Mrs. D. T. Davis

“ The way in which intelligent young men put the description of the process to test at once is charmingly told in a private letter to the author of this article by the Rev. Edward Everett Hale:
"My classmate and dear friend, Mr. Samuel Longfellow (who died last year) , and I were both much interested, and he repeated Talbot's experiments at once. I took from my window in Massachusetts Hall a picture of the college library—Harvard Hall—opposite me. The camera was a little camera made for the convenience of draughtsmen, with a common lens of an inch and a quarter. ”

“ The toilet of a lady should be of the same shades, and in all cases black must be constantly avoided, as well as green and red."
M. Gouraud was not by any means the first person to attempt portraits in the United States. Notwithstanding the sceptical attitude of Daguerre in regard to the application of the art to living objects, Morse soon began to experiment with portraits, though it is interesting to note that in all his early attempts the subject's eyes are closed, that being considered one of the conditions essential to success. ”

“ The commercial possibilities of the new invention were at once evident, and with Yankee shrewdness scores of young men learned the new art as a business. Morse and Draper themselves first gave the hint. As soon as it was known that they were making daguerreotypes many young men flocked to them for instruction. When they began to make portraits everybody wanted to sit. As both men had spent considerable money in experimenting with the process, they decided, finally, to charge for instruction and for portraits until they had recovered the outlay. ”

“ All of the fraternity up and down the Row were deeply interested in the new discovery and were constant visitors at the gallery. Traversing Tremont Row to-day one would not dream that it had ever harbored skilled craftsmen and artists. Traffic and noise have crowded from it every sign of the finer pursuits of life. The most melancholy of commercial undertakings monopolize it—cheap bargain stores, employment bureaus, sweater shops. One remnant only of its former life remains, the ancient daguerreotype studio at the top of No. ”

“ In March, 1840, he went to Boston, and his season there was very successful. Finally he published a pamphlet: "A Description of the Daguerreotype Process, or a Summary of M. Gouraud's Public Lectures, according to the principles of M. Daguerre; with a description of a provisory method for taking Human Portraits."
This "provisory method" of taking portraits was not a simple method, as one can see from Gouraud's directions for preparing the room and the subject: "In the first place, you will begin by preparing a room exposed to the sun, the southeast if possible. ”

“ Here have come to him for portraits the great men and women of his day in every profession and art—Webster and Pierce, Garrison and Sumner, Wendell Phillips and Jenny Lind, Charlotte Cushman and Harriet Beecher Stowe. Mr. Hawes has in the specimens of his work an almost complete gallery of the eminent residents of Boston in the 40's and 50's and of the prominent people who visited the city in the same period. ”

“ The pictures were mostly views of streets, boulevards, and buildings, those of the Louvre and Notre Dame being especially fine. Interiors, still life, groups of plaster casts, and other works of art were also most successfully treated by the new process. Daguerre had not succeeded in making portraits as yet, and he told Professor Morse that he doubted if it could be done. ”

“ He had also a studio in Brooklyn, and in 1860 opened a branch gallery on Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, which he finally made his headquarters. In 1861 Washington was thronged with men who were helping to make the history of America. Mr. Brady was far-seeing enough to realize this, and aimed to secure portraits of the most distinguished. In consequence he soon made his Washington gallery a celebrated rendezvous. ”

“ Those are always agreeable to the eye, and should always be shown in interior views. The chair on which the person sits must be of yellow wood. The person, if a man, must be dressed in a clear gray coat ”