Photographer Mathew Brady (1823–1896) was notable for two bodies of work: portraits of well-known figures of his day and Civil War reportage. At the age of sixteen, he left the rural home in upstate New York where he grew up, for Saratoga Springs. There he met portrait painter William Page (1811–1885), and in 1840 together they moved to New York City where they both studied with Samuel Morse (1791–1872), a painter and inventor who had been in Paris the summer when the Daguerreotype process was announced. Morse brought the information back to America, teaching Brady and others how to do it. In 1844, Brady opened his own Daguerreotype studio on Broadway, a popular location for enterprising photographers, followed by a studio in Washington, D.C., in 1849.
Brady, skilled in posing his subjects, positioned them carefully so as to bring out their best features. He used techniques like rubbing their cheeks until they became flushed in order to camouflage freckles or placing wax behind the ears of sitters to minimize unattractive protrusion. His salon was handsomely decorated with elaborate architectural elements, furniture, and carpets that he used in many of his compositions. Employing a large staff of operators who worked under his direction, he also had hairstylists, chemists, and framers to help with the complicated process.
Brady’s Broadway establishment was elegantly appointed and attracted a fashionable clientele; he prominently displayed images of the celebrities he had photographed, including President Abraham Lincoln and his wife Mary Todd Lincoln, the Prince of Wales, sculptor Harriet Hosmer, and Civil War doctor Mary Edwards Walker. In 1850 Brady displayed his Gallery of Illustrious Americans, a collection of portraits of famous figures. Although many great leaders and celebrities sat for Brady, anyone could pay to have their image taken.
As theatre became popular with the American public during the 1860s, Brady established a profitable carte de visite business. The process had been patented by Parisian portrait photographer, André-Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri in 1854. Cartes de visite became popular calling cards with celebrities during the mid-nineteenth century and were widely collected and pasted into albums. Small portraits, two and a half by four inches, they were printed on stiff paper card stock. A camera with eight lenses could expose images on one negative plate making it economical as up to eight different poses could be photographed in one sitting. Printed on a single sheet of paper they were then cut into individual pictures that were mounted on cards. Collecting albums of cards was a popular form of entertainment, because it offered a wide range of available photographic images. It also became a common form of public advertising for fashionable clothing. During the peak of card collecting, popularly known as “cartomania,” approximately four hundred million were produced each year. The cost to purchase them was commonly $2.00 per dozen.
Brady’s studio was located across the street from P.T. Barnum’s American Museum, and he used the publicity he gained from this proximity to his benefit and went after the market it attracted. He was soon commissioned to photograph the famous “General Tom Thumb” (“the Smallest Person that ever Walked Alone”) and his bride, Lavinia, in preparation for their wedding day in 1863.
Celebrated American Actresses is an album page featuring twenty-five women photographed in Brady’s studio, likely by a member of his staff.1 Their identities are known: Mrs. George Farren (formerly Miss Russell), Mrs. H.P. Grattan, Charlotte Cushman, Mrs. W.R. Blake, Madam Ponisi, Paulina Canissa, Madamoiselle Gragiella, Fannie Stockton, Johanna Claussen, Madeline Henriques, Estelle Dumas, Natalie Dumas, Laura Keene, Emily Thorne, Jane Coombes, Alice Placide, Elsie Fulson, Madame Louise Tournaine, Mrs. W.J. Florence (formerly Miss Malvina Pray, who often performed along side her husband), Mrs. Henry Vining, Madam Ristori, Mrs. John Hooey, and Henrietta Irving. Many actresses during this time period played both female and male roles. For instance, Charlotte Cushman portrayed Lady Macbeth in her first appearance on stage in a New York theatre, and later on performed as Patrick in Poor Soldier.
The actresses were commonly photographed while in character, which sometimes resulted in risqué poses, not typical of cartes de visite taken of women during this period. For instance, Madeline Henriques (located second row down and farthest to the right) is wearing a dress with a low sweeping neckline showing her décolletage and shoulders. It is possible that not all of the cards in Celebrated American Actresses are by Brady and may be part of a collection done by more than one studio, as a Charles D. Fredricks and Co. studio stamp is identified on the back of the Henriques picture. Although Brady’s photographers made most of the work produced in his salons, Brady did not credit them for the images they produced. As a result, many of them left to open their own competing businesses. It is common to find images crediting Brady’s studio for the negatives but another photographer for the prints.
When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Brady moved his cameras and operators from the studio to the battlefields producing cartes de visite for soldiers and military leaders to send home to their families. During this time, Brady and his staff (more than twenty worked for him in the field) photographed leaders such as William T. Sherman and General Robert E. Lee. In order to provide evidence of being in the battlefields, Brady would include himself posing in the cartes de visite.
With the end of the Civil War in 1865, interest in battlefield photographs waned among the public, and as a result Brady had a hard time selling his work. In the mid-1870s, the federal government purchased some of his historic archive, but otherwise he was unable to attract buyers. His health began to decline and he died in New York City in 1896.
Carrie Meyer
Mathew Brady, Celebrated American Actresses, c. 1860s, albumen print, (25) 8.3 x 4.4 cm, SOLARI 94.030.002L