In this image we seem to be looking down on the boy, probably the son of a poor Newhaven fisherman, who is standing next to a large basket with some vegetable matter in it. Perhaps it’s a moss used to keep the fish damp on their way to market. This image is a calotype, the contemporary process of the daguerreotype that was invented in England by Talbot (and hence is sometimes called Talbotype). In this process, a negative was produced on thin, waxed, sensitized paper, then printed on another sensitized paper. The grain of the paper negative prevented really sharp images. That and other difficulties with the process prevented it from becoming as popular as the daguerreotype, and it was soon replaced by glass-plate based negatives.

This public domain image was taken by the famous Scottish photographer David Octavious Hill (1802-1870) in 1845. He was educated at Perth Academy, and later the Edinburgh School of Design, and became a well respected artist, producing oil paintings and lithographic sketches for book illustrations. In 1843 Hill joined with Robert Adamson in opening a photographic studio, where they took portraits of many of Edinburgh’s leading citizens, as well as outdoor portraits and landscapes. Adamson died in 1848, and although Hill kept the studio alive for a few months, he soon abandoned it — the business end of things conflicted with his artistic temperament. He continued to produce prints from existing negatives, and used many of them as the basis for further paintings.

This distinguished looking gentleman appears to be holding a baton or thin handle in one hand. Blue tint has been applied to his shirt. The image was a daguerreotype, the earliest photographic process. No negative was used, the image was produced directly on the silver-plated sheet of metal that we see pictured here, then covered with a sheet of clear glass and gold-colored brass mat. The flowery edge is formed by another piece of thin brass that folds around the edges of the daguerreotype, mat and glass cover, helping to hold them all together while producing this decorative frame. That is called a ‘preserver’ and is one clue as to the age of the image, though not entirely reliable since it was a simple enough matter to move a preserver from one daguerreotype, and put it on another.

This public domain image was taken by the well-known African-American daguerreotypist, Augustus Washington, probably between 1854 and 1858. Augustus has a studio in Hartford Connecticut from 1847 to 1848, and then again in 1850 to 1854. He sold the gallery in 1854 to G. W. Davis, and left for Liberia with The Society for the Colonization of Free People of Color of America, an organization formed in 1817 to resettle Afro-Americans in Liberia. Washington continued taking photographs in Liberia, including most of the heads of state for that young nation. The image above is one such image, though whether the subject is African or an African-American immigrant, we don’t know. By about 1858 the declining popularity of the daguerreotype, and difficulty obtaining photographic materials, led Washington to abandon photography to spend more time on his other endeavors, such as running the sugar cane plantation he purchased there.

Here we have taken two photographs and combined them into one, because - well, they belong together. These are pictures of a Jewish bride and groom from Turkestan, taken in 1871 and published in 1872. They are both very young looking, and neither seems very happy, whether about the wedding or about having their pictures taken we can only guess. The parents likely arranged the wedding, so it may be a bit of both. The bride’s name was Khanna, and the groom Mulla Borukh.

The photographer was N. V. Bogaevskii, a Russian officer with the Office for Land Surveys. He was part of a group of men selected by Adjutant-General K.P. von Kaufman, who was Governor-General of Turkestan at that time, to document the history and customs of the region. The results of their effort were published in a photo-album book, which brought awareness of this remote region to the outside world for the first time.

This is a carte-de-visite image of Sarah (or Sally) Anderson Fremont. Her husband, Rear Admiral John C Fremont Jr., was the son of the famous ‘Pathfinder’ John C Fremont and his wife Jessie Benton. John Junior was born about 1851 and joined the U.S. Navy as a midshipman in June 1868 at the age of 17. He married Sally in 1877, and they had at least two daughters, and a son, the John C Fremont (III) born about 1880 who was listed as a cadet in the U.S. Naval Academy in Maryland in 1900. John C Fremont Junior died in 1911. In 1930 Sarah was still alive, residing in the Pemberton New Jersey home of her brother John Anderson.

The photographer for this public-domain image is ‘Otto’ of Paris. He was known for his photographs of celebrities and show-people, from the 1880s to the 1910s. This image is supposed to be about 1910, which is late for a CDV format image, but they did continue to publish them that late in France, especially for noted figures. Sally would have been about 50 in 1910, and was living in Boston at the time of the 1910 census, so perhaps this was taken a few years earlier on a trip to France.

Here we see young Emma Baldwin, standing next to her favorite horse, Mex. We can tell Emma is not quite of ‘full age’ yet, and certainly not married, by the shortness of her dress. Why, if she weren’t wearing boots you could see her ankles! Her father, Captain Theodore Baldwin, was commander of Fort Verde in Arizona (where this picture was taken) from 1885 to 1887, so we know the photo dates from that period. Her clothing is consistent with that date. We see Emma is also wearing a soldier’s forage cap, but she is too distant for us to see the insignia; it may have belonged to her father, or it might have been from Edgar Mearns, who took the photograph.

Dr. Edgar Alexander Mearns (1856-1916) was an Army Surgeon, photographer, and naturalist. He is particularly well-known as an ornithologist, and has been honored by having his name included in the Latin nomenclature of several species. He accompanied several expeditions, including Teddy Roosevelt’s trip to Africa 1909, and Frick’s 1911 Expedition to Africa. We also know Mearns was at Fort Verde in March 1887 because he took a photograph of Major C. B. McLellan’s camp on Clear Creek near there. We do not know for sure if Mearns was stationed at Fort Verde as camp surgeon, or if he was passing through on one his other endeavors, but this public domain photo may well have been taken that same month.