Walter Bentley Woodbury, age 23. Self-portrait with a camera, 1857. This British-born photographer sailed to Austraila when he was twenty and ran a sucessful photography studio first in Melbourne, and then in Java, Indonesia.
He enclosed this photograph with a letter to his mother:
“The portrait I send has the date marked on it and in the future I shall always date them so that you can see if I improve in appearance or otherwise.”
Santiago Ramón y Cajal in his early twenties, c. 1870. The father of modern neuroscience (who mapped the anatomy of the neuron and its cells) was also an amateur bodybuilder and gymnast in his youth.
Here he is with a beard, c. 1876. Cajal really gets our neurons firing, if you know what I mean.
Submitted by coveted
Situwuka and Katkwachsnea, Native American couple, 1912
Submitted by degbnth
Henry James, c. 1860, age 17.
From the submitter Katie Sommer:
Hello MDB. I am the associate editor for The Complete Letters of Henry James (ongoing; U of Nebraska Press). Here’s a photo of an extremely handsome young (18 years old or so) Henry James. The photo dates from 1860 or 1861 when his family was in Newport, RI, and the original is at the Houghton Library at Harvard University (pf MS AM 1094).
From submitter Chris Black:
Written on the back of this photo is written “Velma I Love You, Fred” Velma was my grandmother. I have no idea who Fred was.
Second Lt. James G. Sturgis. Killed in action at Little Big Horn.
Cumberbatch, is that you?
Submitted by thefutileprecaution
Dwight L. Moody, evangelical preacher. At age 18, Moody converted to evangelism while working in his uncle’s shoe store on Court Street in Boston. As a pacifist, he felt he could not enlist in the Union army, instead becoming involved with the YMCA and visiting soldiers on the front lines. Later, he would fill huge stadiums to capacity with his evangelical meetings around the U.S. and Europe.
Submitted by P. Allan
From the submitter Carl Rhodes:
R. F. Jameson, who was a month short of his twentieth birthday when he sat before an unknown daguerreotypist’s camera in Montrose, Pennsylvania, in October 1846.
Source: Dennis A. Waters Fine Daguerreotypes, Exeter, New Hampshire, www.finedags.com
Anyone have an idea what Mr. Jameson is sitting next to? Is that a lamp?
UPDATE: Sources say it’s a microscope! Yay science! Here’s more information via shegetsby.
The microscope, undoubtedly Jameson’s prize possession, and rarely depicted in a daguerreotype, emphatically conveys his calling or avocation.
Portrait of an unidentified man (c. 1844-1860) by Matthew Brady’s studio (Library of Congress)
Just one of the beautiful decayed daguerreotypes featured at The Public Domain Review
Henry Adams, age 20, 1858, at his Harvard graduation.
The grandson of John Quincy Adams (and the great-grandson of founding father John Adams), during the civil war Henry Adams was private secretary to his father, a Congressman in the House of Representatives.
His influential circle of friends was known as “The Five of Hearts,” and included Lincoln’s secretary John Hay. He later became friends with Walt Whitman, Rudyard Kipling, Teddy Roosevelt, and many others.
We highly suggest Patricia O’Toole’s biography The Five of Hearts for more on this gregarious studmuffin.
Submitted by Mary Mann
Centennial Theme by One by Four Studio. Powered by Tumblr.
