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have worked both as a soldier and as an army clerk in
Florida and New Orleans before joining his brother in
Philadelphia c.1840. Friedrich worked as a journalist
for the German language newspaper Alte und Neue
Welde owned and edited by George Francis Schreiber
before joining his brother in their fi rst photographic
studio. After acquiring a daguerreotype camera from
Von Voigtländer, Friedrich Langenheim and Schreiber
were briefl y in partnership. Where William learned
photography is unknown.
By 1843, the brothers were listed in a Philadelphia
trade directory as operating a studio at 26–27 Exchange,
Philadelphia. In their partnership, William assumed the
role of senior partner.
Unusually, and perhaps refl ecting their European
background, by the late 1840s they offered their cli-
entele photographs taken using both the daguerreoype
and the calotype process. Calotypists were, at that time,
relatively uncommon in America. So impressed was
William by the calotype that he had Frederick negotiate
with Talbot for the American patent rights for the paper
negative process—acquired in 1849—and spent some
considerable time modifying and perfecting it to suit
the conditions in Philadelphia. Three signifi cant letters
from Frederick to Talbot survive in the collection of the
National Museum of Photography, Film and Television,
Bradford, England.
In the fi rst of these letters, dated 10th June 1849
Frederick wrote to Talbot at length, noting
We had the pleasure to receive a communication from
our W. Langenheim, informing us of the effectual arrange-
ment he had succeeded in making with you in regard to
the purchase of your Patent. It is our interest, but it will
be an especial pleasure to us to promote and perfect your
invaluable invention, and in a very short time we hope to
be able to send you a few specimens of Talbotypes, which
will surpass in sharpness and delicacy of shading even a
good Daguerreotype.
The Talbotypes have created a great sensation all
over the United States, and most papers of any standing
contain favorable articles on the subject, among a great
number of which we refer only to the Daily National
Intelligencer, Washington, of May 12, which contains
a long article on the subject, and which it may perhaps
interest you to read.
But the Talbotypes have also created a great deal of
envy among our opponents and doubtless attempts will
be made to infringe upon our purchased right, against
which we have to guard with every possible care, and in
which effort we hope you will lend us your aid.
The letters from William Langenheim to Talbot, to
which Frederick refers, may yet be discovered. It is
known that the Langenheims sent Talbot examples of
their calotypes—including views of Philadelphia.
The exact nature of the brothers’ partnership remains
unclear, and although Frederick wrote to Talbot in
1854 of the failure of W. & F. Langenheim three years
earlier, Frederick himself was listed as operating a da-
guerreotype studio in New York in 1845 and 1846—at
201 Broadway—and from 1846 until 1849 as being in
partnership with Alexander Beckers. It may well be that
Langenheim established the studio, trained Beckers, and
then left him to manage it. As the Langenheims’ sister
was married to Peter Friedrich Von Voigtländer, it is
perhaps not surprising that Langenheim & Beckers ad-
vertised themselves in the later 1840s as sole agents for
Von Voigtländer’s innovative metal-bodied daguerreo-
type camera and Professor Petzval’s fast lens.
While in New York, Frederick travelled to, and pho-
tographed, Niagara Falls, one of his images being used
as the basis for an engraving published in 1845. In the
following year he took out a patent (US Patent 4370
1846) for colouring daguerreotypes, by which time both
the Philadelphia and New York studios had earned much
praise for the quality of their daguerreotype portraits.
As early as 1846 the brothers had become interested
in the idea of projecting photographic images, and had
imported episcopes from Vienna and experimented,
with some success, at projecting daguerreotypes on to
a screen. Recognising that the quality of the projected
image from a refl ected daguerreotype was not ideal,
they experimented from 1848 with the creation of glass
diapositives from glass and paper negatives using Niepce
de St. Victor’s albumen-on glass-process, the resulting
process, which they patented in 1850s, becoming known
as the Hyalotype. The involvement of a rival claimant to
the invention, George Schreiber with whom Frederick
had worked in the early 1840s, was described in an essay
in The American Journal of Photography 13 no.137, in- In that essay, Schreiber is said to have produced
the fi rst positive on ground glass c.1848.
The impact of the Hyalotype on the social history
of photography was far reaching, turning the magic
lantern into an important educational and information
tool. Their catalogue of glass stereo diapositives would
eventually become extensive.
By 1850, the brothers advertised themselves as “Da-
guerreotypists and Calotypists,” and in that year they
produced Views in North America, Taken from Nature
July 1850 by the Patent Talbotype Process comprising
just over one hundred images, but by the following year,
despite continuing commercial and critical success, and
being awarded medals at the Great Exhibition in Lon-
don, their partnership had been dissolved. Frederick then
left for a three-year sojourn in South America where,
as he told Talbot in a letter upon his return in 1854, he
had gone “to revive [his] spirits after the failure of the
fi rm W. & F. Langenheim.” William continued in busi-
ness on his own, expanding the company’s catalogue
of lantern slide views
The brothers’ partnership was renewed in 1854 and