795
through his stays in California and his experiences in
exploration, this skilled and adventurous artist-scientist
must have learned about the daguerreotype before 1853.
In 1853, however, when Kern did take up the process,
it was not to go back once again to the American West
with the Army’s topographical surveys, to which he lost
both his brothers between 1849 and 1853—killed by In-
dians—but to leave American soil and take to the sea.
That year Kern enrolled as artist and daguerreotypist
on the U.S. Navy’s North Pacifi c Expedition, and before
sailing went to New York especially to gain instruction
in the process at the Anthonys’ fi rm. The North Pacifi c
Expedition, which was to remain at sea until 1855, was
a large-scale venture, intended to provide a scientifi c
complement to the famous, more strategically-minded
expedition of Commodore Matthew Perry, which had
just forced the “opening” of Japan to the West and
had itself included daguerreotypist Eliphalet Brown.
The Ringgold-Rodgers expedition ended up covering
a huge area in the South and North Pacifi c, exploring
naval routes and describing coastal areas from Australia
to China, along the Japanese coasts, and even north to
Kamtchatka and Siberia; it was prolonged by another
Navy survey of sea routes between California and China
in 1857–1860, on which Kern was also engaged as artist
and daguerreotypist.
Although few or none of the many images that he
produced on these historic ventures have surfaced so
far (one probable exception being a view of the Ameri-
can cemetery at the Gyokusen-Ji Temple in Shimoda,
Japan, which is held at the George Eastman House and
was exhibited in Tokyo in 1992), it is known from writ-
ten sources that Kern made daguerreotypes, as well as
sketches, on the coasts of China, Japan, Siberia, and
on various islands such as Hawaii and Okinawa. In-
deed, as historian of American exploration William H.
Goetzmann has written, “perhaps even more than Brown
of Perry’s expedition, Kern introduced photography to
the Far East” (New Lands, New Men, 350). In Japan es-
pecially, it appears that the introduction of photography
by Brown, Kern and others heralded made visible, the
advent of Western culture, its technology, its particular
form of realism, and its commercialism, which were to
be adopted quickly and effi ciently.
It is certainly worth noting that whereas the U.S.
Army’s engineers refrained from resorting to a technol-
ogy that they tended to view as ill-suited to their needs
and even tainted with a kind of charlatanism, the U.S.
Navy made a point of displaying and exporting this
same technology—along with telegraphy, clocks, and
railroads—to the potential markets and dominions of
the Pacifi c, as if the daguerreotype had most concretely
embodied the supposed superiority of Western culture.
In this early episode of globalization, Edward Kern was
merely an agent, but in hindsight he appears as a prime
illustration of the fundamental link between American
expansion, technological modernity, and the appeal of
the sun-picture.
François BrunetBiography
Edward Meyer Kern was born in Philadelphia in 1823,
the youngest of a genteel family that also produced an art
teacher and two other artist-explorers, Benjamin Jordan
(1818–1849) and Richard Hovenden (1821–1853). Hav-
ing exhibited in Philadelphia as early as 1841, “Ned”
Kern participated in several surveys of the American
West: in 1845 with John Charles Frémont’s third expe-
dition and his “conquest of California”; in 1848, again
with Frémont, through the central Rocky Mountains, this
time along with Benjamin and Richard (Ben was eventu-
ally killed on this expedition); in 1849 on a military raid
against the Navajos, and in 1850-1851 for topographi-
cal work in New Mexico. From 1853 to 1855 Edward
joined, as artist-daguerreotypist, Lieutenant Cadwalader
Ringgold’s North Pacifi c Expedition, later commanded
by Lieutenant John Rodgers; from 1857 to 1860, he
was daguerreotypist to Lieutenant John M. Brooke’s
survey of sea routes in the Central Pacifi c. Once back in
the U.S., and after another stint with Frémont, Edward
Kern returned to Philadelphia and taught art. He died
of epilepsy in 1863.See also: Brown Jr., Eliphalet.Further Reading
“Early Works of Photography,” exhibition catalogue, Tokyo:
Metropolitan Museum of Photography, 1992.
Goetzmann, William H. and Goetzmann, William N., The West of
the Imagination, New York and London: Norton, 1986.
Goetzmann, William H., New Lands, New Men: America and the
Second Great Age of Discovery, New York: Penguin, 1987.
Hine, Robert V., In the Shadow of Frémont: Edward Kern and
the Art of Exploration, 1845- 1860 , Norman: University of
Oklahoma Press, 1982.
Lamar, Howard R., ed., The Reader’s Encyclopedia of the Ameri-
can West, New York: Harper & Row, 1977.
Mulligan, Therese, and Wooters, David, Photography from 1839
to Today, Rochester, NY: George Eastman House, Cologne:
Taschen, 1999.
Taft, Robert, Artists and Illustrators of the Old West, 1850– 1900 ,
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1953.
Yale University, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library,
Yale Collection of Western Americana, Edward Meyer Kern
and Richard H. Kern Papers, WA MSS S-2395.KERRY, CHARLES (1857–1928)
Australian photographer and studio owner
Charles Henry Kerry was born on Bobundra Station,
near Bombala, NSW in 1857, the son of grazier Samuel