This Daguerreotype

I found this searching through Mary (nee Peterman) Hoyt family pictures. Mary is the only child of Cathrine Mulcahy's daughter Mary (Ward) Snow's oldest daughter, Helen (Snow) Peterman. Helen was the oldest of three girls. Mary Ward was the third of four children. Her older sister became a nun.

So it seems logical that this picture had come down through the family to Mary Hoyt. But she had never seen it before!

So, as we sorted out what little is known of these ancestors of hers, Mary and I speculated that this might have been the kind of expensive indulgence an Irishmen might just buy if his daughter was being spirited off to America by her husband, John Ward to America. Perhaps John had come over previously and made money in the gold rush.

If so, this daguerreotype would have been made between 1856 and 1858.

A picture of the daguerreotype case. This is the origin for the best photo of Cathrine Mulcahy.

Click on picture to download larger images.

Outside

The thin embossed leather outer skin did hold it together and thusly provided a "hinged" edge for the case.

The case is 3-3/4" wide by 4-11/16" tall. The photo itself is about 3" by 4". The case is 5/8" thick (not including bevel),

The backside (shown left) is beveled about 1/8" and holds the photo.

The cover side is the same on the outside (except the bevel isn't on this side). On the inside, it has embossed dark green velvet.

The whole thing is edged with what I would guess is gold leaf.

I can't say what material serves as the structural hull but it has held up well and the swing hooks and eyelets are still attached and functioning.

Inside

The picture is set in an oval frame painted gold. The oval has a nice chamfer on the inside.

Glass is mounted over the oval-- held in place by a 1/8" wide embossed gold metal fill piece that holds the glass up against another black cord material (visible in photo). This is raised enough to provide a dust seal when the case is closed.

In spite of being over 150 years old, it is holding up well. The worst damage is happening to the silver plate (the actual negative). The edges are deteriorating. I'd almost bet it is fluorides and chlorides from people's hands that have set on the plate probably since it was first made.

About Daguerreotypes

The daguerreotype is an early type of photograph, developed by Louis Daguerre.

The image is exposed directly onto a mirror-polished surface of silver. The process included treating silver-plated copper sheets with iodine to make them sensitive to light, then exposing them in a camera and "developing" the images with warm mercury vapor.

The daguerreotype is a negative image, but the mirrored surface of the metal plate reflects the image and makes it appear positive in the proper light. Thus, daguerreotype is a direct photographic process without the capacity for duplication.

Daguerre and Arago publicized the steps of the process on August 19, 1839, almost without restriction, as a gift to the world from France.

Within a year of the initial disclosure, improvements were made in the lenses, apparatus, and chemistry of the process to the point that portraiture was possible in relatively short exposures. In later developments bromine and chlorine vapors were also used, resulting in shorter exposure times.

By 1843 a burgeoning daguerreotype portrait industry had evolved. For the equivalent of $2 to $5 in almost any town, a person's "phiz" could be immortalized on a slip of silver, framed with a rich gilt mat, and pressed into a fitted case covered in fine embossed leather.

In the early 1840s, the invention was introduced in a period of months to practitioners in the United States by Samuel Morse, inventor of the telegraph code.

By the mid 1850's, millions of the shiny little pictures had been made of almost every aspect of life (and death), and photography had begun to become commonplace.

It was difficult to make in larger sizes; the most common size was about 2 3/4 x 3 1/4 inches (7 x 8.2 cm).