John Brown (c. 1846-1847)
An abolitionist, John Brown militantly opposed slavery. He is probably most famous for leading a raid on Harpers Ferry in West Virginia in October 1859. It failed, and he was executed on December 2, 1859. The Smithsonian said that the daguerreotype by an African-American photographer called Augustus Washington is “[t]he earliest known likeness” of John Brown. “In a pose that dramatizes his antislavery activism, Brown stands with one hand raised as if repeating his public pledge to dedicate his life to the destruction of slavery. With his other hand, he grasps what is believed to be the standard of his “Subterranean Pass Way” – the militant alternative to the Underground Railroad…”
John Brown (c. 1846 1847)
John Herschel (1867)
Sir John Frederick William Herschel was an astronomer and polymath, who was an important figure in photography. He might not have invented the term “photography,” but he did make bring it to popular use. Julia Margaret Cameron took his portrait in 1867. She said, “From my earliest girlhood I had loved and honoured him, and it was after a friendship of 31 years’ duration that the high task of giving his portrait to the nation was allotted to me.” The Met said, “Of the four exposures Cameron made in April 1867, Herschel preferred this one, which portrayed him, he thought, as an ‘old Paterfamilias.’”
John Herschel (1867)
