INTO THE LIGHT:
JOHN WILLIAM DRAPER AND THE EARLIEST AMERICAN
PHOTOGRAPHIC PORTRAITS.
INTRODUCTION
After a century of dispute, historians credit Joseph Nicephore Niepce with taking the world's first
photograph. Rediscovered by Helmut Gernsheim in 1952, this pewter shadow of shade and
sunlight is the source of all photography.
Some argue that exactly who took the first photographic portrait of the human face is not so
important an area of investigation, yet man has ever been entranced with his own image. From
first magical appearance amid Ice Age cave paintings--throughout the art of all civilizations--to
our present massive surround--and into the visual reality of a high tech future, the human
countenance forever defines our passage.
On 19 August 1839 French scientist Dominique Francois Arago revealed Louis J. M. Daguerre's
eagerly anticipated photographic procedure. The process spread rapidly around the world, finding
important new applications. One application universally desired was to capture life portraits of
the human face. Who made the first portraits? Where and of whom were they made?
America has substantial chauvinistic conceit invested in the question. Lacking entries for the "first
photograph," she fields nearly all claimants to the "first portrait." Accomplishing the first portrait
has historically exemplified fabled American innovation and practical improvement on foreign
invention.
After Arago's announcement of Daguerre's fabulous process America anxiously awaited arrival of
steamships conveying specific information across the Atlantic Ocean. On 10 and 20 September
1839 the first ships docked in New York City. A few ingenious Americans immediately mastered
and even improved the difficult procedure. Their most significant achievements probably
constituted the first successful portraits.
On 7 October Alexander S. Wolcott took a tiny three-eighth-inch profile of his partner John
Johnson. Lost since 1858, this image nevertheless has gained acceptance as the first photograph of
the human face.
European writers counter that during heady days of late August and early September, practitioners
must have attempted portraits as they tested Daguerre's miraculous process. Surely some early
French experiment surpassed Wolcott's unimpressive product. Nevertheless, 14 October remains
the earliest established European claim.[1]
Sometime in late October or November 1839 Robert Cornelius of Philadelphia sat before his
camera and chanced to record a self portrait. This image has gained acceptance as the earliest
extant portrait and a most aesthetically pleasing early portrait.
Samuel F. B. Morse made early attempts at portraiture. Engravings exist of daguerreotypes of his
daughter with friends. Morse claimed he took these images in late September or early
October.
For many years historians credited Dr. John William Draper with taking the world's first portrait.
The currently accepted version of the history of photography strips him of this recognition.
Inaccurate historical research obscured Draper's claim, along with the regrettable fact that no
example of his earliest work survived. The earliest surviving image attributed to John Draper was
the spring 1840 portrait of his sister Dorothy Catherine.
What really happened after news of Daguerre's process arrived in New York City?
Samuel Morse personally met Daguerre. He was the first American to view the Frenchman's
exquisite daguerreotypes and to describe their appearance to his countrymen. In September 1839
Morse was a struggling art professor at the University of the City of New York. He contemplated
Daguerre's invention with trained and experienced artistic perspective.
John Draper was America's foremost scientist in the experimental study of light. He arrived at the
University of the City of New York from Virginia shortly before the details of Daguerre's process
arrived in New York. In September 1839 he was the only man in the United States with years of
proto-photographic chemical and optical experience.
Blending rich academic disciplines of science and art, both Morse and Draper channeled energy
into the crucible of the university--energy potent enough to ignite the explosive potential within
daguerreian photography. Exactly what they accomplished has remained tantalizingly beyond
human sight and knowledge.