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INTRODUCTION

Publications looks at both illustration- and word-

based texts. Word-based publications often focus

primarily on the art and science of photography itself.

Necessary to a comprehensive understanding of the

appeal of photography in the nineteenth century is

that illustration-based publications provided not just

images of foreign lands to people who could not af-

ford to travel, but they created images for discussion,

research, and further review as well. The emergence of

the photographic press served not only as a means of

disseminating information for the practical application

of photography but also for its chemistry, techniques,

processes, and equipment. The photographic press also

functioned as a platform for the publication of criticism

and debate. Through these increasingly widely-read

journals, problems concerning the manipulation of

early processes were often resolved through readers’

letter pages.

Photographers, Inventors, Patrons, and Critics,

the most conventional of the texts’ themes, offer the

reader extended biographies of leading names in the

development of the art and science of photography. The

fi gures located under this section have often contributed

critically to the success and proliferation of photography

internationally; however, this section includes minor

fi gures as well whose involvement were nonetheless

important in the development of photography.

Although there is both an alpha and thematic table

of contents, the entries are sequenced alphabetically,

ensuring that the information contained in these volumes

can be accessed easily by the reader. This encyclopedia

offers a total overview of the history of photography’s

fi rst century. Many of the earliest encyclopedias served

as compilations of photographic history and practice for

the benefi t of the working photographer in pre-Great

War Britain and America, however this encyclopedia

is a comprehensive reference work on photography’s

fi rst century for the benefi t of a growing body of not

just photographic historians, academics, professionals,

and enthusiasts worldwide but students as well. Primary

amongst our requisites for this encyclopedia was that

it be the reference work we would want students and

upcoming scholars to use in researching photographic

history.

A century ago photographic history was the pursuit

just a few. Very few eminent photographers of the day

were interested in the work of their antecedents, a no-

table example being Alvin Langdon Coburn, , who was

fascinated by the work of early Scottish photographers

David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson, and the

Scottish amateur Dr Thomas Keith. Today however a

much wider body of people—including photographic

historians, nonspecialists, and students—seek to develop

a deeper understanding of photography’s history to

place it within the wider context that this encyclopedia

provides.

Readers can also explore the history of the com-

panies, devices and techniques that were invented,

developed, and marketed by individuals and compa-

nies such as Bausch & Lomb, R & J Beck, Jonathan

Fallowfi eld, Kodak, J Lancaster, Marion & Co, Ross,

Voigtlander, and Alfred Watkins all of which are dis-

cussed in detail in the entries that follow. The breadth

of this encyclopedia’s list of entries reaches not just the

science or art of photography, but also the practicality

of it. For instance, between the announcement of the

daguerreotype and the end of the nineteenth century, the

weight of a camera had been reduced from more than

one hundred pounds to just a few pounds, and the total

equipment a photographer needed to carry on location

had been reduced from enough to fi ll a small carriage

to less than would fi ll a small knapsack. These entries

narrate the progression and evolution of photography

for the historian, constructing a dynamic, fundamental

understanding of photography starting from kitchen-sink

chemistry where each photographer was exclusively

responsible for the manufacture of his or her sensitive

materials, to the beginning of mass manufacturing to-

wards the end of the century. These discussions highlight

the emergence of companies like Kodak and Agfa, which

were already fi rmly established in the industry as the

nineteenth century drew to a close and which would

later dominate the twentieth century.

It has often been said that at the time of the introduc-

tion of the fi rst viable photographic processes, photog-

raphy was a solution in search of a problem. Although

the inventors of the medium were confi dent in their

predictions of the huge potential of photography, none

could have foreseen the range of applications, and the

innumerable approaches and styles that would emerge

before the end of the nineteenth century. Nor could any-

one have foreseen the number of processes that would

be introduced, or predict the success of some and the

failure of others. Those applications, approaches, styles,

and processes, minor as well as major, are explored

and discussed within the pages that follow, as are their

photographic inventors, supporters, and exponents.

This comprehensive text provides researchers with this

material in an easy-to-navigate, meticulously organized

reference work.

This Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Photog-

raphy encompasses the enormous range and depth of

nineteenth century photography, both art and science.

There are many entries on major and minor fi gures

whose achievements have previously been under-re-

ported, providing readers with a much fuller history than

was available hitherto. This is the fi rst comprehensive

reference work to introduce and celebrate these obscure,

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