HF The History of Photography 600pág

The daguerreotype in America 121
with an exposure of about 15 minutes. As a portrait painter Morse was naturally most
interested in this aspect, and during October he posed his daughter and a friend on
the roof of the University in full sunshine with their eyes closed-for the exposure
lasted 10-20 minutes. The woodcut published many years later by Root4 is misleading,
for contrary to Morse's own statement, the girls are shown with open eyes.
Dissatisfied, Morse wrote to Daguerre on 19 November that he had been experimenting
'with indifferent success, mostly, I believe, for want of a proper lens. I
hoped to be able to send you by this opportunity a result, but I have not one which
I dare send you.'
Morse's colleague DR JOHN WILLIAM DRAPER, an Englishman by birth and professor
of chemistry at the University, after reading the Literary Gazette constructed
a simple camera from a cigar-box fitted with an ordinary biconvex spectacle-type
lens of 4 in. diameter and 14 in. focus. 'Within a day or two after the daguerreotype
was made known here by the above Gazette I had accomplished the object.' Like
Morse, his first subject was the conveniently situated Unitarian church.
Realizing that the exposure must be drastically reduced before satisfactory
portraits could be taken, Draper fitted his camera with a spectacle lens of larger
diameter (5 in.) and shorter focal length (7 in.).5 Having experimented for several
years on the chemical effects of light on sensitive paper (photometry), Draper was
aware of the difference between the visual and the chemical focus of non-achromatic
lenses. In order to obtain a sharp image, after focusing visually on the ground-glass
in the usual way he 'pushed the back of the camera to the violet focus'. The chemically
most active rays-blue and violet-are shorter and meet in front of the visually
most effective red and yellow rays when passed through a lens. The difference between
the visual and chemical focus is about 2 per cent. of the focal length of the lens.
Draper made his first attempts at portraiture indoors. To begin with he powdered
the sitter's face with flour, but soon abandoned this procedure because it increased
the contrast between face and dress. At length during December he succeeded in
producing portraits by the daguerreotype.
Following a detailed description of the daguerreotype process published by
Professor J. F. Frazer in the Journal of the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, October
1839-or possibly one that had already appeared in the United States Gazette published
in Philadelphia on 25 September-JOSEPH SAXTON, an employee of the United States
Mint, took the first daguerreotype of Philadelphia on 16 October. The picture,
measuring 1-k- in. x it in. and showing the old arsenal and the cupola of the Philadelphia
Central High School, was taken from a window of the Mint. It is the earliest
surviving American daguerreotype and is preserved at the Historical Society of
Pennsylvania. Though far from perfect, even allowing for blemishes and dust which
may have accumulated on it later, this first attempt was nevertheless 'sufficiently
successful to demonstrate the beauty of the art when perfected. '6
Meanwhile at the beginning of October ALEXANDER s. WOLCOTT, a New York
manufacturer of dental supplies, jointly with his partner John Johnson started experimenting
in the hope of taking portraits. On 7 October he succeeded in taking a tiny
profile portrait of Johnson. It was smaller than a signet-ring, measuring only i in.
(9 mm.).
Though Daguerre did not follow up Morse's suggestion to introduce his process
into the United States personally and to have an exhibition of his pictures, the idea
of establishing an overseas agency for the sale of apparatus struck him and Giroux,
and on 23 November 1839 their agent FRAN