Daguerreotype Babies

From the first generation of babies to be captured by photograph!

 Average exposure time for a portraits in a well-lit studio during the Daguerrian era (1839-1860) was about 2-5 seconds, during which the sitter couldn't move or the picture would blur. Not bad for an adult sitter, but pretty well impossible for the little ones, let alone getting a pose, gaze, and preventing crying at parental separation. So just about every photograph from the time (well, most of the 19th century!) has a baby on a mother's lap. Sometimes she's a part of the picture and sometimes she's cropped out, or obscured, or even disguised as furniture!

George Eastman House

By Southworth and Hawes, Boston, ca. 1850. Source

Library of Congress

ca. 1855. Source

George Eastman House

By Southworth and Hawes, Boston, ca. 1850. Source

Daguerreotype Children II

All right, well, that "I'm back" was rather preliminary. :) I'll work on getting back on track, but meanwhile let's just assume this blog will a bit sporradic for a while. 

Today, another set of children of the 1850s! How incredible is it that we can look into the faces of children from the 1850s?  

Many of these are the work of the incomparable daguerreotype team Albert Sands Southworth and Josiah Johnson Hawes.

George Eastman House

An unidentified child by Southworth and Hawes, c. 1850. Source

Library of Congress

A child holding a black rag doll, c. 1852. Source

George Eastman House

An unidentified girl by Southworth and Hawes, c. 1850. Source