Daguerreotypes at Harvard
Truman Henry Safford, ca. 1844-45
Albert Sands Southworth, 1811-94
Josiah Southworth Hawes, 1808-1901
Half plate
Harvard University Archives
(HUP Safford, Truman Henry vt) (HA-10)
Since the invention of photography, libraries, museums, research institutes, and academic depart-ments at Harvard have collected photographs for research and teaching. Among these millions of images are more than 3,500 daguerreotypes. The first publicly announced photographic process, the daguerreotype was introduced in 1839 by the Frenchman Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre. It is a is a unique image in the form of a silver-coated copper plate. Housed in fourteen separate repositories, daguerreotypes at Harvard represent a collection of international significance and offer pioneering examples of early uses of photography as a tool for artistic expression and scientific research in mid-nineteenth-century America.
The work of daguerreotypists such as Matthew Brady, Southworth and Hawes, and John Adams Whipple is represented in the collection as are many of the prominent scientists, writers, and performers of the day including Oliver Wendell Holmes, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Henry James, James McNeill Whistler, Dorothea Dix, Jenny Lind, and Tom Thumb. The potential of photography for scientific research is stunningly exemplified in one of the first detailed daguerreotypes of the moon, taken at Harvard in 1851, as well as in images capturing the emergence of modern anesthesia at the Massachusetts General Hospital. An unfortunate misuse of photography is recalled in the now famous slave daguerreotypes commissioned by natural historian Louis Agassiz.
Selected daguerreotypes from the Harvard collections appear in an ongoing exhibit on the Library Preservation at Harvard web site. The search strategies described below provide instructions on using Harvard's online catalog of visual resources to see many more images and records.
Search Harvard's Daguerreotypes Through the VIA Online Catalog
Harvard's daguerreotype collection is a rich resource for scholars across disciplines including history of photography, American studies, history of theatre, history of science, and women's history. For the first time, researchers are able to access the entire collection online. Catalog records for Harvard's original collection of 479 daguerreotypes, with accompanying digital images, are now available through the Visual Information Access (VIA) system, the online catalog of visual resources at Harvard. Records for 3,100 daguerreotypes from the Harrison D. Horblit Collection of Early Photography at Houghton Library were added to VIA in 2002.
Searching Strategies
Searching in VIA is by keywords. Searches are not case sensitive. On the main search screen you may enter one or more words and choose the fields in which you want to search. You may also enter more than one word in a search box (the words will be searched using the "and" operator). Do not use quotation marks around search terms. See Help in VIA for additional information relating to the system.
Search Daguerreotypes by Collection
Fourteen repositories at Harvard hold daguerreotype collections. To search for daguerreotypes within a specific repository, search for "daguerreotype?" under Subject then select the desired repository under Limit to Holdings of box. Nearly all records for daguerreotypes held by repositories at Harvard are accompanied by digital images. To view these records only, check the "Restrict search to records that have digital images" box.
Repositories holding daguerreotypes include:
Baker Library: Harvard Business School
Botany Libraries
Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts
Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine
Harvard College Observatory Plate Stacks
Harvard Law School Library
Harvard University Archvies
Harvard University Art Museums: Fogg Art Museum
Houghton Library: Harvard Theatre Collection
Houghton Library: Manuscript Department
Massachusetts General Hospital
Ernst Mayr Library of the Museum of Comparative Zoology
Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology
Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America
Search Daguerreotypes by Photographer or by Portrait Sitter
To search for a specific photographer (e.g., John Adams Whipple), search for "daguerreotype?" under Subject and name of photographer under Name. To search for a specific portrait sitter (e.g., Ralph Waldo Emerson), search for "daguerreotype?" under Subject and name of portrait sitter under Name.
Noted photographers in collection
Edward Anthony, Mathew Brady, John Fitzgibbon, Gabriel Harrison, Jeremiah Gurney, Josiah Johnson Hawes, Edward Kilburn, Langenheim Brothers, Meade Brothers, John Plumbe, Frederick DeBourg Richards
Noted portrait sitters in collection
Horatio Alger, Aimé Jacques Alexandre Bonpland, Thomas Hart Benton, Junius Brutus Booth, Thomas Carlyle, Charlotte Cushman, Dorothea Dix, Louisa Lane Drew, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Edwin Forrest, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Henry James, Jenny Lind, James Russell Lowell, Lola Montez, Ely Parker, Franklin Pierce, Lemuel Shaw, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Tom Thumb, Martin Van Buren, John Collins Warren, James McNeill Whistler
Search Daguerreotypes by Subject
To search for a specific subject, search for "daguerreotype?" under Subject and subject term under Subject. You may search on more than one subject.
Subject terms
actors, boys, children, circuses (performances), dancers, doctors, girls, houses, medicine, men, moon, performing artists, operations, photographers, philosophers, portraits, presidents, singers, slaves, students, sun, women
Preserving the Collection
In 1995, the Harvard University Library Preservation Center received a
grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission
to address the preservation and access needs of Harvard's daguerreotypes.
For information about the work accomplished with this grant, please consult
the project's Brief
Summary Report 
as well as the articles, "Digitizing
Daguerreotypes" and "Preserving
Photography's Past: Daguerreotypes at Harvard."