Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre invented the daguerreotype in 1839. Within a few years, daguerreotype studios appeared in United States cities and the popularity of the medium grew through the 1850s. A brief history of the daguerreotype medium, its camera, and its image processing are available in the collection's,"The Daguerreotype Medium." The collection's Glossary provides a list of relevant terms.

Daguerreotypes were popularly and primarily used for portraits. Unlike most photographs today, in which images are printed from transparent negatives onto paper, the daguerreotype was a polished copper plate upon which an image was directly exposed. No negative was used in the process and so each daguerreotype was a unique, one-of-a-kind object. With its brilliant, mirror-like surface and its ornate case, small enough to hold in the hand or carry in the pocket, the daguerreotype was suited to a vivid and intimate representation of a loved one as well as a means of memorializing friends and family.

Photographers sought to take and to display portraits of America's elite. In an age when phrenologists offered to read a person's character based on their physical characteristics, portraits of society's leaders were thought to have an edifying and moralizing influence on the viewer. Portraits of esteemed personages such as Lyman Beecher, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Dolley Madison, and Abraham Lincoln drew the public to the photographers' studios and provided the genesis for a cult of celebrity that would grow with the evolution of photography.

Yet, photography also democratized portraiture– making portraits more readily available to the middle class.

• Why do you think that portraiture was the most popular use of the daguerreotype? How might precedents in painting and drawing, the business needs of the studios, and the constraints of the medium have contributed to this popularity?
• Why do you think that more men were photographed than women?
• Why would portraits of prominent Americans encourage the public to sit for their own portraits?
• Why would the display of these portraits lend the photographer credibility?
• Why might early photographers have had a difficult time being taken seriously as professionals? Who would their competitors have been?
• How might an early photographer have convinced an esteemed political or social leader to sit for his or her portrait?
• How might an early photographer have distinguished himself from his competitors?

• Do you think that these portraits reflect the ideological differences between politicians or do they present a standard image?
• To what degree is each person's uniqueness represented in these portraits?
• How do these portraits compare to the occupational portraits and other images in the collection?
• What do you think the comparison implies about the role of politicians in American society?
• How are politicians represented in today's media? How does their representation compare to other "celebrities" who frequently appear in the media?
• What is the value of a photograph of a historic figure to researchers?

• Many daguerreotype galleries showcased portraits of United States politicians to attract interest from the public. Do you think that it was likely that portraits of Liberian politicians were used in the same manner? Why or why not?
• Are there any other images of African Americans in this collection?
• What do you think the relationship of the Liberian portraits to the rest of the collection suggests about how they may have been used? What does it suggest about the status of African Americans in the early nineteenth-century?

• Senator Edward Roye appears with his hand raised in the air. Daguerreotype images were frequently mirror images so Senator Roye may be raising either his right or his left hand. Does the significance of the pose depend on which hand is raised? What might this pose signify if the left hand is raised? What might it signify if the right hand is raised?
• How do the clothing, facial expressions, and poses of these Liberian politicians compare to those of white politicians featured in this collection?
• Why might differences in these aspects of the portraits exist?
• What might such differences imply about the efforts of the American Colonization Society?
• How do you think that the American Colonization Society might have used these images?
  

Workers during the first half of the nineteenth century faced a series of transitions in the wake of the Industrial Revolution. Inventions such as the steam engine and the cotton gin prompted the creation of assembly lines and factory systems as Americans began discovering the benefits of mass production.

At the same time, many craftsmen faced a transitional time as mechanization threatened their livelihoods. A search on occupational portrait yields a number of images documenting the different disciplines of this industrial age. Traditional workers such as a blacksmith, carpenter, latch maker, watchmaker, clergyman, and stonecutter are featured along with people whose jobs were byproducts of the Industrial Revolution such as a woman working at a sewing machine, a man in front of an engine, and men on a crank handcar on the tracks of a railroad.

• How do different workers pose with their tools?
• How are these people dressed compared to other people featured in this collection?
• What do you think that the clothes and mannerisms of these craftsmen imply about their social class?
• How do these images of craftsmen differ from others in the collection (clothing, facial expressions, etc.)?
• What do you think is the relationship between the worker and his or her tools?
• Do you think that there is a difference between the depiction of traditional crafts and new industrial efforts? Why or why not?

• Considering that these workers are anonymous, do you think that the people or the trades are the real subject of the portraits?
• How do these portraits reflect nineteenth-century attitudes towards the value of work?
• How do these images compare with how tradesmen are depicted today?
• Do you think that these portraits appeared in studios alongside images of politicians and other famous people?
• How does the way these portraits may have been presented impact their significance?

People living in the nineteenth-century United States endured a higher mortality rate than subsequent generations and the memorialization of loved ones held special importance in the all too frequent grieving process. Those with more money could afford to have portraits of family members drawn or painted. Death masks placed over a person's face, shoulders, and sometimes hands just after death were also popular. The advent of photography made it possible for the middle class to afford portraits as well. If a portrait was not made prior to death, it was not unusual to obtain one after the fact. Portraits drawn or photographed just after death were often said to capture a heavenly look of serenity, suggesting that the horrible inevitability of death also held a beauty It is unclear exactly when Mary Gideon sat for her portrait but the daguerreotype was later embedded on her tombstone. Animals, too, may have been so cherished as to have been memorialized in photographs such as that of an unidentified man with a cat in his lap.

• In what ways does a portrait memorialize a loved one? Why would memorials such as photographs help a friend or family member cope with the loss of a loved one?
• Is a portrait of the deceased different from a portrait of the living? If so, how?
• What impact would you expect the Civil War to have had on the use of photography for memorialization?
• How have notions of death and memorialization changed over time? To what might these changes be attributed?
• How might the increased ease of taking and duplicating photographs have affected the value of portraits and the meaning of memorialization?