MATHEW BRADY

(1823? - 1896)

Born in Warren County, New York, Mathew Brady lived in a family of seven, most of them Irish immigrants. They were poor farmers and had no idea that one day Mathew would become one of America's famous photographers and photograph America's bloodiest war, the Civil War.

He moved to Albany in 1835 and lived there for four years. Then, he moved to New York in 1839, the same year Luis Jacques Mande from Paris invented photography. There he worked at a jewelry studio until 1844 when he had first photography studio out of twelve.

At that time most people thought of photography as science, but Mathew Brady showed a lot of people it was a form of art.

Photography was not like it is today. Before 1889, when the Kodak box was invented, you had to stand absolutely still of the picture would be ruined. The Kodak box enabled the photographer to take an action picture. The first process for photography was called the daguerreotype. It was a small piece of copper and silver that formed a chemical reaction with mercury when the light hit it. The mercury would stay where the light hit the most. Next came the ambrotype, invented by Mathew Brady himself. A dark piece of paper was put behind a glass negative. When the light shined right, it would come through as a positive.

Photography was invented in 1839, but in Italy during the 1500's a camera obscura was used. It was a very dark box or room where light would come in from a small hole and project whatever was outside of the hall on a wall. Sometimes an artist inside the box would trace the image.

Mathew Brady became very known quickly. Mostly because he supplied newspapers, many of which we read today. These were Newsweek, the New York Times and, in 1857, Harpers Corner started using Brady as a main resource. It wasn't hard to become famous if you had skill and lived in a big city like New York, because so few people were interested in photography there was not much competition. Some people say that later there were better photographers than Brady but those photographers didn't become famous because then there was more competition.

Throughout Brady's life he took many, probably hundreds maybe even thousands of pictures, many of which were of famous Americans. He started in the late 1840's and kept doing it for the rest of his life.

In 1849 he opened his first out of eight studios in Washington, D.C. There, he photographed Zachary Taylor, the president at that time. In 1850, twelve lithographs were made from his daguerreotypes of famous people such as Taylor, Mont and Audubon. In 1860, in his fourth and last studio in New York, all on Broadway, Lincoln and Douglas passed by to make a speech at Henry Ward Beecher's church. Every one in Brady's studio wanted to get a photograph of them. The same year, Brady took pictures of the first British and Japanese royalty to visit America. In 1865, a few days after the Civil War ended, Brady took a photograph of Southern General Robert E. Lee and in 1871 he photographed the first African American to join the House of Representatives, Rainey. These were only a very small amount of all the famous Americas he photographed.

The Civil War, as I have said, was the bloodiest war in America. It started in 1861, when the Southern states wanted to be independent, but the North would not let them. The Border between the North and the South started north of Missouri, down the Mississippi River and along the Ohio River. The war ended when Southern General Lee surrounded to Northern General Grant.

In 1856, a man named Alexander Gardener joined Brady. He was very talented and one of Brady's best workers. Gardener photographed Gettysburg with Brady and Antietam, the Civil War's bloodiest battle.

Gardener's life was not always with Brady. In 1862, he started to work for Northern General George McClellan, though he continued to work for Brady. In 1863, he opened a studio himself in Washington, D.C.

The two would fight a lot. They both claimed credit for work. Gardener said he took the picture, but Brady says he taught Gardener how to do it.

In 1896, Brady died, but his pictures didn't. He won many awards for them. In 1851, shortly after he married Juliet Handy, he won a medal at the Crystal Palace in London. The two spent the year in Europe. His and Gardener's photographs of Gettysburg went to the Historic Society and in 1875, he got $25,000 from Congress for his negatives. Mathew Brady is one of Americas most famous photographers and his pictures are still known today and always will be.

The End