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Next Year Will Be Celebrated The Centennial of Photography And in His Recently-Published Book, "Photography and the American Scene," Dr. Robert Taft Ha? Not Only Given an Authoritative Account of the First 50 Years of Picture-Taking but Has Made an Important Contribution to the Social History of the United States. / ? Western Newspaper Union. By ELMO SCOTT WATSON IN JANUARY, 1939, wiU be celebrated the 100th birth day of "the greatest boon ever conferred upon the com mon man in recent years." That benefaction, according ?to John Richard Green, the historian who made this state ment, was photography. Throughout photography's centennial year of 1939 we Americans, who are probably the most "picture-minded" people in the world, will be asking such questions as "Who was the inventor of photography ? how was it started ? who were the pio neers in the field ? who did most to bring it to its present high stage of development?" Fortunately for us the answers to those questions, and many others, are to be found in a recently - published book, which is one of the most im portant contributions to the social history of the United States that has appeared in recent years. It is "Photog raphy and the American Scene ? A Social History, 1839-1889," written by Robert Taft and published by the Macmillan company. Six years ago Dr. Taft, who ai professor of chemistry at the Uni versity of Kansas has always been interested in the history of photography from a purely tech nical standpoint, was reading an account of the explorations of Gen. John C. Fremont, the so called "Pathfinder of the West." A question arose in his mind as to the first use of photography in the exploration of the West and when he sought enlighten ment on this point he found a cu rious dearth of information about it. He then began to accumulate data on the subject. Out of that grew his history of American photography ? a monumental vol ume of 546 pages illustrated with more than 300 pictures, a book as distinguished for its lively and readable style as for the scholar liness of the research back of it. Importance of Photography. In the introduction Dr. Taft de clares that Green, the historian, "can not be far wrong" in his estimate of the importance of photography to the common man. He says: "Photography affects the lives of modern individuals so extensively that it is difficult to enumerate all of its uses. In addition to preserving for us the portraits of loved ones, it illus trates our newspapers, our mag azines, our books. It enables the physician to record the inner structure of man and thus aids in alleviating man's ills. By its means, man has been able to ?tudy the infinitely small, to ex plore the outer reaches of space, to discover planets, and to reveal the structure of atoms. Crime has been detected through its agency as readily as have flaws In metal structures. It has re corded the past, educated our youth and last, but not least, it has given us the most popular form of amusement ever de vised." Louis Jacques Mande Da guerre, the Frenchman, little re alized how all of those benefits would come from the process, the discovery of which he announced in January, 1839, and which was to immortalize his name in the word "daguerreotype." He was ? painter of the diorama, a suc cession of scenes painted on a canvas which was caused to pass slowly before the eyes of the ob server. Seeking a way to repro duce scenes upon the canvas without the labor of painting them, Daguerre began a series of experiments to find such a meth od. Then he learned that an other Frenchman, Joseph Nice phore Niepce, was engaged in a similar quest. The two men de cided to join forces and in 1129 formed a partnership which wis to continue for 10 years. Niepce died in 1833 but Daguerre contin ued his experiments which even tually enabled him to "reproduce the most minute details of a scene with an exactitude and sharpness well-nigh incredible." That was the chsracterization of his process by Arago, secre tary of the French Academy of Sciences and the most influential French scientist of the time, who was instrumental in securing from his government an annuity ct 8,000 franca (later increased to 10,000) for Daguerra and one of 4,000 for Niepce'a heirs. In re ton for this Daguerre waa to de scribe his process publicly and maka it available to anyone who Samuel F. B. Morse, inventor ol the telegraph, and his first daguerreotype camera, which Is now in the United States National museum. (Photograph by A. Bogardus, New York, 1871.) might wish to use it. Daguerre did not describe his process publicly until August 19, 1839, but already word of the new marvel had been spread through the popular and scientific press of France and England, and the news reached America as early as March, 1839. The editor of the Knickerbocker, a New York magazine, declared that the da guerreotype's "exquisite perfec tion almost transcends the bounds of sober belief." Enters S. F. B. Morse. One of the accounts in an American newspaper (the New York Observer for April 20, 1839) was written by a man who was to play an important part in the development of photography in this country. He was Samuel Fin ley Breese Morse, destined for fu MATHEW B. BRADY ture fame as the inventor ot the telegraph. Morse, who had al ready achieved fame as a por trait' painter, had gone abroad in the summer of 1838 to se cure patents in England and France for his "electro-magnetic telegraph" on which he had been working for several years. After securing a French patent, he re mained in Paris for several months while negotiating with the Russian government for a con tract for his invention and dur ing this time Daguerre made his historic announcement. Morse, who as a portrait paint er had experimented, unsuccess fully, with the same idea, was im mediately interested in the Frenchman's discovery, and sought an interview with the sug gestion that if Daguerre would show him his daguerreotypes, Morse would demonstrate his tel egraph. Daguerre consented and from this interview grew the sto ry that the Frenchman "gener ously imparted the secret of the new art to the American by whom it was carried across the ocean and successfully introduced into the United States." After examining all of availa ble evidence in regard to the claims made in behalf of Morse and others for the title of "the first person to make a successful daguerreotype in the United States," Dr. Taft awards that dis tinction to D. W. Seager, an Eng lishman living in New York in 183t. On September 37, Seager mad* a picture wkich showed a part of St. Paul's church, the sur _ is: V; . rounding shrubbery and houses, and a corner of the Astor house. The First Portrait. The author of "Photography and the American Scene" also examines the evidence in an at tempt to answer the question "Who made the first photograph ic portrait?" That honor has also been claimed for Morse and for Professor John W. Draper who made the famous portrait of his sister. Miss Dorothy Catherine Draper, which has often been re produced as "the first photograph ic portrait." But according to Dr. Taft, it was not. That honor goes to Alexander S. Wolcott of New York, an instrument maker and manufacturer of dental supplies who became interested in daguer reotypy when his partner, John Johnson, secured a copy of Da guerre's directions for making pictures by his new process. On October 7, 1839, Wolcott made a successful profile portrait of John son and this Taft calls the "first." Bat more important than estab lishing these "historic firsts" is the complete story of the devel opment of the various photo graphic processes which Dr. Taft's book gives ? "not primari ly from a technical viewpoint, but from that of social history" as he explains. "I have endeav ored to trace, however imperfect ly, the effects of photography upon the social history of Amer ica and in turn the effect of so cial life upon the progress of pho tography." So in this book we" read how Yankee ingenuity soon made the American daguerreotypes superi or to those made in any other country and how this first phase of photography reached its zenith in the work of Mathew B. Brady to whose studio came all of the great and near-great, as well as distinguished foreign visitors, to have their portraits made. Brady's greatest tame, of course, rests upon the work he did in making a pictorial history of the Civil war. Dr. Taft, while giving full credit to him as a photo graphic historian, also rescues from oblivion the names of many of the operators in his employ who made the photographs cred ited to Brady, as well as other Civil war photographers. Nota ble among these were Alexander Gardner and T. H. O'Sullivan, who in the early morning of July 4, 1863, made the picture of the Battlefield at Gettysburg which was to become famous under the title of "The Harvest of Death." After the era of the daguerreo type came the era of the ambro type, the tintype, the carte de viste, which Oliver Wendell Holmes once called "the aocial currency, the sentimental 'green backs' of civilization" and the stereoscope, which in its day was found in the parlor of virtually every American home. Then came the day of the cabinet pho tograph and finally the new era began with the introduction of the ?ensltive dry plate and the flexible film. All of this, appro priately illustrated, is told in Dr. Taft's bode, which in its 500-odd pages recreates more vividly than has ever before been done the story of American life during the five moat picturesque and most interesting dacaJti of its entire htatory. In (o far a* Dr. Taft'? book la the direct result of his curiosity as to the first use of photography in the exploration of the West, it is especially fitting that two of the finest chapters in It deal with "Photographing the Frontier." The first instance of the use of a camera on a government expedi tion was when the distinguished artist, John Mix Stanley, accom panied the party which in 1853 began surveying the northern railroad route to the Pacific un der the command of Gov. I. I. Stevens of Washington Territory. When Fremont set out upon his expedition in the same year he persuaded S. N. Carvalho of Baltimore, an artist and daguer rotypist, to accompany him. Car valho wrote a lengthy account of his experiences and one sentence from it is significant of the han dicaps under which these pioneer photographers of the frontier worked? "To make a daguerreo type view generally occupied from one to two hours; the prin cipal part of that time was spent in packing and reloading the ani mals." Aiuiougn uie uvu war naitea government exploring expedi tions and therefore expeditionary photography, both were resumed life after the war and from that time on the photographer was an im portant member of the personnel of any exploring party. Outstanding among these pho tographers were T. H. O'Suilivan, already well known for his work during the Civil war, and John K. Hillers, who accompanied Maj. J. W. Powell on his historic trip down the Colorado river through the Grand Canyon of Ari zona. But the best known of all Western photographers was a man who is still living in New York ? 95 years young and still keenly interested in photography! William H. Jackson is his name. A native of New York, he went west after the Civil war. He opened a studio in the grow ing frontier town of Omaha in 1868, but becoming dissatisfied with the sedentary life of a vil lage photographer, fitted up a traveling dark room on a buck board and toured the country around Omaha photographing In dians. In 1869 he took a trip along the newly completed Union Pa cific railroad and this brought him into contact with Professor F. V. Hayden who was engaged in making one of the United States geological surveys of the West. From that time until 1879 W. B. Jackson and his work ing outfit along the line of the Union Pacific railroad in 1869. Jackson was the official photog rapher of the Hayden surveys and in that role did some of his most important photography. He took thousands of pictures of Indians which are interesting historically because they are among the relatively few that were made of the red man be fore he was forced to live on ? reservation and his picturesque native life was greatly modified by contact with the whites. But even more important work was done by Jackson in another Held. The Hayden survey of 1871 was in the region now known as Yellowstone National park. "In fact, the park probably owes its present status to the Hayden sur vey of this year," declares the author of "Photography and the American Scene" and to Jackson W. H. Jackson ma he is today. belongs the distinction of taking the first photographs in the re gion of scenic wonder* that has become such a "picture-taker's paradise." The next year he took the first photographs in what is now the Grand Teton National park and in 1174 he and Ernest IngersoU of the New York Trib une discovered and photographed the ruins of the cliff dwellings in what is now Heu Verde Na tional park. Lost Shirt Back Of Cotton Roads Parmer's Faded Garment Accidentally Brought Fabric Into Use. MEMPHIS.? A farmer lost bis shirt. Perhaps it will help others to regain theirs, for the lost gar ment resulted in discovery of a new use for cotton. Shortly after the faded blue shirt was lost on a highway, the cotton road came into existence. The shirt was covered with asphalt when the road was repaved. Then came torrential rains and the road was washed away ? all ex cept the part in which the farmer's shirt bad been buried. Engineers reasoned that more shirts ? or somejjiing else made of cotton ? might produce a better longer-lasting road if laid under an asphalt or tar bed. First Tested Near Memphis. An experimental road to try it out was built near Memphis. Today road builders throughout the nation are following the test with interest, as is the cotton industry, and be ginning experiments of its own. Although still in the experimental stage, these smooth black highways made from snow-white bolls of fluffy cotton plucked in fields of Dixie promise to use a large part of fu ture crops. The road near Memphis was laid in September, 1937, and it appears to have passed the time test. Each day the road is traversed by automo biles, trucks, and wagons, and driv ers say the three-tenths of a mile strip of cotton pavement is the best of the entire road. Cotton roads have proved less ex pensive to lay than concrete or as phalt, and it is believed that the upkeep will continue to be less. How ever, more time is required to prove this. The federal government now is furnishing cotton fabric for experi mental roads in more than a score of states. Vast Outlet Seen. Experts say the United States has 2,000,000 miles of unimproved dirt roads, 900,000 of which would war rant a bituminous surfacing employ ing cotton, with a possible consump tion, of 13,000,000 bales. Roads re surfaced annually could utilize 400, 000 bales. In building a cotton road, a foun dation is laid, then sprayed with a coat of asphalt or tar. This seeps through the foundation to dry and harden. Huge rolls of loosely woven cotton cloth then are laid on the foundation and "nailed" down. A second coat of asphalt or tar then is sprayed on the road to bind the cotton to its base. This is covered with a layer of fine gravel, then rolled. Experiments are proving that this Single layer of cloth will help to make a better road. Not only does the cotton reinforcement strengthen the surface mat, but it develops into a water-resistant skin which keeps the foundation free from moisture, eliminating the most common cause of road failure. Cotton fabric gives necessary strength to road edges ? usually the weakest point of a highway. 45 Million Persons in U. S. Are Short of Books WASHINGTON ? Although 77 per cent of all books read in the United States in the course of a year come from public, school, or renj$l libra ries, 45,000,000 Americans are with out any type of library service, ac cording to Carleton B. Joeckel, of the University of Chicago. Joeckel's study was published here by the advisory committee on education. Joeckel found that the rural sec tion of the country suffers most heavily from lack of access to book facilities, since, of the 45,000.000 Americans deprived of libraries, 40, 000,000 are classified as engaged in agricultural pursuits. This consti tutes three-quarters of the farming population of the United States. "The book resources of this coun try are at least as unevenly dis tributed as its economic resources," writes Joeckel. In support of his statement he points to the fact that the entire population of Massachu setts has access to public libraries, while the number of similarly priv ileged people in West Virginia is only 12 per cent of the total popula Intoxication Produced By External Method HOUSTON, TEXAS.? External application of alcohol can intoxi cate a person, Supt. J. H. Ste phenson of the Jefferson Davis hospital has proved to his amazed staff. Stephenson and his workers in vestigated the case of a woman who became intoxicated after four pints of 70 per cent alcohol was applied to a wound on her thigh over a 36-hour period. An analysis showed 280 milli meters of alcohol in 100 centi meters of her blood and 180 milli meters in the spinal fluid. The average ratio for intoxication is 100 millimeters of alcohol to the 100 centimeters of blood. Lights of NewYork by L. L. STEVENSON Manhattan Mirage*: (1) Twilight ... A beautiful girl sitting an ? Central park bench . . . Alone . . . A tailor passes . . . His eyes stray ... To a squirrel frisking on the brown grass. (2) Deep silence . . . Two experts playing chess . . . Brows furrowed in Berce concentration . . . The battle tense . . . The end near . . . Footsteps are heard . . . The wife of one enters . . . "How do you like this darling new hat, dear?" . . . The husband looks up . . . "Swell . . . and did you have a good time at Mrs. Roth's bridge?" (3) A crowded subway train . . . Next to you the most wonderful girl you have ever seen . . . You can't resist . . . Timidly you blurt out ... "1 think you're gorgeous . . . Marvelous" . . . She replies . . . "You know ... I was hoping you would speak to me." ? ? ? Gotham Glimpses: At Grand Cen tral terminal, a young man study ing a photograph and intently watch ing passengers leaving a train from Boston . . . Finally he runs up to an aged woman and, embracing her, calls, "Mother" ... On Sixth ave nue, in front of the RCA building, a well-dressed man taking a cigarette butt out of his pocket, lighting it and remarking to a friend that the penny city sales tax has sharpened his sense of economy ... A keen eyed clocker at Fifth avenue and Forty-second street, counting pass ersby ? a whale of a job ... A belligerent pushcart peddler being chased from his Third avenue post and demanding that the cop show his credentials. (Thanks to Andre Baruch.) ? ? ? Manhattan in the Rain: News dealers covering their papers with leather tarpaulins . . . Policemen running to the nearest stores (or their black raincoats . . . Crowds huddled under awnings and mar quees . . . Bus drivers peering in tently through blurred windshields . . . Taxis suddenly forming long lines in the streets . . . Storm darkness causing lights to flash on in windows of skyscrapers . . . Sub way kiosks blocked by men and women waiting for a lull that they may make a dash for destinations . . . Women protecting their hats with newspapers . . . Doormen with big umbrellas . . . Umbrella ped dlers springing up like mushrooms . . . Horses of traffic officers shak ing the water from their gleaming bodies. (Thanks to Joan Edwards.) ? ? ? Hard-Hearted New York: Hungry men looking into the windows of restaurants . . . Blind musicians picking their way carefully through indifferent crowds . . . The Bowery with its scores of human derelicts . . . Clusters of woebegone would be workers clotted before employ ment agency "help wanted" cards . . Mongrel dogs digging in vacant lots for non-existent bones . . . Beg gars eking out a miserable exist ence . . . The human flotsam of the city? drunkards, drug addicts, im beciles and morons mingling with street crowds . . . Pale, ill-fed tene ment children playing in the streets. ? ? ? Soft-Hearted New York: A police man halting a stream of Park ave nue traffic so a puppy can cross in safety ... A taxi driver turning up his radio so passersby can hear race results ... A bakery giving its day-old bread to the hungry ... A trolley car stopping in the middle of the block to pick up a crippled, old woman ... A pneumatic drill op erator working on a new building stopping work so his buddy can hear the telephone ... A young girl stooping to tie the shoelace of a blind chewing gum peddler. ? ? ? Finale: Four men at Sixth ave nue and Forty-ninth street singing the quartet from "Rigoletto" . . . A Roxy doorman reading the cap tions on lobby displays to a man and woman obviously foreign ... In the RCA building, a swarthy man with a turban on his bead inquiring at the information office for the mayor of Radio City ... A man standing on a parapet 12 floors up making repairs oo a Broadway building . . . Below a candid cam era fiend waiting ... on the chance that he'll fall. (Thanks to Benay Venuta.) ? Bell Syndicate? WNU Senrtc*. Fossil of Pod Seems to Be Linked With Coal Age ST. IjOUIS.? A fossilized seed pod, believed to be s connecting link be tween the feralike plants of the coal age and the present day flowering plants, has been discovered by Hen ry Andrews, botany instructor at Washington university, in oil shales near Edinburgh, Scotland. The fossil, one of about 2,500 found by Andrews while doing research work last summer for the Belgian American Educational foundation. Is about 400,000,000 years old, accord ing to Andrews. The find has been added to the botany collection at the university. The fossilized seed pod is tulip shaped, black in color and about 2% inches long. A species of coal age plant life which preceded the rela tively sudden later appearance of the flowering plants, its discovery is considered of some importance since such finds of evolutionary links between the two type plants are ex ceedingly ran, Andrew* pointed CLASSIFIED DEPARTMENT CHICKS BOCKS. REDS * BR. CROSSES hatched from selected Blood-Tested Breeders. M1LFORD HATCHERY M lifer 4 Rm4 sr. Liberty Ri., Plkesvtlle. P. O. ROCKDALE. MO. PikeeTtlle M-R. OPPORTUNITIES Chn to Smqt CaSferaia opgonsnjUes. ^aiiMe^honias. ^Frge jg^onlara AGENTS WANTED New Discovery by Used Car Dealer ?eves ear owners millions In repairs. Placed In motor throve h spark pin* openings Is naraateed to stop knocks and oil paMlne; add pep and power; eare cost of reeoniltloeiSK. SIN dally easily ms Us ssUlag ear owners. Bend BS for demonstration package and scents proportion. MfTWOTWC tKCMLTT MFC. C*. ?L HOUSEHOLD QUESTIONS Germ less Brashes. ? Once ? week pour a little peroxide of hy drogen over the toothbrushes to sterilize them. Rinse with cold water and hang up in their places. We pay so much attention to the teeth and so little to the brush these days. ? ? ? Cleaning Behind Stove. ? To clean the painted wall behind the refrigerator or stove tightly at tach a soft cloth to a yardstick, broom handle or fishing pole, dip it in warm water and soap suds and poke around at will. To clean linoleum under refrigerators or stoves, dip the cloth in floor wax. This polishes as it cleans. ? ? * Washing Dingy Bath Towels. ? Bath towels that have become din gy should be put into ijoiler of cold water, soap added and a little lemon juice. Heat water to boil ing point. Rinse towels in luke warm blueing water and hang in the sun. ? ? ? Toast Animals. ? Cut animal shapes out of bread with animal cookie cutters. Spread with but ter and toast a light golden brown under the broiler. Serve these to the children to eat with their soup. ? * ? Economy Note. ? Save all celery tops, wash and dry them and place in the oven, turning them now and then. Store the leaves in an airtight tin. Use them for fla voring soups, salads, etc. Beware Coughs ^ from common colds That Hang On No matter how many nvrilctnui you have tried for your common cough, chest cold, or bronchial Irri tation, you may get relief now with Creomulsion. Serious trouble may be brewing and you cannot afford to take a chance with any i goes right to the seat of the j and aids nature to soothe and heal the tnflttinjH mucous membranes - and to loosen and expel germ laden phlegm. Even If other remedies have failed, dont be discouraged, try Creomul sion. Your druggist Is authorized to refund your money If you are not thoroughly satisfied with the bene fits obtained. Creomulsion 1 s one word, ask for it plainly, see that the name on the bottle is Creamulskm, and you'll ret the genuine product and the relief you want. (Adv.) Safe From Cajolery Schoolmaster ? Why do we speak of the wisdom of a serpent? Willie ? Because you can't pull its leg, sir. MOTHERS, ATTENTION! If your child has WORMS, the best remedy to drive them out is Dr. Peery's "Dead Shot" Vermifuge. Good for grown ups also. 50c a bottle at drug gists or Wright's Pill Co., 100 Gold St., New York, N. Y. Death Bearers A fit of anger is as fatal to dig nity as a dose of arsenic is to life. ? Holland. GAS SO BAD CROWDS HEART II ?? to r?jxr Momaeh sad bonb bloua -"-Jk OAS i. *UrJ*il^pUZ Xdl?nk* ?<un Bona tlx bo?d. is Un tbmm ^dimk. 1, BOTH waiauiT. mmMam ? arm >art winfka U? M0?yli Md np.1 QAB. otlurtia tm ??? ?*? *>?*?? sad reBrrs intotful am &Uatall4ra?i GUIDE BOOK to GOOD VALUES
The Alamance Gleaner (Graham, N.C.)
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Nov. 24, 1938, edition 1
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