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Daguerreotype of Edith Emerson Forbes
ca. 1850
From the papers of Ralph Waldo Emerson
(Manuscripts Department, Houghton Library)
Visual collections among Harvard's libraries include an estimated 4 million images. This portrait is one of the nearly 4,000 daguerreotypes housed in 14 repositories throughout the University. The result of a direct-positive photographic process, daguerreotypes are unique, having no accompanying negatives. Preservation of the original images therefore assumes special significance.
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