Abstract
It was a pleasure to read Robert Wilson’s biography of Mathew Brady, the nineteenth-century photographer best known for his portraits of Abraham Lincoln and his Civil War images.
Wilson’s biography includes a timeline of the evolution of photography and the ebb and flow of the Civil War, along with a portrait of upper class social life in New York City and Washington, DC, in the 1800s. Wilson is the editor of The American Scholar and a widely published author whose work includes magazine articles, reviews and op-eds, and a biography of the American geologist and mountaineer Clarence King.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the history of photography or the Civil War, as well as its use as required reading for any history of photography or mass communication history course. It is well written and edited and reflects carefully footnoted research into Brady’s life and the evolution of photography in the United States.
This biography’s well-supported theme is that Brady is the single most important person in nineteenth-century American photography and that he should also be considered the father of photojournalism. Wilson insightfully addresses three common myths about Brady throughout his book to capture reader attention: (1) that Brady alone was responsible for most Civil War era photographs; (2) that Brady was not a photographer at all (due to his poor vision) and simply took credit for photographs taken by others; and (3) that Brady moved dead soldiers and used other “unethical” methods to make more powerful photos.
Early chapters account for Brady’s early life growing up on a farm in upstate New York, including his damaged eyesight due to illness, his first exposures to art, and his business experiences after he moved to New York City. By the time he first opened a photography studio in 1841, Brady had retail skills, artistic abilities, and a willingness to experiment with improving the technology and aesthetics of photography. Wilson documents throughout this book that Brady was also a master of self-promotion who knew well the value of proximity to celebrities of his time.
I commend this book for its well-reproduced black-and-white illustrations and a sixteen-page color insert, and recommend the chapters describing how and why Brady’s life changed in 1861 from his fame as a photographer of artistic portraits to being one of the first—if not the first—photographer and commercial distributor of war photography.
Wilson describes in detail Brady’s first and unpleasant wartime experiences at the first Battle of Bull Run, and how he did not return to the field until 1863. Brady hired photographers such as Alexander Gardner and Timothy O’Sullivan (among others) to photograph the “brutal consequences of battle.” I particularly recommend chapter 11’s account of the impact of photos of the war had at the time, starting after the battle at Antietam when Gardner’s photos of dead soldiers first emerged.
In chapter 12, Wilson describes how at the end of 1862, Gardner split with Brady and started his own gallery in Washington. Wilson then debunks the idea that Brady took “undue” credit for the work of other photographers, saying this myth is not supported by evidence.
After the battles at Gettysburg in July 1863, Brady himself re-appears on the scene of that battlefield and, according to Wilson, began an era of capturing “superior” photos (to Gardner and others) of important battlefield sites and portraits of important soldiers—but no dead bodies. Brady also began the practice of including himself in many of his wartime photos (in kind of a “Where’s Waldo?” approach in some cases and prominently posed in others). Wilson suggests Brady’s inclusion of his self in the photos was likely a way of claiming “ownership” of the photos (addressing the myth that he didn’t or couldn’t take photos himself). Wilson also suggests that this technique was evidence that Brady was the creator of “first-person photography” and reflected Brady’s sense that he was creating a work of art.
In Gardner’s photographs after the battles at Gettysburg, it was discovered that either himself or his assistant photographers moved bodies into a variety of poses to create more drama in the photos. The impact of this discovery was to create the belief that this practice during the Civil War by photographers (including Brady) was widespread—and it is cited regularly in discussions today of “ethics in photojournalism.”
Wilson argues Brady’s reputation was undeservedly tainted by Gardner’s “unethical” actions. Wilson states that there is no other conclusive evidence, however, of bodies being moved around for a photo at the time. He does document, however, the evidence that Brady in one instance posed one of his assistants as a “dead soldier” in a post-battlefield scene.
In summary, the chapters on the Civil War are an excellent history lesson. Wilson raises an interesting question about the actions of Brady and Gardner in their efforts to photograph after the capture of Petersburg and Richmond in the spring of 1865, but their failure to get any photographs of Lee’s surrender to Grant at Appomattox on April 8. Wilson does describe Brady’s last act as a wartime photographer in getting the famous portrait of Lee at his home.
While I gained much insight into Brady’s influence on the aesthetics of posing of portraits and his role in the development of war photography, I also enjoyed Wilson’s descriptions of Brady’s evolution of viewing himself as a historian. The book ends with a sad recounting of Brady’s end-of-life passage through bankruptcy court, his disappointments in trying to get his photographs saved as an important historical legacy, and the fragmentation and scattering of his life’s work of images. In the end, however, Wilson does suggest that Brady had succeeded in creating a “portrait of a nation.”