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Wedgwood and Davy: Darkness Lives On
Wedgwood and his apprentice, Davy, started experimenting with light sensitive solutions. Their main goal was to fix an image of an object's shadow on light sensitive material that had been treated with a silver nitrate solution. They could not figure out how to keep it permanent, and the picture continued to darken. They achieved early recognition by the Journal of the Royal Institution of Great Britain, but had less successful attempts compared to Antoine Florence. -
Lewis & Clark Expedition
Thomas Jefferson requested Meriwether Lewis to explore the lands of the Louisiana purchase.This expedition lasted from 1804 until 1806. It was an 8,000 mile journey to document and explore west of the Mississippi. It was deemed a success. -
Robert Fulton Invents Steamboat
Fulton invented the steamboat which played an important part in the industrialization of America. Many people thought it was a horrible idea and that it would blow up. They called it, "Fulton's Folly." Fulton completed a trip from New York to Albany in thirty-two hours, much shorter in comparison to sail boats which took a four day journey to complete. -
Humphry Davy Invents One Of First Forms Of Electric Light
Davy invented the arc lamp, which produces light by an arc from carbon electrodes in the air. He is best known as a British chemist who has contributed to photography, the coal mining business with the invention of the coal miner's safety lamp, and aiding in discoveries of certain chemicals, such as chlorine and iodine. -
Pride & Prejudice Published
Jane Austen publishes Pride & Prejudice, a classic piece of English literature. -
Missouri Compromise
This compromise added Main as a free state and Missouri as a slave state in order to stabilize the balance of power between the North and the South within the U.S. -
Niepce & The World's First Photograph
It seems he had no prior knowledge of others' efforts. He produced a direct positive by coating a glass plate with bitumen of Judea and exposed it to sunlight through a Camera Obscura for eight hours. He then exposed it to iodine fumes to reverse the image. It could not be reproduced due to not having a negative version of the photograph. His photo, "Niepce's View from the Window at Le Gras" (1826), is labeled the world's first permanent photograph. -
Antoine Florence Concieves Photography
He noticed that certain fabrics faded when exposed to light. He tried making images permanent with a silver chloride treatment and stopped exposure with an ammonia solution. He felt as though he couldn't compete with the Daguerreotype due to not being able to produce camera images. One of the many pioneers of photography, it shows simultaneous invention of photography. He was not recognized until 1970 for his efforts in the invention of photography. -
Latticed Window with the Camera Obscura
Henry Fox Talbot photographed this in August of 1835. It is the world's earliest surviving negative. -
Daguerre & The Daguerreotype
He is inventor of the daguerreotype, a process where a copper sheet was plated with silver and polished, placed in a box containing idodine, and promptly after, treated with mercury fumes and rinsed in a sodium chloride solution that stopped the response to light. He received a pension instead of copyright, and France relayed the message to the world of the invention of photography. He took the first known photograph to include a human in 1838, the "Boulevard du Temple, Paris." -
Henry Fox Talbot: The Race For Fame (Calotype Process)
Henry Fox Talbot is known for the calotype process. Although he had been experimenting with photographic inventions and processes since 1833 he did not publish his process until after Daguerre. He wanted to ensure that he had invented a unique process different than that of Daguerre's. The calotype involved a latent image just like Daguerre's process but, Talbot's process produced a negative and a positive which led to the ability to make multiple copies. -
Herschel's Cyanotype Process
John Herschel, an astronomer, invented the cyanotype process shortly after the Daguerreotype was invented, although he had earlier photographic experiments in 1831 involving light reactions in response to platinum salts. Cyanotypes produced a deep blue color in areas where the iron salt solution had been laid. The white outline formed the image that had not been treated with the light sensitive solution. Cyanotypes were continually used into the 20th century for architecture. -
The Raven: Edgar Allen Poe
Edgar Allen Poe publishes "The Raven." One of the most timeless pieces in American poetry -
Mexican-American War
War took place in 1846-1848. Westward expansion was the cause of this war. American's believed it was their right to own westward land. -
Stereographs
This invention applied to the daguerreotype. It produced two of the same images side by side and made it look 3D to the viewer. -
Wet Collodian Process
This process was invented by Frederick Scott Archer and was more sensitive to light which led to faster exposure times. Many photographers were able to capture more subjects in increasingly different situations. Although faster than the calotype process one still had to have a portable dark room due to the nature of the exposure time and how time sensitive the process was.The process required coating a glass plate with the silver nitrate solution and then exposing/treating it within 15 minutes. -
Crimean War
The Crimean War lasted from October 1853 to February 1856. France and Britain declared war on Russia. Russia lost it's alliance to France and Britain and others due to Russia's pressure on Turkey. -
Carte-De-Visite
This meant "card photograph" and was patented by a french photographer, Andre Adolphe Eugene Disderi in 1854. It could take up to eight different photos at a time. It was quite popular for a while, but soon overproduction and speculation began to dampen its zeal. -
Roger Fenton & The Valley of the Shadow of Death
Roger Fenton was requested by Thomas Agnew & Sons to make photographs of the war in Crimea. Fenton also founded the Photographic Society in 1853. His most recognized photograph was taken in a place soldiers called "the valley of death." At the time, war photography had just started to take hold and many of the photos were staged and did not include battle, the fallen, or shortages of supplies. -
Tableau Vivants & The Two Ways of Life
Tableau vivants means "living pictures." Many of these photographs were inspired by literature or religious readings. The Two Ways of Life by Oscar Rejlander is one of the most known and respected tableau vivants. It was composed of 32 negative images that took six weeks to combine seamlessly. -
American Civil War
The American Civil War lasted from April of 1861 to April of 1865. It was fought between the Northern United States and the Southern United States. The main causes were slavery, secession, and state's rights among other things. It was America's bloodiest and destructive conflict. -
The People of India
In 1868-1875 photographs and statistical data were collected in India to show cultural and physiological differences. This opened up many new people to photography. People who were interested in science and data, the human race and how we are alike and different, all were shown a way to document culture and the human race. How the people were shown does seem to have some mishaps and work to improve it, but early documentation did not have a code to go by and some people felt misrepresented. -
Silver Gelatin Process (Dry Plate Process)
The silver gelatin process was invented in 1871 by Dr. Richard L. Maddox. The light sensitive solution was placed on the glass, paper, or other objects and could be dried and exposed at a later date. This process replaced the wet collodian process which was much more technical than the dry plate process. This invention led to the advancements in color photography and motion picture film. -
The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals
Darwin focused on the theory that man and animal had the same expressions in certain emotional states. The main thesis of this work was that humans were not a separate species, but were the outcome of natural selection and the theory of evolution. -
KODAK & George Eastman
The KODAK camera was invented in 1888 and gave the general population the ability to create photographs themselves. No longer would you have to be of prestige class to be able to take photographs. Although, the KODAK'S were still expensive, they were much cheaper than the equipment for the Calotype/Daguerreotype process. This camera and roll film was invented by George Eastman. Eastman also invented transparent film. -
Plessy vs. Ferguson
The "separate but equal" doctrine decided by the U.S. Supreme Court was to allow segregation as long as the facilities were equal in quality. Plessy had been kicked off of a train for sitting in the whites only section. The court ruled in favor of Ferguson. -
Photo-Secession and Pictorialism
Alfred Stieglitz formed the Photo-Secession in 1902 in order to secede from what others thought of an accomplished photograph. He among many other people believed that photography was allowed to have soft and blurred edges, which stemmed from the main roots of pictorialism, to express an individual's soul. They wanted it to emulate paintings and sculptures. In order to get this effect in a photograph, they would sometimes smear Vaseline and scratch negatives.
