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of Mining Engineers, Chatham, in 1871, while subse-
quent editions were commercially published by Piper &
Carter in London. The book remained in print, through
many editions, into the 20th century, being progressively
expanded from 120 pages to 676. The School of Mines
evolved into today’s Imperial College.
Another volume destined to become a standard text
for photographers was Matthew Carey Lea’s 1868
Manual of Photography, published in Philadelphia by
Benerman & Wilson. For the second edition in 1871,
the 148 pages of the original had been expanded to
336.
Books and pamphlets on the expanding range of
equipment available to the photographer sought to ex-
plain the choices available. Amongst them, John Henry
Dallmeyer’s 12-page Photographic Lenses: On their
choice and Use was published in 1873, and an expanded
34 page American edition in the following year.
Alphonse Liebert’s 1864 book La Photographie en
Amerique was reissued as a second edition in 1874,
two years before his La photographie au charbon mise
à portée de tous in 1876. The latter title was published
in an English language edition as A Manual of the
Carbon Process of Photography in 1878. Liebert, is
also remembered for his 1879 decision to open the
fi rst professional portrait studio in Paris equipped with
electric lighting.
The ferrotype, or tintype, achieved much greater
popularity in the USA than it did elsewhere, so it is not
surprising that the fi rst manual devoted exclusively to
this humblest of portraiture mediums was published in
America. The Ferrotype and How to Make it by Edward
M Eastabrooke was published in 1872 by Gatchel &
Hyatt in Cincinnati, Ohio, and Louisville, Kentucky,
and was aimed at amateurs and professionals alike.
Uniquely, it was illustrated with two genuine tintypes
—both portraits taken by Eastabrooke—one made on
the Phenix Plate Co’s ‘Chocolate Tinted Egg Shell
Plate’ and the other on ‘John Dean & Co’s Adamantean
Chocolate Tinted Egg Shell Plate,’ marketed by the
Scovill Manufacturing Company, and E & H T Anthony
respectively. Interestingly, in the introduction, the author
makes a distinction between the ‘ferrotype’ and the
‘photograph,’ lamenting the instability of the latter and
lauding the permanence of the former.
The prolifi c polymath Dr John William Draper pub-
lished his Scientifi c Memoirs in 1878, his sole book to
touch on photography—amongst the many books he wrote
on arts, literature and science. Like the Tissandier volume
and many others, Scientifi c Memoirs was considered of
suffi cient importance in the history of photographic books
to be republished in 1973 by the Arno Press in New York,
as part of their series ‘The Literature of Photography.’ Also
reprinted in the Arno Press series was H. J. Rodgers’ 1872
memoir Twenty Three Years Under a Skylight; or, Life and


Experiences of a Photographer, the fi rst manual specifi -
cally dealing with studio portraiture.
Amongst the other specialist books published in
the 1870s, J Waterhouse’s Report on the Cartographic
Applications of Photography, believed to have been
published in Calcutta in 1870 was, at 240 pages, a
detailed description of a relatively limited use of the
medium. Lieutenant, later Colonel, Waterhouse was for
many years in charge of the photographic unit attached
to the Indian Survey Offi ce, later rising to the position
of Assistant Surveyor-General in India.
John Hannavy
See Also: Calotype and Talbotype; Talbot, William
Henry Fox; and Tintype (Ferrotype, Melainotype).

Further Reading
Gernsheim, Helmut, The Incunabula of British Photographic
Literature, 1839-1875. London and Berkeley: Scholar Press,
1984.
Henisch, Heinz K., and Henisch, Bridget A., The Photographic
Experience 1839–1914. University Park: Pennsylvania State
University Press, 1994.
Johnson, William S, Nineteenth Century Photography, an Anno-
tated Bibliography, 1839–1879. London: Mansell, 1990.

BOOKS AND MANUALS ABOUT
PHOTOGRAPHY: 1880s
The 1880s saw the continued expansion of publishing in
photography, fuelled by increased demand for smaller
cameras and the introduction of mass produced gelatine
dry plate, which increased the number of practitioners.
Publications become more specialized as the fi eld ma-
tured and the traditional spheres of endeavor—profes-
sional and amateur work, technological development,
and scientifi c research—became more separate.
The work of trained photographic scientists encour-
aged rapid technological change in the 1880s. Numerous
books and periodical articles appear, which established
photography as a fi eld of academic study, and fur-
thered research into the scientifi c basis of the process.
Chronicling all the new technical developments was
the photochemist Josef Maria Eder, teacher and later
Director of the Graphische Lehr- und Versuchsanstalt in
Vienna, the fi rst major educational institution devoted to
photography. Eder himself was one of the fi rst profes-
sional scientists to write about photography. Author of
numerous books and treatises Eder wrote on a variety
of subjects, including dry plates, oil and gum processes,
lenses, instantaneous photography, as well as the theory
of photographic process. Most notable is the Ausfüh-
rliches Handbuch der Photographie, a multi-volume
textbook, which fi rst appeared in 1882, and continued
to be revised and expanded until 1929, eventually

BOOKS AND MANUALS ABOUT PHOTOGRAPHY: 1870s

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