BGuthrie Photos: DC -- Donald W. Reynolds Center (NPG) -- Exhibit: Family Ties: Daguerreotype Portraits

DC -- Donald W. Reynolds Center (NPG) -- Exhibit: Family Ties: Daguerreotype Portraits:

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Description of Pictures: Family Ties: Daguerreotype Portraits
July 1, 2022 – June 11, 2023
Within a decade of its introduction in 1839, the daguerreotype—the first commercially viable form of photography—emerged as a highly popular means of documenting family relationships. Affordable pricing fueled the popularity of the daguerreotype and technical innovations made it possible to produce successful images of multiple sitters. This paved the way for the boom in family portraiture. The portraits in this exhibition reflect the range of familial relationships documented by the camera during the daguerreian era. While they include nuclear family groups, they also speak to other meaningful family bonds— those shared by a young brother and sister; an aunt and a beloved niece; a young man and his father-in-law; a caring uncle and his nieces and nephews; and long-married couples.

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[1] FAMTIE_220703_01.JPG	[2] FAMTIE_220703_07.JPG	[3] FAMTIE_220703_09.JPG
[4] FAMTIE_220703_14.JPG	[5] FAMTIE_220703_19.JPG	[6] FAMTIE_220703_26.JPG
[7] FAMTIE_220703_29.JPG	[8] FAMTIE_220703_35.JPG	[9] FAMTIE_220703_40.JPG
[10] FAMTIE_220703_46.JPG	[11] FAMTIE_220703_53.JPG	[12] FAMTIE_220703_64.JPG
[13] FAMTIE_220703_68.JPG	[14] FAMTIE_220703_76.JPG	[15] FAMTIE_220703_84.JPG
[16] FAMTIE_220703_86.JPG	[17] FAMTIE_220703_95.JPG

Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. FAMTIE_220703_07.JPG: Family Ties: Daguerreotype Portraits
2. FAMTIE_220703_09.JPG: Thomas Eakins, 1844-1916 Frances ("Fanny" Eakins Crowell, 1848-1940 c 1851
3. FAMTIE_220703_14.JPG: Ida Walter, THomas Ustick Walter, Richard Gardiner Walter, Oliver Walter, Unidentified WOman, Amanda Gardiner Walter, Agnes Boulton Walter 1856
4. FAMTIE_220703_19.JPG: Kamehameha Royal Family Five members of Hawai‘i’s royal family appear in this portrait: King Kamehameha III, his consort Queen Kalama, and the niece and nephews who were the king’s chosen successors. Kamehameha III married Kalama Kapakuhaili in 1837. After their two children died in infancy, the royal couple adopted the king’s nephew Alexander Liholiho, who reigned as Kamehameha IV following his uncle’s death in 1854. When Kamehameha IV died in 1863 without naming an heir, the throne passed to his sister, Princess Victoria. She immediately relinquished the position to her elder brother Lot Kapuaiwa, who, as Kamehameha V, became the last member of the Kamehameha dynasty to rule Hawai‘i. Hugo Stagenwald, c 1853
5. FAMTIE_220703_26.JPG: Josiah Johnson Hawes, 1808-1901 Albert Francis Hawes, 1821-1897 Charles Ebenezer Hawes, 1816-1897 Southworth & Hawes, c 1845-48
6. FAMTIE_220703_29.JPG: Henry Meade, 1822-1865 Sarah A. Meserole Meade, 1831-1904 Meade Brothers Studio, c 1859
7. FAMTIE_220703_35.JPG: Dolley Madison, 1768-1849 Anna ("Annie") Payne Causten, 1819-1852 First Lady Dolley Madison’s (1768–1849) influence in Washington, D.C., was commemorated in 1844, when the House of Representatives voted unanimously to reserve a seat for her on the Congressional Floor to attend political debates. Around this time, she experienced the dawn of photography, as the daguerreotype entered into American culture. In 1848, Madison and her niece, Anna Payne (1819–1852), visited the studio of Mathew Brady, who would later become famous for his Civil War-era photographs. Mathew Brady, c 1848
8. FAMTIE_220703_40.JPG: William Wallace Smith Bliss, 1815-1853 Zachary Taylor, 1784-1850 Born Orange County, Virginia Nicknamed “Old Rough and Ready” for his unpolished demeanor and his courage under fire, General Zachary Taylor was a seasoned commander by 1846, when hostilities erupted between the United States and Mexico. Taylor’s decisive victories at Palo Alto, Resaca de la Palma, Monterrey, and Buena Vista earned him popular recognition as the hero of the Mexican-American War and propelled him to victory in the 1848 presidential election. Eager to unify the nation, Taylor instead contributed to sectional tensions by adamantly opposing the extension of slavery into the western territories. He died unexpectedly in 1850 after only sixteen months in office. Zachary Taylor posed for this portrait with William W.S. Bliss (1815–1853), who served as the general’s chief of staff during the Mexican-American War. A West Point graduate and a trusted aide, Bliss married Taylor’s youngest daughter, Betty, in 1848, and later served as the president’s private secretary. This daguerreotype, which is a vintage copy of an unlocated original, lacks some of the clarity and contrast typical of a life portrait. c 1848
9. FAMTIE_220703_46.JPG: Born into a politically prominent family in Utica, New York, Julia Catherine Seymour sat for this daguerreotype in July 1848, seven years before her marriage to rising politician Roscoe Conkling. She was embraced by Washington society when her husband won election to the U.S. Congress (1858), but their marriage was severely strained by Conkling’s indiscrete affair with D.C. hostess Kate Chase Sprague. Thereafter, Julia Conkling remained principally in Utica, where she later founded the Oneida Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution (1893). When Julia Conkling’s daguerreotype was paired with her husband’s, these individual portraits came to represent them as a couple.
10. FAMTIE_220703_53.JPG: Roscoe Conkling, 1829-1888 Roscoe Conkling posed for this daguerreotype around the time of his marriage to Julia Seymour and at the start of his lengthy political career. A skillful orator, Conkling first gained national prominence in 1852 while campaigning for Whig presidential candidate Winfield Scott. He supported the rise of the fledgling Republican Party and proved instrumental in building its organization in New York State. After winning election to Congress from Utica (1858), he served three terms before securing a Senate seat (1867). Strongly opposed to the Reconstruction policies of President Rutherford B. Hayes, Conkling saw his influence wane during Hayes’s administration (1877–81). c 1855
11. FAMTIE_220703_64.JPG: Elizabeth ("Eliza") Barnwell Smith Mills, 1784-1862 Robert Mills, 1781-1855 One of the first great American architects, Robert Mills counted among his buildings the one you are now standing in, constructed to house the Patent Office. Born in South Carolina, Mills was trained in Philadelphia by Benjamin Henry Latrobe and soon established a thriving practice in cities on the East Coast, especially Philadelphia, Charleston, and Washington. He married Eliza Barnwell Smith in 1808. By 1851 he was serving as the federal government’s de facto architect of federal buildings. Jesse H. Whitehurst was one of the South’s most successful daguerreotypists, opening his first gallery in Norfolk, Virginia, in 1843. Jesse H. Whitehurst, c 1851
12. FAMTIE_220703_68.JPG: Juliette ("Julia") Handy Brady, 1822-1887 Mathew B. Brady, c 1823-1896 Ellen Brady Haggerty, born c 1824 Throughout his career Mathew Brady sought recognition as an artist. He advertised his skills as a maker of pleasing images and promised his clientele results that would rival “the highest efforts of the painter.” This daguerreotype exhibits the careful lighting, pleasing symmetry, and naturalness of expression that earned Brady the admiration of his contemporaries. It depicts him with his wife, Julia (left), and his sister, Ellen (right), in a pose that underscores their strong familial bond. When Ellen Haggerty was widowed a few years after this portrait was made, the Bradys—who had no children of their own—adopted Ellen’s young son, Thomas. Mathew B. Brady, c 1851
13. FAMTIE_220703_76.JPG: Sarah Amelia Cooper Hewitt, 1830-1912 Peter Cooper, 1791-1883 Edward Cooper, 1824-1905 Sarah Bedell Cooper, 1793-1869 c 1850
14. FAMTIE_220703_86.JPG: Margaret Fuller Channing Loring, 1844-1932 Walter Channing, 1849-1921 Thomas Wentworth Higginson, 1823-1911 Caroline Sturgis Channing Cabot, 1846-1917 Unitarian clergyman Thomas Wentworth Higginson was both an early advocate for women’s rights and a radical abolitionist. He helped to finance John Brown’s failed insurrection at Harpers Ferry and later commanded an African American regiment during the Civil War. Higginson emerged as a prolific author in the postwar years and is best known for his mentorship of Emily Dickinson, whose poetry he aided in publishing after her death. During his sister-in-law’s estrangement (1853–55) from her irresponsible husband (the poet William Ellery Channing II), Higginson sheltered her and her young children—three of whom appear with him in this portrait. c 1853
15. FAMTIE_220703_95.JPG: M.A. & S. Root's Daguerreotype Portraits and Family Groups When brothers Marcus Aurelius and Samuel Root announced the opening of their new daguerreian gallery in New York City in this 1851 advertisement, they seized upon the public’s desire for family portraits. Proclaiming in boldface type, “DAGUERREOTYPE PORTRAITS AND FAMILY GROUPS,” the text goes on to note: Heretofore an almost insurmountable obstacle has presented itself to the production of family likenesses, in regard to children. The Messrs. Root are happy to state that through an entirely new discovery of theirs, this difficulty has been overcome, as the time of sitting will not exceed two or three seconds in fair, or ten to fifteen seconds in cloudy weather. The nature of the Root brothers’ “discovery” is not revealed. However, using an improved chemical formula to enhance the light sensitivity of their daguerreotype plates would have shortened the exposure time needed to produce a successful portrait of a restless child.
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