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founded the Optische Industrie Anstalt at Rathenow in
1801 for the production of reading glasses. Trained as
a merchant and mechanic, he began working for the
company in 1845. The production of photographic ap-
paratus and lenses from 1852 on bore the name Emil
Busch Rathenow, and in 1872 the company became a
stock company. Emil Busch died in Rathenow on April
1, 1888.
When Emil Busch took over the Optische Industrie
Anstalt at Rathenow, not far from Berlin, from his uncle,
in 1845, he gained a prospering business manufactur-
ing glasses for reading and military purposes, and at
that time, was without a competitor for miles. From
1850 on, this industrial paradise several competitors
came into Rathenow and its surroundings. In 1852
Busch established the Busch-Rathenow Company for
photographic apparatus and soon specialized in lenses,
and later the wide-angle lenses invented in 1865 by
members of his staff. Busch installed modern produc-
tion facilities in his company by which he converted
common manufacturing into a large scale photographic
production process. When the Prussian-Danish War
started in German countries between 1864 and 1871,
Busch became the main military supplier of telescopic
glasses, fi eld cameras, and photographic lenses. In
1872, Busch converted his business into a stock com-
pany allowing many benefi ts for his employees. Up
until the outbreak of World War I, Busch Rathenow
was one of the leading German companies engaged in
optical manufacture, producing, amongst other things,
large glass mirrors and early mirror lenses, and their
products remained unrivalled in quality until the end
of the nineteenth century.
Rolf SachsseBYERLY, JACOB (1807–1883)
American daguerreotypist
Jacob Byerly became the fi rst operator of a permanent
daguerreian gallery in Maryland, outside Baltimore,
when he opened an establishment in Frederick in 1842.
He changed the original spelling of his surname from
Bierly.
Among his known daguerreotypes are a street scene
of Frederick and a portrait of Barbara Frietchie, who is
said to defi antly hung an American fl ag from her win-
dow as the Confederate army entered Frederick in 1862,
inspiring John Greenleaf Whittier’s famous poem with
the line, “Shoot if you must this old gray head....” One
source says Byerly’s second wife, Catherine E. Hauer,
was a niece to Frietchie.
The fi rst issue of the Frederick business directory,
published in 1859, lists Byerly with an ambrotype and
photograph gallery at 55 Patrick Street. The 1860 census
reports that he produced 1,500 images annually with the
help of two male employees. Byerly continued operation
the Frederick studio until 1868, when his son, John Da-
vis Byerly, took over. The Byerly studio was eventually
taken over by a grandson, Charles, and continued as a
leading Frederick photographic business until 1915,
when the building that housed the studio collapsed.
Bob Zeller