Figure 1.--Here we see a cased cased 1/9th plate Daguerreotype portrait of a well dressed, but unidentified American boy with a big bow and watch fob. Very few of these cased Dags were made in Europe and the number of all kinds of Dags were smaller in Europe than America. Most American Dags were taken in the 1840s and 50s. Unfortunznely we can not yet identify the decade involved. This is a good example of a typical American Dag. Put your cursor on the image to see the case cover.

America in the 1840s and 50s was still a European backwater. America was growing, but still very rural compared to Britain. And America was not as affluent as European countries like Britain and France. Thus we had assumed that photographic studios producing Daguerreotypes must have been more common in Europe than America. We would have though many more Daguerreotypes made in Europe than America. That said, we do note that the photographic business grew very rapidly in America. One source reports that there were 70 studios in New York city alone. How that compares to other large cities around the world, we are not sure, but it seems to have been many more than in Paris. One easily accessible indicator of popularity is the internet. Most of the auguerrotypes we see advertized on eBay are American. Very rarely do we see European dags. For some reason which we do not understand, cased images in general seem less common in Europe than in America. What appears to have occurred is thsat Daguerre was unable to enforce his patent in America. Once men like Samuel Morse brought the technology of Dagerre's process to America, it rapidly spread without any legal contraints. Thus we have a relstively large number of Daguerreotypes made in America during the 1840s. We think there may have been other factors. Perhaps there was a more entreprenural spirit in America. There may have been fewer governmental and artistic constraints. While America may not have been as rich as Europe in monetary terms, thev gao was closing. And we suspect that wealth was more evemnly didstributed and that quite a number of Americans could afford the cost of a Daguerreotype portrait. The Daguerreotype after all was essentislly the democratization of portaiture. Only a relatively small number of people could afford a painted portrait. A Dag portrait was not cheap, but a far wider slice of society could aford a Daguerreotyope portrait, especisally a small-sized Dag. And the standard American Daguerreotype was a small cased image.

Created: 3:52 AM 7/3/2012
Last updated: 3:52 AM 7/3/2012