1. Helmut Gernsheim, The Origins of Photography, rev. 3rd ed. (New York: Thames & Hudson, 1982), 86.

2. Benjamin J. Lossing, "Professor Morse and the Telegraph," Scribner's Monthly Magazine 5 (March 1873): 584; see also Paul J. Staiti and Gary A. Reynolds, Samuel F. B. Morse, exhibition catalog (New York: Grey Art Gallery, New York University, 1982), 80-81.

3. Lossing, "Professor Morse," 585.

4. Ibid., 584.

5. Ibid.; see also Henry Hunt Snelling, The History and Practice of the Art of Photography (New York: G. P. Putnam, 1849), 7-8.

6. Ibid.; see for example Samuel Irenaeus Prime, Life of Samuel F. B. Morse (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1875), 400-402; Carleton Mabee, The American Leonardo: A Live of Samuel Morse (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1943), 226-27.

7. Ibid., 227; Prime, Life of Morse, 400-402.

8. Mabee, American Leonardo, 227; There are other hints that Morse may have known something of the process before 20 September 1839. Perhaps the most reliable being an observation by Benjamin Silliman, Jr., "Miscellanies," American Journal of Science 37 (October 1839): 375:

We have to add, that a professional gentleman in New York informed us before the late arrival of the British Queen, . . . that he was in possession of the secret, and in connection with an eminent chemist in New York had already obtained beautiful results, but is not able as yet fully to arrest them.

Of course this fragment of information could also refer to Seager or someone else entirely. There is at least one other source. In Robert Taft, Photography and the American Scene: A Social History, 1839-1889 (New York: Macmillan, 1938; reprint New York: Dover Publications, 1964), 453, n13, Taft wrote: "In Niles Register, Sept. 21, 1839, p. 64, is the bold statement, �We may say the secret is already known to one or more individuals in this city, but they are restricted from promulgating it, we understand, until the British Queen arrives.'"

9. Prime, Life of Morse, 406-407.

10. Ibid., 405-406.

11. Ibid., 407-408.

12. Ibid., 406; see also Mabee, American Leonardo, 228.

13. John William Draper, "Who Made the First Photographic Portrait?" American Journal of Photography, n.s., 1 (1858-59): 2-4.

On 7 October 1839 Alexander Wolcott and John Johnson began to experiment with a mirror camera. Speaking of his spring 1839 experiments in the above article, Draper elaborated on his own experiments with a mirror camera which preceeded Wolcott and Johnson by half a year:

I may mention among such experiments that not being able to get a lens of aperture enough to suit me, I tried a reflecting mirror or rather a reflecting telescope belonging to that college, and I presume, is there still. It was a Gregorian one, the mirror from four to five inches aperture and perhaps 3 1/2 feet focus. I speak from recollection not having seen it for nearly twenty years. My plan was to protect the small mirror from injury by putting in front of it a piece of a cigar box the size of a cent, on which the bromine sensitive paper was fastened. I expected to be able to focus by looking through the hole in the great mirror and moving the little one by hand, but on trial found it unmanageable and not answering so well as the common refracting camera.

14. Pierre G. Harmant, "Daguerre's Manual: A Bibliographical Enigma," History of Photography, 1 (January 1977): 79-83; see also R. Derek Wood, The Arrival of the Daguerreotype in New York (New York: American Photographic Historical Society, 1994), 1-2.

15. William Welling, Photography in America: The Formative Years, 1839-1889 (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1978), 9. The original article appeared in Anthony's Photographic Bulletin, 14 (1882), 76.

16. Facsimile reproduction of Seager's letter of 7 November 1839 to the American Institute appears in "Photography comes to America," Image 1 (January 1952): 2.

17. Ibid.

18. Mabee, American Leonardo, 228.

19. Charles E. West to the editor, 10 February 1883, New York Times, 19 February 1888, p. 3, col.7.

20. Samuel F. B. Morse to M. A. Root, 10 February 1855, Samuel F. B. Morse Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (hereafter cited as Morse Papers); Prime, Life of Morse, 403; see also Marcus A. Root, The Camera and the Pencil (Philadelphia: M. A. Root, 1864; reprint ed. Pawlet, Vermont: Helios, 1971), 344-48.

21. Prime, Life of Morse, 407-408.

22. Current scholarship questions whether a copy of Daguerre's manual could have even been aboard the British Queen, see Harmant, "Daguerre's Manuel," 79-83, and Wood, Arrival of the Daguerreotype, 1-2.

23. Welling, Photography in America, 9.

24. Ibid.; see also West to editor of the New York Times, 10 February 1883.

25. Morse to Root, 10 February 1855.

26. Samuel F. B. Morse to Edward Wilson, 18 November 1871, Morse Papers; see also, Lossing, "Professor Morse," 585.

27. As quoted in Mabee, American Leonardo, 229.

28. Ibid.

29. Morse to Root, 10 February 1855.

30. Mabee, American Leonardo, 229.

31. Morse to Root, 10 February 1855.

32. John William Draper to the Committee of the Mechanics Club, 3 May 1858, John William Draper Family Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (hereafter cited as Draper Papers).

33. Taft, Photography, 27.

34. Draper to Committee, 3 May 1858.

35. "Dr. John Draper Dead," New York World, 5 January 1882, 4.

36. John William Draper, "On the Process of Daguerreotype, and its Application to Taking Portraits from the Life," London, Edinburgh and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science, 3rd ser., 17 (September 1840): 220 (hereafter cited as Philosophical Magazine).

William Henry Goode who worked closely with Draper throughout these experiments, elaborated further on the comparison between Draper's simple camera and Daguerre's elaborate apparatus:

Pictures of the largest size--eight inches by six--are taken with the French achromatic lenses, perfect throughout; the parts within the shade are brought into view, distant objects are perfectly delineated. A common spectacle lens, an inch in diameter, of fourteen inches focal length, adjusted by means of a sliding tube, into one end of a cigar box, answers very well to take small pictures. In one respect, these pictures are equal to those obtained with the achromatics; they are, however inferior in others, and in their general effect. The fine lines and edges of objects are exceedingly sharp and distinct; but the parts within the shade are not copied, and objects very distant from that to which the focus was adjusted, are not accurately delineated. By placing a diaphragm before the lens, with an aperture half an inch in diameter, the sharpness and distinctness of the lines and edges of objects are increased. In using this apparatus, which recommends itself by its cheapness--costing about twenty-five cents--the tube should be pushed in 2/10 or 3/10 inch, after adjusting the lens to the luminous focus, to obtain that of the chemical rays. The exact distance the tube is to be retracted should be determined for each lens by trial.

William Henry Goode, "The Daguerreotype and its Applications," American Journal of Science 40 (1841): 137-38.

37. Draper, "Process," 220.

38. John T. Towson, "On the proper Focus for the Daguerreotype," Philosophical Magazine 15 (November 1839): 381-85.

On page 383 Towson's article suggested still another reason why Draper's all-flint glass spectacle lens held an advantage over the achromatic lenses Daguerre recommended:

we might imagine that crown glass would be the best material for photographic lenses. This however is not the case. The least dispersive lenses intercept the greatest number of chemical rays, and therefore those of crown glass, and consequently achromatic lenses, cannot be advantageously employed for photographic purposes.

Flint glass evidently passed more light, and therefore made a faster lens. Possibly Draper's work with chromatic lenses of pure flint glass held a significant advantage, in the hands of a skilled operator, over achromatic lenses made of both flint and crown glass. This advantage would have lasted until at least the spring of 1840, when the French began to produce achromatic lenses of large enough size to pass enough light to negate the advantage of flint over crown glass. It was in the spring that Draper himself switched to French achromatics in his portrait camera. Draper, "First Portrait," 5.

Dr. Draper provided still another explanation as to why he was able to work sucessfully in 1839 and 1840 with chromatic lenses. In 1861 Draper chaired a meeting of the American Photographic Society where discussion focused upon a specific advantage of using a chromatic lens of pure flint glass over an achromatic lens. Draper alluded back to his early work with the daguerreotype:

We are apt to think that when lenses are optically perfect they ought be so chemically. This remark was made in 1840, when many excellent daguerreotypes were made, by the use of the ordinary spectacle lens. But at that time our material sensitive to light was iodide of silver only. Iodide of silver is affected very little by other rays than the indigo. The image of the sun from an uncorrected lens on iodide of silver is extremely sharp. When collodian, therefore, is prepared with only an iodide, it is not essential that the camera lens be carefully achromatic. The bromide of silver is, however, decomposed in a larger part of the spectrum, and with it, it is important to work with corrected lenses.

"The American Photographic Society twenty-fourth meeting," The American Journal of Photography, n.s., 3 (1861-62): 270.

39. Draper, "First Portrait," 3-4; see also Draper to Committee, 3 May 1858.

40. Draper, "First Portrait," 4; Draper, "Process," 222; Henry Hunt Snelling, "Some Facts Connected with the Early History of Photography in America," Photographic and Fine Art Journal 7 (December 1854): 382; "Dr. Draper Dead," World; see also John William Draper, miscellaneous draft notes ca. 1881-82, Draper Papers; see also the discussion of Draper's first portrait in Howard R. McManus, "It Was I Who Took The First," Daguerreian Annual 1996, 70-100.

41. What might reasonably be considered the "first portrait?" If a portrait is simply a picture of a person, the camera achieved some result almost from the inception of the process. Morse likely viewed the first when he visited Daguerre's apartment in March 1839. Prime, Life of Morse, 401, quoted his description:

Objects moving are not impressed. The boulevard, so constantly filled with a moving throng of pedestrians and carriages, was perfectly solitary, except an individual who was having his boots brushed. His feet were of course compelled to be stationary for some time, one being on the box of the bootblack, and the other on the ground. Consequently his boots and legs are well defined, but he is without body or head, because these were in motion.

This was not the "portrait" desired in 1839. Everyone dreamed of improving Daguerre's process to permit a close portrait of the human face, in the same manner such as an artist like Morse would paint. On 22 or 23 September 1839 Draper must have been among the first in the world to accomplish this object.

42. Draper, "Process," 222.

43. Draper, "First Portrait," 4.

44. Ibid., 5.

45. Snelling, "Some Facts," 382. The reason that there was no depth of field in a photograph taken with a lens with such a small difference in ratio of focal length (seven inches) to diameter (five inches) is found in the following optical principle:

Hence this may be laid down as a general rule, that the focal distance of a lens must always be twice greater than the diameter of its aperture; that is, the aperture of a lens must of necessity be smaller than half the focal distance. . . . The aperture of the object-glass, . . . must follow the rule laid down, as clearness necessarily depends on it.

David Brewster, Letters of Euler on Different Subjects in Natural Philosophy, Vol. 2 (New York: Harpers and Brothers, 1846), 344-45. Draper assumed that the readers of his article would have simply known this as general knowledge.

46. Editor's description of Wolcott's plate, Humphrey's Journal 2 (1 June 1851): 52; see also Alexander S. Wolcott, "Improvements in the Daguerreotype," American Repertory of Arts, Sciences, and Manufacturers 1 (April 1840): 195 (hereafter cited as American Repertory); see also n41.

47. Welling, Photography in America, 35. The original daguerreotype is now in the Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress.

48. Root, Camera, 347.

49. Lossing, "Professor Morse," 584. This article contains a wonderful reproduction of one of Morse's first daguerreian portraits. This image is apparently as early as the well-known daguerreotype illustrated in Marcus Root's The Camera and the Pencil, yet appears virtually unknown to photographic historians. The image depicts two young girls (one was possibly Morse's daughter) wearing bonnets. Their eyes are closed in the illustration. According to the article, the original daguerreotype depicted three people.

50. John William Draper, "Remarks on the Daguerreotype," American Repertory 1 (July 1840): 403. Draper also stated that he experimented with a three inch lens at about this same time.

51. Draper, "Process," 222-23. Exact dates students attended are given in Theodore Frelinghuysen, "Annual Report to the Council, 30 October 1839," Chancellors Records. As an additional burdensome task, Draper inherited the job of secretary of the faculty--probably an odious duty reserved for the victim with least seniority. Faculty minutes, fall and winter 1839, New York University Archives.

52. Samuel F. B. Morse, "Memoranda of Daguerreotype," Journal: 3 January-14 February 1840, Morse Papers.

53. Morse to Root, 10 February 1855. Morse's daguerreian work with both portraits and landscapes appeared to have largely halted after the beginning of October. On 16 November 1839 Morse wrote again to Daguerre complaining:

I have been experimenting, but with indifferent success, mostly, I believe, for the 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. You shall have the first that is in any degree perfect. Will you allow me so far to trespass on your kindness as to request you to choose for me two lenses, such as you can recommend.

Prime, Life of Morse, 407-408; see also Taft, Photography, 25. Photographic historian Robert Taft believed this letter proved that "any success that Morse obtained must have come after November 19, 1839." Historical sources previously quoted argue otherwise. Carlton Mabee was more likely correct when he interpreted this letter to mean Morse was "merely expressing himself with French modesty in writing to the inventor of the new art." Mabee, American Leonardo, 233.

Morse revealed frustration and dissatisfaction with the degree of success he had obtained by November. It may be most accurate to interpret this letter in light of Morse's awareness of Draper's achievement. It is interesting to note in respect to what Draper had accomplished that Morse focused upon the lack of a suitable lens as his major problem.

54. Draper, "Process," 222-23; see also Draper, "First Portrait," 5.

55. Draper, "Process," 222-23.

56. "Dr. Draper Dead," World.

57. Draper, "Process,"223.

58. Ibid.

59. Draper to Committee, 3 May 1858. This is an important detail appearing in the rough draft of Draper's letter that he crossed out and did not include in the final letter.

60. Contrast the assertion in William F. Stapp, Robert Cornelius: Portraits from the Dawn of Photography (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1983), 30, that:

making portraits indoors, which--without a camera designed specifically for the purpose (like Wolcott's) was virtually impossible with singly iodized plates. . . . By the Winter of 1839, therefore, the challenge lay, not in making a likeness, but in making it indoors, in a studio situation, where light levels were significantly reduced.

Draper's very first portraits were indoors. When he explained that indoor use of his four-inch lens was unsatisfactory because it had to be used in a piazza to have light enough, Draper revealed that he was thinking with an October 1839, pre-portrait gallery perspective. To his way of thinking at the time, portraiture limited to indoor operation was flawed. Later, in December, using his third in a sequence of portrait lenses, Draper acheived the first portraits that he considered sucessful and practical and they were taken outdoors. He had solved the scientific difficulties involved. At the time he had no interest or intention of creating an indoor gallery product produced for profit.

61. Draper, "First Portrait," 5. Draper remembered: "I had for some time used a piece of pure sheet silver, which answered perfectly while it lasted, but with so often heating it on the spirit lamp it became crystalline, and broke to pieces."

62. Draper, "Remarks," 403.

63. Draper to Committee, 3 May 1858.

64. These December portraits probably did not require the use of mirrors to focus bright sunlight onto the face. The subject would merely have to stand in direct sunlight. This simplification when added to a less critical focus (wider depth of field) made such portraits relatively easy to produce.

65. McManus, "It Was I Who Took The First", 82-83.

66. Draper, "Process," 220.

67. Morse to Daguerre, 16 November 1839 in Prime, Life of Morse, 407-408.

68. Beaumont Newhall, The Daguerreotype in America (New York: Duell, Sloan & Pearce, 1961; reprint Dover Publications, 1976), 27-28; Richard Rudisill, Mirror Image: The Influence of the Daguerreotype on American Society (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1971), 58-59; see also Floyd and Marion Rinhart, The American Daguerreotype (Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1981), 431. The best current analysis of Gouraud in America can be found in Wood, Arrival of the Daguerreotype, 5-10.

69. Newhall, Daguerreotype in America, 27; see also Rudisill, Mirror Image, 58.

70. Rinhart, American Daguerreotype, 31.

71. Newhall, Daguerreotype in America, 28.

72. Ibid., 27; see also Morse's letter to Daguerre, 16 November 1839, in Prime, Life of Morse, 407-408.

73. Morse, "Memoranda of Daguerreotype," 7, 9, 13.

74. Ibid., 7; see also Mabee, American Leonardo, 233, 235.

75. Rinhart, American Daguerreotype, 35.

76. Ibid., 33.

77. Morse, "Memoranda of Daguerreotype," 7-11.

78. Ibid., 10.

79. Mabee, American Leonardo, 236.

80. Morse, "Memoranda of Daguerreotype."

81. Ibid.

82. Ibid., 15, 16.

83. Draper Collection, Photographic History Department, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution (hereafter cited as Draper Collection); see also Howard R. McManus, "Daguerreian Treasures at the Smithsonian Institution," The Daguerreian Annual 1996, 256-57.

84. Morse, "Memoranda of Daguerreotype."

85. Mabee, American Leonardo, 236; see also Newhall, Daguerreotype in America, 29.

86. Ibid.

87. Ibid., 30.

87. Ibid., 30.

88. Ibid.; Rinhart, American Daguerreotype, 33-36; see also Mabee, American Leonardo, 236-37.

89. M. F. Gouraud, "Description of the Daguerreotype Process" (Boston: 1840; reprinted in Robert A. Sobieszek, The Daguerreotype Process: Three Treatises, 1840-1849 (New York: Arno Press, 1973), 14-16.

In a short historical introduction Gouraud recorded that within fifteen days of Daguerre's revelation people in every quarter of Paris were attempting portraits. Even if Gouraud exaggerated, some people certainly would have trained their camera on other people or themselves stepped within the slow exposures.

All such "portraits" were taken with Daguerre's achromatic lens, required fifteen to twenty-five minute exposures, and recorded only distant, full length, outdoor images. According to Gouraud, an M. Susse carried this practice to its ultimate perfection by posing his subjects for "pretty" portraits with their eyes shut.

Of more interest was Gouraud's description of a method he learned from M. Abel Rendu just before sailing for America. Realizing the impracticality of using Daguerre's lens for portraits, Rendu turned to the use of a meniscus lens. Following Rendu's advice, Gouraud tried "at first the meniscus recommended by Wollaston, then the common one with one side plain, then one with a parabolic concavity." He claimed an exposure time of from one minute to two minutes twenty-seven seconds. Such a portrait turned out sharp in the center of the plate--if one captured exactly the correct focus. Outside of the center such images came out "nebulous." Gernsheim concluded that such a lens would have certainly shortened exposure time if used without a stop, and the portraits must have been small. Helmut and Alison Gersheim, L. J. M. Daguerre: The History of the Diorama and the Daguerreotype (London: Martin Secker & Warburg, 1956; reprint New York: Dover Publications, 1968), 117.

The drawback to such a process was probably the unevenness of result. Before Draper's 18 January demonstration, Gouraud presumably knew little about using the chemical instead of luminous focus. His mentor Rendu probably also used the luminous focus. Without Draper's technique, it would have simply been a matter of luck to accomplish a portrait with its narrow depth of field sharply focused upon the exact plane of the human face. In his 1840 pamphlet Gouraud mentioned only that "the focus of the camera obscura must be regulated," so his manual probably spawned few successful operators. Gouraud, "Description," 16.

90. John Johnson, Daguerreotypes," Eureka, 1 (1846), 25.

91. Root, Camera, 347-48.

92. "Dr. Draper Dead, World.

93. Draper, "Process," 223.

94. (Brackets mine): "The proof was procured by two double convex nonachromatic lenses set together, each lens being of 16 inches focus [separately, but eight inches together] and 4 inches aperture." John William Draper to Sir John F. W. Herschel, ? July 1840, Draper Papers.

95. Stapp, Cornelius, 62 (plate 9), 66 (plate 11).

96. Draper Collection. For a reproduction of this image see McManus, "Daguerreian Treasures," 252.

97. Draper, "Process", 224.

98. Plate L was found in a lap desk beside, but not itself inside the plate-box. It was mounted behind a brass mat and glass in an early leather miniature case. The brass mat is stamped 1-GUY on the reverse side. Under superficial examination all twelve plates appear to have similar abrasion marks along their edges. This fact seems to imply that all twelve plates were put in and out of the plate-box during some period of their existence. Plate L may have thus been in the plate-box with the rest of the images for a time, and later cased.

99. "Dr. Draper Dead," World.

100. Draper, "First Portrait," 5. See also, n39.

101. "Dr. Draper Dead," World.

102. Root, Camera, 344-48; see also Welling Photography in America, 28-29.

103. Samuel F. B. Morse to E. N. Horsford, 20 November 1840, Eben Norton Horsford Papers, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York. For a full transcription of this letter see McManus, "Daguerreian Treasures," 254.

104. John William Draper, On the Indebtedness of New York to its University (New York: New York University Alumni Association Publications, 28 June 1853), 11.

105. Samuel F. B. Morse to Edward Salisbury, 24 February 1841, Morse papers.

106. Draper, "Process," 222, described just such a problem with "double exposures" in his first experiments:

if the plate has not been burnt at all, perhaps the former impressions which have been obtained will re-appear. This accident frequently happened in my earlier trials, when care had not been taken to give a due exposure each time to the spirit flame. Spectral appearances of former objects, on different parts of it, emerged,--an interior with Paul Pry coming out, when the camera had been pointed at a church.

107. Once he completed his spring 1840 article for the Philosophical Magazine Draper moved quickly to other projects. It is conceivable that Draper gave the images away as some sort of souvenir after using the contents to complete his article. In this scenario, he would have allowed someone to select a "souvenir" from the group of error plates saved to write the article. This might have occured either before destroying or "instead of keeping" the images. If there were more than a dozen error plates saved for the article up to this point, the excess may have been destroyed (or further dispersed) after this "collector" filled the plate box with the images of interest to him.

Each visible image within the plate box depicts a different man. The fact that all significant players may be represented, heightens the possibility that someone selected the plates as a representative sample of experiments. On the other hand, each portrait appears to represent the use of a different lens system, which could also indicate the intention of selection. In this scenario the fact that each picture represents a different man may just be chance.

Why was the plate box not brought forward by whomever owned it in 1858 during the investigation of the Mechanic's Committee of the American Institute? Conceivably the plate box images passed into someone else's possession at an extremely early date. Years later Draper might easily have forgotten that any survived. In 1858 after the passage of 18 years, the owner who now possessed the plate box would have likely been out of touch with Draper and not even aware of the limited controversy which surrounded the question "who took the first portrait." After all, the entire controversy was contained within the obscure confines of three photographic societies.

It was not until publicity surrounded New York University's exhibition of the Dorothy Catherine Draper daguerreotype at the 1893 Chicago Columbian Exposition that the question was publicized in a widespread manner. This was 53 years after the plate box may have passed out of the possession of the Draper family and into the hands of some anonymous individual. In 1893 the owner was probably deceased or too old to remember the images or their significance.

Why is there no documentation of the plate box images within the 46 cartons of John William Draper Family Papers in the Manuscripts Division of the Library of Congress? In 1865 the New York University Medical School burned down. Draper lost an extensive library, his lecture notes, the notebooks in which he recorded his laboratory investigations, and all of his chemical, physical, and physiological apparatus kept at the school. [Donald Fleming, John William Draper and the Religion of Science (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1950), 113.] In the writer's search through the family papers which remain in the Library of Congress there was a massive preponderance of post-1865 papers for every earlier document or letter. This proportion held true for all categories of papers from correspondence to receipts. The best explanation is that any notes Draper may have kept concerning his portrait experiments were lost in 1865 along with all other primary documentation of his 1840s experiments with radiant energy. Nothing of this kind exists in the Library of Congress collection. In later years when writing his memoirs, Draper used only published articles that documented his experiments and otherwise relied upon his memory.

Why did Draper never mention the plate box images himself when asked about the first portraits? Most of Draper's earlier correspondence must not have survived the 1865 New York University fire. For eighteen years after he took the first portraits, Draper was rarely questioned specifically concerning his work. Before 1858 it was generally not an issue that occurred to anyone. During this early period, taking the first portrait was only important to Draper as an accomplished fact. He believed that the issue was completely settled by his claims published in 1840 scientific journals. Before 1858 he occasionally declared that he had taken the first portrait, usually when also describing Samuel Morse's development of the electro-magnetic telegraph. Draper enjoyed pointing out that both technological innovations occurred about the same time in nearby rooms in the New York University building. Draper used the pair of achievements to illustrate how practical benefits were potentially possible at an educational institution like the University of the City of New York.

Before 1858 on the few occasions that Draper wrote about his early portrait work, he always referred back to his 1837-40 articles on radiant energy and photography published in scientific journals. He rarely added any detail that was not contained within those articles.

The 1858 investigation headed by the Mechanic's Committee of the American Institute put the first direct request to Draper for additional information concerning his work. This request was basically in the form of an open challenge to his claim. See McManus, "It Was I Who Took The First," 83-84. For the first time since 1840 Draper sat down and wrote out a detailed description of the events as he recalled them. The resultant article clarified much of the information in his 1840 articles and added further details. The rough draft version of this letter in the Draper Papers at the Library of Congress is especially important for all its specific detail (some omitted from the published letter). At one point in the article Draper stated that he could "relate to you many interesting incidents of our [Morse & Draper's] conjoint trials, disappointments, and eventual success, which would doubtless interest you, but they are perhaps not what you are not looking for now." Unfortunately Draper was never asked for the further elaboration he might have provided at this time.

After 1858 Draper became quite famous for his prolific and controversial writing in history and philosophy. The flood of letters he wrote and received through the 1870s nearly all pertain to this work. His time was further dispersed by his active family and teaching schedule at New York University. It is quite obvious to anyone investigating Draper's life during this era that experimentation with portraits accomplished at the dawn of the daguerreian era held little importance for him. The daguerreotype itself passed out of usage and was replaced with a plethora of new and "better" photographic processes. Draper's reputation and expertise had always dwarfed the discipline of photography and now inflated far beyond its practice or history. His resignation as president of the American Photographic Association in 1866 is indicative of his waning interest.

Only twice before his death in 1882 was Draper ever again required to think closely about his first experimentation with daguerreian portraits.

In 1873 Draper chanced upon an obscure claim to taking the first portrait that Morse had made before his death. A rebuttal, published in "Early Photography," Scribner's Monthly Magazine, 7 (March 1874): 630-31, was Draper's last detailed defense of his claim to the first portrait. In this article he clarified and defended against specific facts in Morse's account. Beyond this, few additional details are thrown to the reader interested in the history of photography.

In 1878 Professor C. F. Chandler, a lecturer on the history of photography, asked Draper for information to answer certain attacks against his first portrait claim. Obviously weary of a subject which had never held much importance to him, Draper answered Chandler in the same fashion he had followed all his life. He used details from what he had already written down. The arguments he provided Chandler were drawn almost entirely from his 1874 Scribner's article.

Busy and preoccupied, Draper always followed this pattern. For 18 years he referred all inquiries to the original articles he published in 1840. For the next 15 years he referred all inquiries to the explanation he had made to the investigating committee of the American Institute. From 1874 untill his death in 1882 Draper referred all inquiries to his defense against Morse's challenge in Scribner's.

In his 1878 letter to Professor Chandler Draper held out one last tantalizing opportunity. His letter concluded, "These my dear Dr. Chandler are some facts. If you want any more I can give you plenty." Regretfully for the history of photography, Dr. Chandler never requested additional information.

Even if Draper somehow knew of the existence of the plate box images after 1840, it is conceivable that he would never have mentioned them or sought to display them as evidence. Important early daguerreotypes exist in the Draper Collection at the Smithsonian Institution. One is a still life, probably made in conjunction with Samuel Morse. Another is possibly a view of the Unitarian Church behind New York University which provided the subject for Morse & Draper's first daguerreian experiments. A third daguerreotype in this collection is an early portrait, possibly of Samuel Morse himself. See McManus, "Daguerreian Treasures", 255.

John Draper's descendants gave this material to the Smithsonian Institution in the 1970s. All these images must have been available to Draper during his lifetime. If he ever felt an inclination to explain, prove, or illustrate the early history of photography using pictorial examples rather than the written word, Draper might have exhibited or at least mentioned these images. If he chose never to mention daguerreotypes to which he had definate access, the same preference could explain why he never mentioned or attempted to exhibit the plate box images, even if he somehow remembered that they existed.

108. The plate-box was originally purchased at an estate sale of the property of Kenneth Edwin Corrigan of Detroit Michigan. Both he and his wife, Henrietta Snow Hayden Corrigan, who died in 1971, were radiation physicists. The plate-box and cased plate L were in a gilded lap desk which also contained other small items including: jewelry, later photographs, a calling card of Robert H. Carter, and three valentines (c. 1870) addressed to a Kate Carter. In the same room were finely bound literary books (c. 1820-60) inscribed with the Carter name, and a brass half-plate daguerreian lens marked C. C. Harrison, N.Y.

A superficial search through the forebears of Henrietta Snow Hayden (whose grandparents were Dwight F. Hayden, Sr., Henrietta Kingsley, Levi Adelbert Snow, and Anna M. Van Alstyne), revealed no obvious link to Draper, New York University, or even New York City. Most of her family were from the Syracuse, New York, area. Of possibly more promise are the forebears of Kenneth Edwin Corrigan. His marriage certificate records his birth in Newark, New Jersey, on 10 June 1905. Other sources give his birthplace as New York City. His parents are listed on the marriage license as William Seward Corrigan and Emma Blanchard Carter.

Unfortunately the writer has not yet found a birth certificate or any further information about his parents and has thus been unable to move further backward. There is however, record of a Carter family in Brooklyn, New York, who appear to be related to Kenneth, judging from the other items found with the plate-box in the lap desk.

The 1870 census under entry for Robert H. Carter, Kings County 079, 8th Ward, Brooklyn, lists:

Name
Robert H. Carter
Fannie
Kate
Mariah
Robert H.
George J.
Emily

Age
40
32
17
15
9
7
4

Born
England
England
New York
New York
New York
New York
New York

Occupation
Shoestore
Housekeeper
School
School
School
School
--

Value
$1500
--
--
--
--
--
--

Parents born
England
England
--
--
--
--
--

The 1860 census under entry for Robert H. Carter, Kings County, 3rd District, 11th Ward, Brooklyn, lists:

Name
Robert H. Carter
Fannie
Kate
Mariah

Age
39
24
7
5

Born
England
--
--
--

Occupation
Jeweler
--
--
--

Value
$400
--
--
--

Parents born
England
--
--
--

A possibly related entry in the 1850 census records lists a Robert Carter, Kings County (part) and City B'klyn (Wards 1-3) O41, age thirty-seven, jeweler, born in England, listed with about a dozen other men (presumably a boarding or rooming house).

Robert's actual approximate age might be guessed by a death certificate found for a Frances Carter (his wife?), who died on 17 April 1878, at the age of sixty-five. She was recorded as born in England, a resident of New York City for fifty years, and by occupation an engraver (fits well with a jeweler).

In addition, city directories and census records 1850-1915 reveal several individuals named Robert H. Carter working as bookseller and book binder. One intriguing entry in Trow's New York City directory for 1854-55, lists a Robert Carter as operating a Camera and Museum at 689 Sixth Avenue.

More intensive effort should be expended to find the correct track backward from Kenneth Corrigan, and to find any possible link between the various Robert Carters of Brooklyn and New York City, and Draper or New York University.

Little has surfaced concerning the Corrigan name except one evocative entry which demands further research. In the Scovill Manufacturing Company Collection, Baker Library, Harvard University, there is an untitled, unpublished manuscript on the history of the Scovill Manufacturing Company. On page 427 of one chapter of this manuscript entitled "Scovill and Photography. The Tail that Almost Wagged the Dog," Philip W. Bishop quoted from a letter from J. M. L. Scovill to his brother Lamson Scovill, written during the winter of 1839-40.

"I called on Corrigan about plated metal. He says the last he imported cost 68 deld here Cash except Duties. I shall call on the Importers and see what can be done."

At least one man named Corrigan was evidently involved to at least some small degree in the origin of daguerreian photography in America. Bishop's manuscript also describes how Scovill later became sole agent for the cameras and lenses of C. C. Harrison.

This is as far as the genealogical research has progressed. A viable link of provenance may never be found. If found, it will likely require much further time and resources. Nevertheless, both Carter and Corrigan names offer potentially fruitful lines of research.

109. Draper, "First Portrait," 4-5.

110. Snelling, "Some Facts," 382.

111. Draper, "First Portrait," 5.

112. Draper, "Process," 222,

if the plate has not been burnt at all, perhaps the former impressions which have been obtained will re-appear. This accident frequently happened in my earlier trials, when care had not been taken to give a due exposure each time to the spirit flame. Spectral appearances of former objects, on different parts of it, emerged,--an interior with Paul Pry coming out, when the camera had been pointed at a church.

113. Lossing, "Professor Morse," 584. Root, Camera 347; see also n49. The McAllister image, posed similarly and likely taken with the same style lens appears in Welling, Photography in America, 35.

114. Draper, "Process," 222-23.

115. "Dr. Draper Dead," World.

116. Draper, "Remarks," 402-403.

117. Draper, "Process," 223.

118. "Dr. Draper Dead," World.

119. Morse to Wilson, 18 November 1871.

120. Draper Collection.

121. Draper, Indebtedness, 11.

122. Morse to Salisbury, 24 February 1841.

123. Stapp, Cornelius, 62 (plate 9), 66 (plate 11).

124. Draper, "Process," 223.

125. Stapp, Cornelius, 62 (plate 9), 66 (plate 11).

126. Draper, "Process," 224-25.

127. Draper, "First Portrait," 5.

128. Draper, "Remarks," 403.

129. Draper, "Process," 220.

130. Draper to Committee, 3 May 1858.

131. Draper "Process," 224.

132. Many thanks to Edward L. Heck for pointing out to me the possible significance of this draped cloth.

133. Draper, "Process," 220.

134. The similarity of features between this woman and Draper's portrait of Dorothy Catherine is the most obvious evidence but there are other speculative possibilities. The woman in the center of plate M is adorned by three separate fabrics--the draped white cloth, a patterned shawl or scarf, and a lacy embroidered garment tucked into the top of her dress and draped around her shoulders. The triangular fold and lace pattern visible in this latter garment is intriguingly similar to the fabric pattern and triangular seams visible in the pellarian Dorothy Catherine Draper wore in the famous portrait sent to Herschel.

Did 1839 fashion style allow wearing a pellarian (usually draped around the shoulders outside a dress as in the Herschel image) in an alternate fashion--folded, turned inside out (the frills now on the inside), and worn around the shoulders tucked inside the dress? If so, the same style garment might be visible in both the Dorothy Catherine daguerreotype and in plate M. Someone with expertise in fall 1839 women's fabrics and fashion should carefully examine both images with this possibility in mind.

135. G. Brown Goode, Virginia Cousins (Richmond, Virginia: J. W. Randolph & English, 1887).