operators in his employ who made the photographs cred ited to Brady, as well as other Civil war photographers. Nota ble among these were Alexander Gardner and T. H. O’Sullivan, who in the early morning of July 4, 1863, made the picture of the Battlefield at Gettysburg which was to become famous under the title of “The Harvest of Death.” After the era of the daguerreo type came the era of the ambro- type, the tintype, the carte de viste, which Oliver Wendell Holmes once called “the social currency, the sentimental ‘green backs’ of civilization” and the stereoscope, which in its day was found in the parlor of virtually every American home. Then came the day of the cabinet pho tograph and finally the new era began with the introduction of the sensitive dry plate and the flexible film. All of this, appro priately illustrated, is told in Dr. Taft’s book, which in its 500-odd pages recreates more vividly than has ever before been done the story of American life during the five most picturesque and most interesting decades of its entire history. In so far as Dr. Taft’s book is the direct result of his curiosity as to the first use of photography in the exploration of the West, it is especially fitting that two of the finest chapters in it deal with “Photographing the Frontier.” The first instance of the use of a camera on a government expedi tion was when the distinguished artist, John Mix Stanley, accom panied the party which in 1853 began surveying the northern railroad route to the Pacific un der the command of Gov. I. I. Stevens of Washington Territory. When Fremont set out upon his expedition in the same year he persuaded S. N. Carvalho of Baltimore, an artist and daguer- rotypist, to accompany him. Car valho wrote a lengthy account of his experiences and one sentence from it is significant of the han dicaps under which these pioneer photographers of the frontier worked—“To make a daguerreo type view generally occupied from one to two hours; the prin cipal part of that time was spent in packing and reloading the ani mals.” Although the Civil war halted government exploring expedi tions and therefore expeditionary photography, both were resumed after the war and from that time on the photographer was an im portant member of the personnel of any exploring party. Outstanding among these pho tographers were T. H. O’Sullivan, already well known for his work during the Civil war, and John K. Hillers, who accompanied Maj. J. W. Powell on his historic trip down the Colorado river through the Grand Canyon of Ari zona. But the best known of all Western photographers was a man who is still living in New York—95 years young and still keenly interested in photography! William H. Jackson is his name. A native of New York, he went west after the Civil war. He opened a studio in the grow ing frontier town of Omaha in 1868, but becoming dissatisfied with the sedentary life of a vil lage photographer, fitted up a traveling dark room on a buck- board and toured the country around Omaha photographing In dians. In 1869 he took a trip along the newly completed Union Pa cific railroad and this brought him into contact with Professor F. V. Hayden who was engaged in making one of the United States geological surveys of the West. From that time until 1879 I W. H. Jackson and his work ing outfit along the line of the Union Pacific railroad in 1869. Jackson was the official photog rapher of the Hayden surveys and in that role did some of his most important photography. He took thousands of pictures of Indians which are interesting historically because they are among the relatively few that were made of the red man be fore he was forced to live on a reservation and his picturesque native life was greatly modified by contact with the whites. But even more important work was done by Jackson in another field. The Hayden survey of 1871 was in the region now known as Yellowstone National park. “In fact, the park probably owes its present status to the Hayden sur vey of this year,” declares the author of “Photography and the American Scene” and to Jackson W. H. Jackson as he is today. belongs the distinction of taking the first photographs in the re gion of scenic wonders that has become such a “picture-taker’s paradise.” The next year he took the first photographs in what is now the Grand Teton National park and in 1874 he and Ernest Ingersoll of the New York Trib une discovered and photographed the ruins of the cliff dwellings in what is now Mesa Verde Na- tional park. SEW 4^ Ruth Wyeth Spears T HERE is an amusing story about the mittens and scarf shown here. They were not hand knitted. They were purchased rather hurriedly and sent to a young miss who was away at school. She had wanted something rather gay and a bit foreign look ing to wear for skating and these were perfectly plain and pretty drab. Looking about, she found the Swedish cross-stitch design shown here and copied it in all its gay colors on the ends of the scarf and backs of the mittens. Hand knitted mittens and other knitted things in plain colors may also be decorated with this pert flower pattern. Start at the upper right corner of the large flower and make the cross stitches as at A and B. This flower is a brilliant red, the small flowers bright blue and the stems jade green. NOTE — Mrs. Spears’ Sewing Book 2—Gifts, Novelties and Em broidery—has helped thousands of women to use odds and ends of materials and their spare time to make things to sell and to use for gifts and church bazaars. If your home is your hobby you will tAsk Me ^Another 0 A General Quiz The Questions 1. What does the phrase “by and large” mean? 2. Who are the Jukes? 3. What is a consanguineous marriage? 4. In writing the international distress call signal SOS, are pe riods used after the letters? 5. Which country is known as the “Pearl of the Antilles”? 6. Why is a book called a vol ume? The Answers 1. Comprehensively, on the whole. 2. The Jukes are a celebrated family of imbeciles and criminals to whom students of heredity have given this fictitious name. 3. Marriage to a person who is related to you. 4. No. The letters were chosen merely for their simplicity, and do not represent words. 5. Cuba—the largest and richest of the West Indian islands. 6. Egypt developed papyrus, which was then rolled and tied. This accounts for the word vol ume, which comes from the Latin word meaning to roll. also want Book 1—SEWING for the Home Decorator. Order by number enclosing 25 cents for each book. If you order both books, a leaflet on crazypatch quilts with 36 authentic stitches will be included free. Address Mrs. Spears, 210 S. Desplaines St., Chicago, 111. 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I MINOR SKIN IRRITATI0IIS SNOW-WHITE PETROLEUM JELLY A Trade Mark Is an Honor Dodge . and Newspaper Advertising the Sentinel Substitutes today are the Illegitimate children of business. They are fatherless and unknown and they come to the consumer with a “Just as good" label on them which indicates clearly to the thinking buyer that she is buying something which is only “Just as good.” The unknown product, the substitute parasite, has no reputation at stake. It is merely advertised for sale on a price basis and if the consumer does not like the quality, the manu facturer has suffered no injury because he is unknown and because he rarely links his name with a product as a standard of quality and a measuring stick of buying. It merely competes on a “take a chance” basis. The manufacturers of well-known quality merchandise today place their names upon it and advertise it as the best they can offer to the consumer. The name of a manufacturer on an adver tised product says this: This is the best product I know how to make. It is pure, good and worthy of your purchase. I think so well of it that I place my name upon it as a guarantee to you of its goodness. If it does not fulfill your wants I will gladly make good its failure. There is no good reason why you should accept the unknown instead of the known; the untried instead of the tested; the doubt ful instead of the sure. To refuse unknown substitutes is a guar antee to yourself of positive satisfaction in buying. If every pur chaser will confine his or her purchases to known, advertised quality merchandise there will be little cause for complaint. Trade mark products tell their own story. It pays to look before you buy. Reading the advertisements in the newspaper, looking at trade marks, labels and names on products has purse interest. W. E. MOFFETT