Excerpt:
The invention of photography was one of the most significant events of the 19th century, irrevocably changing our perception of reality. "Here is a discovery launched upon the world, that must make a revolution in art," declared the New Yorker shortly before Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre's groundbreaking process was announced in Paris on August 19, 1839. This new technique of producing exact likenesses on a sheet of silver-plated copper soon became a sensation in the United States. Studios opened in every major city; itinerant artists traveled the countryside. Noted for their silvery, mirrorlike sheen, daguerreotypes framed the faces of the nation's great men and women, caught the spirit of Westward expansion and chronicled much of mid-19th-century American life.
Annotation:
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