In mid-nineteenth century America, the advent of photography marked a dramatic shift. Even before photography was invented, American culture was focused on vision and perception. The Antebellum era (1815 C.E. to 1860 C.E.) was characterized by towns, covered in flashy signboards (a precursor to modern, massive billboards), pamphlets, and newspapers vying for the people’s attention. In conjunction with the advances in ophthalmological technology, the American essayist and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson said of this time, “Our Age is Ocular.”
Once photography came to America, its popularity exploded. People flocked to photographers to have their picture taken. In the early stages, photography was an incredibly complicated, labor-intensive process that required many moving parts and specific conditions. Initially, printed photographs were expensive and low-quality, attainable only by the wealthy few, but as technology improved, photography became more accessible to the general public.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s new exhibit, ‘The New Art: American Photography, 1839-1910,’ currently on view through Sunday, July 20th, 2025, explores the rich early history of American photography from its inception in 1839 to the first decade of the twentieth century. The first type of photography highlighted in this exhibit, the daguerrotype, was developed while the technology was still in its nascent form. The daguerreotype is a type of photograph produced on a silver-coated copper sheet, which was then involved in a chemical process that made the top layer of the plate light-sensitive. When the plate was exposed to light, the parts of the sheet that were hit with light would become pure silver, creating an effect that distinguished between the copper background and the silver of the subject. After completing a 6-10 minute developing process involving mercury vapor, these photographs were ready to be picked up by their patrons. The plates were extremely sensitive, so after the photo was taken, they were developed and placed into pristine, careful cases to ensure the photographs were not affected by handling.
Daguerreotypes are incredibly sensitive to scratches and also reflect poorly in the light. (Yardena Franklin)Not only was the daguerreotype expensive and incredibly prone to damage, it was highly reflective and very dull. Oddly, the shots produced were mirror images of the scene instead of the now-traditional “negatives,” which is an inverted version of the photograph, where the lightest areas appear darkest and the dark appear light. Negative images are results of film and glass plates, a mainstay in even modern film photography. These daguerreotype, however, are incredibly detailed.This detail was often missed entirely, because the darkened parts of the image are produced from silver, the same material as the backing. They only show up from certain angles if they are perfectly polished; otherwise, they look dark and flat. Because of the complications, this style of photography quickly fell out of favor with the rise of the ambrotype.
With the advent of the ambrotype, photography became marginally more accessible. Ambrotypes were made of glass plates coated with silver halides. The plates were placed in a camera while they were still wet. The developed images were “positive” images, meaning they did not produce a negative. These photos were underexposed negatives, so when placed in front of a dark surface, which accentuated the difference between the light-exposed parts of the plate and those that were not hit by light, the image became visible. The layer of silver halides chemically reacts with the light, becoming metallic silver, which gives the image a light gray coloring. This chemical compound and resulting reaction is still used in some non-digital photography today. While ambrotypes were easier to see than daguerreotypes, the photograph produced by the ambrotype was much duller and less detailed, as the plates were underexposed.
However, the tintype in the 1850s quickly displaced even the young ambrotype, as it was much easier and cheaper to produce. This style used a sheet of metal, generally iron coated in enamel or dark lacquer, using similar processes to turn the topmost layer into silver halides. The iron made the photograph sturdy and light, and the inexpensive materials made the photos easy to produce. This dramatically increased accessibility to photography, transforming the field of photography and fundamentally changing the America of the late 19th century. With photographs easy to produce and relatively inexpensive, it quickly became a widespread phenomenon to have one’s picture taken. Regarding the tintypes on view throughout this exhibit, we see a diverse array of people standing in different backgrounds. Unlike the complicated, precise preparation processes of the daguerreotype, the tintype and ambrotype used a faster, safer preparation process, but the tintype was significantly cheaper. Now, from placing the pre-prepared plate in the camera to handing the final image off to the customer, the photographer only needed minutes.
Instead of “brick and mortar” photographers from the days of the daguerreotype, the tintype’s simple processes led to more and more “itinerant” photographers who had portable dark rooms, going to people’s homes to photograph them, rather than having people come to their studio. This easy access made the photographs less formal and more authentic, as people felt comfortable expressing themselves.
Tintypes on view in ‘The New Art’ exhibit show people smiling and hugging, even posing together in funny ways. This new method of photography gives us now some insight into who they are and the lives they lived.
As Lucy Sante, a writer, critic, and artist, refers to them in the Met Museum’s audio guide to the exhibit, “Tintypes were the first really populist medium.” They democratized access to photography.
During the Civil War (1861 C.E. to 1865 C.E.), the tintype was useful as a method to record the soldiers passing through on either side. When families were informed of their son’s passing, the army was now able to mail the family a tintype of their late son.
Photography was an almost supernatural method of preserving the dead and dying, forever showing people as they were. Photographs of young children who have passed away line one of the walls in ‘The New Art’ exhibit. Their tiny, sleeping bodies look almost angelic and perfect, undisturbed for the rest of eternity.
‘The New Art: American Photography, 1839-1910,’ explores the development of photography through the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As photography became more simple and less expensive to produce, access to these tools for documentation and art became accessible to a much larger pool of individuals. This transition from the rigid, complex preparation processes of the early daguerreotypes and ambrotypes to the swift, easy tintypes and later inventions meant that more people could become photographers and artists. Photography was no longer a simple method of documentation. Soon, it became a significant part of many modern art movements.
This new method was seen as raw and authentic, intended to represent the world more accurately than painting. Walking through the exhibit, dimly lit to protect the precious photographs, you are able to experience the photographs as time capsules themselves.
As you enter the exhibit, you are greeted by a giant wooden box with some accordion-like contraption in the middle. On one end, there is a cylinder protruding with a piece of glass placed on the front, a rudimentary camera lens, and on the other, there is a sheet of metal showing what is in front of the lens, while inverting it and flipping the image upside down. This camera, one of the earliest, was used to produce ambrotypes.
Cameras use light refracted through the lens of the camera in order to create an image. However, that photograph is flipped upside down and is inverted, so in order to flip the photo, the film inside produces a negative.
The large wooden boxes are early versions of the camera before the negative was an established method of processing photos. In fact, the daguerreotype skips over this step entirely, simply “printing” the reverse image on a slide of silver.
But throughout the exhibit, as the photographs advance through time, the photographs become larger, the protective covers get smaller, and people’s faces break out into more casual expressions. ‘The New Art: American Photography, 1839-1910’ highlights photography from its inception, sowing the seeds for what it has become in our modern day.
Photography started out in the studio, with photographers taking primarily photographs of white and wealthy people dressed formally and looking solemn. It became a method of documentation in the Civil War, and then became democratized for casual use as people posed and smiled. Now, photography is a method of showing the power of the people, either through recording injustices and muckraking, or through creating art.
The exhibit highlights how photography is not one or the other; in fact, it is both.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s new exhibit, ‘The New Art: American Photography, 1839-1910,’ currently on view through Sunday, July 20th, 2025, explores the rich early history of American photography from its inception in 1839 to the first decade of the twentieth century.