681
neers succeeded in laying the foundations of modern
photography. They left a multitude of striking images
as evidence of their skill and vision as well as a unique
record of the age. The end of the decade was a turning
point for the world economy as trade increased and
prosperity improved. It can also be seen as a turning
point for photography. During the 1840s, photography
had been enthusiastically received by the educated and
the fashionable but for great masses of the population,
it remained just one of many novelties of an innovative
age. In the early 1850s technological change brought a
new process that was to displace the pioneer processes
from favour and bring photography to the attention of
a wider public than ever before.
John Ward
See also: Daguerreotype; Niépce, Joseph Nicéphore;
Calotype and Talbotype; Talbot, William Henry Fox;
Werge, John; Goddard, John Frederick; Claudet,
Antoine-François-Jean; Fizeau, Louis Armand
Hippolyte; von Voigtlander, Baron Peter Wilhelm
Friedrich; Victoria, Queen and Albert, Prince
Consort; Beard, Richard; Southworth, Albert Sands,
and Josiah Johnson Hawes; Plumbe Jr, John; Brady,
Mathew B; Collen, Henry; Hill, David Octavius, and
Robert Adamson; McCosh, John; and Biot, Jean-
Baptiste.
Further Reading
Arnold, H.J.P., William Henry Fox Talbot, Pioneer of Photog-
raphy and Man of Science, London: Hutchinson Benham,
1977.
Eder, Josef Maria, History of Photography (trans. Edward Eps-
tean), New York: Columbia University Press, 1945.
Gernsheim, Helmut and Alison, L.J.M.Daguerre, The History
of the Diorama and the Daguerreotype, New York: Dover
Publications, 1968.
Gernsheim, Helmut and Alison, The History of Photography,
London: Thames and Hudson, 1969.
Harrison, W. Jerome, A History of Photography, London and
New York, 1887.
Newhall, Beaumont, The Daguerreotype in America, New York:
Graphic Society, 1961.
Schaaf, Larry J., Sun Gardens: Victorian Photograms by Anna
Atkins, New York: Aperture, 1985.
Schaaf, Larry J., The Photographic Art of William Henry Fox
Talbot, Princetown, NNJ and Woodstock, Oxfordshire: Princ-
etown University Press, 2000.
Taft, Robert, Photography and the American Scene, New York:
Macmillan. 1938
Thomas, D.B., The First Negatives, London: HMSO, 1964.
Tissandier, Gaston,, History and Handbook of Photography
(trans. John Thomson), London, 1876.
Ward, John and Sarah Stevenson, Printed Light: The Scientifi c
Art of William Henry Fox Talbot and David Octavius Hill with
Robert Adamson, Edinburgh: HMSO, 1986.
Weaver, Mike, Henry Fox Talbot: Selected Texts and Bibliogra-
phy, Oxford: Clio Press Ltd. 1992.
Werge John, The Evolution of Photography, London: Piper and
Carter, 1890.
HISTORY: 4. 1850s
The 1850s were, arguably, the most important years in
the establishment of photography in both Europe and
America, and during that decade, some of the fi nest
photography of the Victorian era was produced. Many
of the key applications of the medium were introduced
and developed, the photographic press was established,
and the world’s fi rst photographic associations were
set up.
The decade opened with the high cost daguerreo-
type being used to make ‘likenesses’ for the rich, and
ended with the ubiquitous carte-de-visite—which would
eventually bring portraiture within the price range of
everyman—defi nitely in the ascendancy.
The daguerreotype and the paper negative were the
two dominant processes as the decade opened, and pre-
dictions of the immediate demise of the daguerreotype
were to prove considerably premature. Writing in 1850
on the future of photography, Baron Jean Baptiste Louis
Gros—who in the following year would become a found-
ing member and the fi rst President of France’s Société
heliographique—asked, “Is it not easy to foresee that
the daguerreotype has almost run its course, and that its
rival on paper is destined by its indisputable advantage
to carry the day against it?” While many recognised that
the negative represented photography’s future, opinions
varied on whether paper or glass constituted the ideal
carrier for the negative image. Gustave le Gray, quoted
in the English translation of his pamphlet A Practical
Treatise on Photography upon Paper and Glass, also in
1850, observed that, “The future and extensive applica-
tion of photography will doubtless be confi ned to the
paper process and I cannot too much engage the amateur
to direct his attention and study to it. The negative proof
on glass, it is true, is fi ner, but I think it is a false road
and it would be much more desirable to arrive at the
same result with the negative on paper.”
As the decade unfolded, neither prediction would
prove to have been especially perceptive, nor immedi-
ately likely to come to pass. Many of those who would
are today considered to be amongst the daguerreotype’s
most articulate exponents had not yet entered the arena
at the time of Gros’s remarks, and despite the paper
negative evolving considerably throughout the decade
in Europe, it would ultimately be ‘the negative proof on
glass’ which would win the day.
In the United States, the daguerreotype reigned
supreme and almost unchallenged in the early 1850s.
Attempts to introduce Talbot’s calotype into America
had met with only very limited success, although
some photographers persevered with the process into
the early 1850s, eventually attracting praise for their
achievements. Roger Fenton attributed the phenom-
enal growth of photography in the 1850s—especially
in Britain— directly to the impetus generated by itsHISTORY: 4. 1850s