Details
Creator Taylor, Frank H. (Frank Hamilton), 1846-1927
Title The First Photograph Made in America
Date ca. 1916
Description The image depicts an early street scene showing the State Arsenal, the then new High School and the Horse Market Tavern on Juniper Street, now covered by the Wanamaker building. Views of buildings on Market, Juniper and Filbert streets are seen in the distance.
Notes The possibility of obtaining "sun pictures" was known to European scientists in the early period of the eighteenth century, but it remained to Daguerre, one of a group of French experimenters, to produce definite heliographs. When, in 1839, he was pensioned by the French Government, the process was made public and the formula soon reached American scientific bodies. A brief account appeared in the "United States Gazette" of September 25th. Among those few who regarded the discovery seriously was Joseph Saxton, and employee at the Mint upon Chestnut Street. He obtained a small lens and an "exposure" from a rear second-story window of the Mint. This picture, taken upon October 16th, 1839, was the first "heliograph" made in America. He is said, by Dr. Julius Sachse, in his pamphlet report to the Franklin Institute, to have taken other views from the same outlook on the following daw. THis drawaing depicts what the camera "saw," even though but faintly, in those epochal views. Joseph Saxton was an inventor of numerous scientific and mechanical devices. He died at Washington in 1873.
Is part of Frank H. Taylor Collection
Identifier Taylor - Case 10-12 [2717.F]