This is an ongoing collection of links to useful websites on the history of photography in the 19th and 20th centuries. These are generally good jumping-off places for either a specific area of research or for the general history of photography. They are arranged more or less chronologically, with subdivisions to suit the arrangement of the course syllabus.

General Photo History Research

A history of photography from its beginnings to the 1920's, by Robert Leggat. Very useful, lots of important basic information.

Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress (main site)

George Eastman House Rochester, NY museum and repository, with a great online collection of images

National Archives and Records Administration online database. Search here for digital copies of FSA and HABS photographs.

Timeline from Still Journal online

Masters of Photography on individual artists

Photographic Timeline

The Photography Museum an entirely online museum, run by an amateur historian, quite worth a visit

19th Century

Pre-photographic technologies and history

Entertaining Optical devices of all sorts

The Camera obscura, Aristotle to Zahn

The Magic Mirror of Life: a search for the Camera Obscura

An essay on the artist St. Memin and his use of the physiognotrace

Silhouette History

The Roving Artist's Virtual Silhouette Parlour by a modern silhouette artist

Early photographic technologies

Niepce's Heliograph, the world's first successful photograph, online at University of Texas

The Daguerreian Society a terrific source for all things Daguerreian

Library of Congress' Daguerreotype Collection

Daguerreotype cameras good pictures of the equipment needed to make a daguerreotype

Daguerrian broadside collection of various types of Daguerreotypes

Fox Talbot Museum devoted to the inventor of the calotype (and the first negative/positive process), William Henry Fox Talbot, and located at his home, Lacock Abbey, in Britain.

A good description of the calotype process

Wet collodion process video clips from the Getty Museum

Scully and Osterman, modern wet-plate collodion photographers, with lots of images, reference material and links

Albumen photographs history, science, and preservation

Lost and Found, Rediscovering early photographic processes

Uses of photography in the 19th century

Civil War Photographs at the Library of Congress

Panoramic Photographs at the Library of Congress

Lewis Carroll, photographer includes some of his racier pictures of his child friends

Memento mori, a site about post-mortem photography

William Mumler's Spirit Photography from the Museum of Hoaxes

Stereoscopic Visions

Stereoscopic visions of war and empire, a good visual and textual essay on late 19th/early 20th century American imperialism

Johnson Shawn Museum, in Meadville, PA, home of the Keystone View Company. Dedicated to the history of that company

National Stereoscopic Association

Online exhibitions of individual 19th century photographers

Carleton Watkins at the National Gallery of Art

Matthew Brady's Portraits from the National Portrait Gallery

Francis Frith's photos of Egypt

Primary sources, literature and criticism online

The Vital Message, by Arthur Conan Doyle (see Appendix 3, On Spirit Photography)

The Silver Sunbeam; a practical and theoretical textbook of sun drawing and photographic printing... by J. Towler, MD (New York: Joseph Ladd, 1864)

The House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne, link to e-text, searchable text, and downloadable files. Novel features a daguerreotypist and daguerreotypes are a motif of the story about the past haunting the present...

20th Century

Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America (Warning: very disturbing content)

A story on Emory University's handling of the lynching photographs collected by James Allen in the exhibition "Without Sanctuary"

Detroit Publishing Company at the Library of Congress

Brownie Camera reference page

Joel Peter Witkin

Smog a collective of contemporary artists and photographers, including Witkin

The Wizard of Photography, the story of George Eastman

halftone process history

the web

webcam histories

Cinematography

The complete history of the discovery of cinematography includes much information on photography, naturally. Site has some technical difficulties due to heavy traffic.

A site on the history of the moving image, with lots of good basic information on technologies

Curiosities and Fun Stuff

Modern day wet-plate collodion photography by William Dunniway, photographer of historic reenactors

The Big Camera Museum of Photography, a museum in Australia devoted to photography and shaped like a giant 35mm camera

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