Seeing the Past

Pursuing Local History and Genealogy projects means exploring the past. Researchers examine records, journals, diaries, newspapers, and books to learn what happened in years gone by, to understand how people experienced events, and, most of all, how people lived. What better way to learn about the past than by studying photographs. After all, photographs freeze the past, freeze events so anyone can study a building, person, or event at that moment in time.  

Sarah Weatherwax,  a photography curator at the Library Company of Philadelphia, writes about how early photography was received in 1839 Philadelphia. Her piece appears in the blog "O Say Can You See?" http://americanhistory.si.edu/blog of the National Museum of American History, part of the Smithsonian Museums.   


Sarah Weatherwax,. “A Philadelphia Snapshot From When Daguerreotypes Were New” O Say Can You See? Blog (Sept 1, 2015): Pt 1 http://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/part-1-philadelphia-snapshot-when-daguerreotypes-were-new  Pt 2 http://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/part-2-philadelphia-snapshot-when-daguerreotypes-were-new 



If you want to read more about Daguerreotypes, check out the Daguerreian Society  http://daguerre.org/resource/history/history.html  or look at more examples held by the Library of Congress http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/awhhtml/awpnp6/daguertype.html

If you want to learn more about Early Photographic Processes, the Smithsonian is an excellent place to start. http://www.si.edu/mci/EarlyPhotography/about.html
Sarah Kate Gillespie speaks about early photography to the Smithsonian (2011) in 4 short lectures entitled: 'One Thing New Under the Sun: Morse, Draper, and the Cross-Currents of Early American Photography' http://www.si.edu/mci/EarlyPhotography/sarah_kate_gillespie.html

Take a look at the articles and watch the lectures, then explore photographs in your collection. How do they document the past? What other items in your archive, museum, or library show a past that is long gone or much modified?
 

One Thing New Under the Sun: Morse, Draper, and the Cross-Currents of Early American Photography

One Thing New Under the Sun: Morse, Draper, and the Cross-Currents of Early American Photography