1208
his competitor fi ve million dollars as compensation. A
huge amount, but tiny when compared to the profi ts that
Eastman had earned from sales of celluloid fi lm in the
intervening years.
Colin Harding
See also: Camera Design: 5 Portable Hand Cameras
(1880–1900); Camera Design: 6 Kodak (1888–1900);
Carbutt, John; Eastman, George; Kodak; Melhuish, A
J; and Parkes, Alexander.
Further Reading
Jenkins, Reese V, Images and Enterprise: Technology and the
American Photographic Industry, 1839 to 1925, Johns Hop-
kins University Press, 1975.
ROOT, MARCUS AURELIUS (1808–1888)
American photographer
At the height of his career in the 1850s, Marcus Aurelius
Root was one of America’s preeminent daguerreotypists,
renowned for the elegance of his portraits, the eminence
of many of his sitters, the fl awless fi nish of his plates,
and the size and opulence of his studios. Root was
also one of the most prolifi c and infl uential writers on
photography of his era, contributing numerous articles
on both the art and profession of photography to the
journals of the period. He supposedly coined the term
“ambrotype.” Root’s book, The Camera and the Pencil
or The Heliographic Art (1864), remains a major source
on the theory and practice of photography in America
in the 19th century. Finally, Root was a pioneering
photographic historian and collector: The Camera and
the Pencil includes the fi rst the history of American pho-
tography ever written, and Root assembled a collection
photographic original works spanning 1839–1876 for
display in the Philadelphia Photographic Society’s pa-
vilion at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia,
which resents the fi rst exhibition surveying the history
of photography. (This collection remained largely intact
and forms the core of the collection of early Philadelphia
photography held by the Library of Congress.)
Marcus Aurelius Root was born and grew up in
Ohio, where he took art lessons and worked briefl y as
a portrait artist while studying penmanship (ornamental
copperplate writing). Root moved to Philadelphia in
1832 to study portrait painting with Thomas Sully, but
fi nding he lacked talent as a painter, began teaching
penmanship, then a very lucrative profession. He opened
a writing academy in Philadelphia in 1835, and devoted
most of the next decade to running his school, teaching
penmanship, and authoring manuals on its philosophy
and practice.
In 1839 and into the early 1840s, Philadelphia—then
the home of American science—was the major center of
daguerreian activity and experimentation in the United
States. Root naturally became interested in the process
and by 1843 had learned it. His teacher was Robert
Cornelius, one the fi rst Americans truly to master the
daguerreotype. (Cornelius, who introduced using bro-
mine to increase the sensitivity of daguerreotype plates
in 1839, opened the fi rst portrait studio in Philadelphia- He also invented the superior plate polishing
compound used by many of the top American daguerreo-
type studios, including South and Hawes—and Marcus
Root.) Deciding to practice daguerreotypy profession-
ally, Root learned the business by becoming a partner
in galleries in Mobile, Alabama, New Orleans, Louisi-
ana, and St. Louis, Missouri, 1844–1845. In 1846, he
returned to Philadelphia, bought out John Jabez Edwin
Mayall, whose studio at 120 Chestnut Street was one of
the city’s leading daguerreian establishments, and within
a short time had established a reputation for the superior
artistic and technical quality of his portraits. In 1849,
Root opened a studio in New York in partnership with
his brother Samuel, but sold his share to his bother in - In the meantime, Root consolidated his reputation
by exhibiting his work at the annual fairs sponsored by
Franklin Institute in Philadelphia (1844, 1846–1849),
the American Institute in New York (1846–51), and at
the international expositions at Crystal Palace in Lon-
don (1851) and the Crystal Palace in New York (1853),
where he won a bronze medal. In 1851, when the fi rst
American professional photographic journals were
founded, Root became a frequent contributor, and by
the time a serious injury suffered in a railroad accident
caused his premature retirement from gallery work in
1856, he was recognized as one of the major fi gures in
the profession in the United States.
Marcus Root wrote the Camera and the Pencil during
his recovery. Conceived as a comprehensive two-volume
theoretical and practical manual for practitioners, Root’s
magnum opus promotes photography as a legitimate
aesthetic medium and as a signifi cant form of Ameri-
can cultural expression. The fi rst volume (1864), is
one the major documents of 19th century photographic
literature: it includes the fi rst history of photography,
chapters on aesthetics and art appreciation, and offers
an extended discourse promoting the high standards of
artistic and technical profi ciency in the practice of the
photographic profession of which Root was an ardent
advocate. When the second volume, a handbook of
processes and practical photographic technique, was
destroyed in the presses when the printers burned to the
ground, Root retired from the fi eld.
Root’s fi nal contribution was the exhibition survey-
ing the history of photography, 1839–1876, which he