Mathew Brady and the image of history

Mary Panzer

In Mathew Brady and the Image of History, Mary Panzer describes how Brady used the documentary medium of photography to portray a stable, purposeful, patriotic republic during the decades when the national identity was fragmenting. She charts the most productive years of Brady's career, from his emergence in 1844 as a daguerreotypist in New York to his bankruptcy in Washington, D.C., in 1872. Intent on creating a "national portrait gallery" of famous leaders that would connect such luminaries as Daniel Webster and Henry Clay with the Civil War leaders who succeeded them - and with future generations - Brady assiduously courted his subjects, enhancing their reputations along with his own. Taking advantage of emerging photographic paper printing techniques to create large-format, classically posed portraits, Brady also collaborated with painters such as G.P.A. Healy and Alonzo...

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