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HESLER, ALEXANDER (1823–1895)
American photographer
Alexander Hesler is best known for the photographs
he took of Abraham Lincoln before Lincoln became
president of the United States. Born in Canada in July,
1823, Hesler learned the daguerreotype process in
1847, and eventually settled in Galena, Ill., and opened
a gallery in 1850.
He moved to Dubuque, Iowa, in November 1850,
but returned to Galena five months later and soon
established himself among the national fraternity of
daguerreian artists, receiving several mentions in the
trade journals of the time.
In August, 1851, Hesler took daguerreotypes of
Minnehaha Falls that inspired Longfellow’s poem,
Hiawatha. In 1853, Hesler exhibited a daguerreian
panorama of Galena and three views of St. Anthony
Falls at the Crystal Palace exhibition in New York City
and received a medal.
In 1855, he moved to Chicago, and remained there
until after the Great Fire of 1871, when he moved to
Evanston. He moved back to Chicago in 1880.
Hesler’s photograph of Lincoln with tousled hair,
taken in Chicago on Feb. 28, 1857, is the second earliest
known image of the future president. Hesler also made
four images of Lincoln in Springfi eld, Ill, on June 3,
1860 after he had become the Republican nominee for
president.
Bob Zeller
HETZER, WILLIAM
(active 1850s–1860s)
German photographer
Hetzer was a German photographer who arrived in
Sydney with his wife Thekla aboard the Balmoral in
1850, not long after setting up a studio at 15 Hunter
St. He worked initially with calotypes, one of the few
professional photographers in Australia to do so and he
produced fi nely hand coloured portraits of Sir Thomas
Mitchell and one of his sons. In 1858 Hetzer published
by subscription a set of 36 stereo views of Sydney and
environs. More were released the following year includ-
ing aborigines at Camden Park and several panoramas
of Sydney bringing to total number of views to 100.
He exhibited at the 1861 Sydney Exhibition and at
the 1862 London International Exhibition, gaining an
honourable mention at the latter. Hetzer excelled in
producing quality cartes de visite portraiture from his
studio “W. Hetzer’s Photographic Gallery” situated at
287 George St, Sydney. His wife Thekla worked as his
able assistant. Hetzer was engaged by the New South
Wales commissioners to photograph various landmarks
in Sydney, Newcastle, Singleton, Picton and Menangle
for the 1867 Paris Universal Exhibition. In March 1867
an auction of the studio equipment was announced and
that Hetzer and his wife were to leave for England. The
studio and negatives were sold to fellow German John
Degotardi.
Marcel Safier
Holdings: Mitchell Library, Sydney; Macleay
Museum, University of Sydney; National Library of
Australia, Canberra.HIGHLEY, SAMUEL (1825–1900)
English photographer, author, and studio owner
Samuel Highley was born into the book trade business.
His father ran John Murray’s bookselling business
after Murray’s death in 1793, and from 1795 in formal
partnership with Murray’s son, until 1803 when the
partnership was dissolved. Highley was later joined by
his son, Samuel junior, and the business moved to 32
Fleet Street.
Highley junior was a bookseller, publisher and dealer
in scientifi c and medical instruments and specimens and
he was an agent for the Royal College of Surgeons. His
interests ranged from photography, to microscopy, min-
eralogy and chemistry and he wrote extensively on all
these subjects, corresponding, for example, with Henry
Fox Talbot on microscopy in 1853. He was Secretary of
the Photographic Society in 1857 and was an assistant
editor of the British Journal of Photography for nearly