The Origins of American Photography; From Daguerreotype to Dry-Plate, 1839-1885: The Hallmark Photographic Collection at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art

In this text, Keith F. Davis examines photography's social history and aesthetic development in an era of rapid national growth. He demonstrates how key themes and genres - including the business of daguerreian portraiture, the markets for Civil War images, and the art of Western landscape photography - reflected the concerns and values of nineteenth-century society. Photographers of this era expressed a new national consciousness while, at the same time, helping to shape it. They also explored the visual language of a radically new medium, laying the foundation for all of photography's subsequent history.

Jane L. Aspinwall is Assistant Curator of Photography at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.