7 George Stephenson 7Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre,
litho graph. Library of Congress,
Washington, D.C.
of roadway construction, bridge design, and locomotive
and rolling-stock manufacture. He built many other rail-
ways in the Midlands, and he acted as consultant on many
railroad projects at home and abroad.
Louis Daguerre
(b. Nov. 18, 1787, Cormeilles, near Paris, France—d. July 10, 1851,
Brysur-Marne)
Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre, a French painter and phys-
icist, invented the fi rst practical process of photography ,
known as the daguerreotype. Though the fi rst permanent
photograph from nature was made in 1826/27 by Nicéphore
Niépce of France, it was of poor quality and required about
eight hours’ exposure time.
The process that Daguerre
developed required only
20 to 30 minutes.
Daguerre was at fi rst
an inland revenue offi cer
and then a scene painter
for the opera. Between
1822 and 1839 he was
coproprietor of the
Diorama in Paris, an
auditorium in which he
and his partner Charles-
Marie Bouton displayed
immense paintings, 45.5
by 71.5 feet (14 by 22
metres) in size, of famous
places and historical
events. A similar estab-
lishment that he opened
in Regent’s Park, London,