Boulevard du Temple, Paris, 3rd arrondissement, a street scene captured in a daguerreotype in either 1838 or 1839, and believed to be the earliest photograph showing a living person. It is a view of a busy street, but because the exposure time was at least 10 minutes, the moving traffic left no trace. The two men near the bottom left corner, one apparently having his boots polished by the other, stayed in one place long enough to be visible. It is also thought that just to the right of the two men, another person can be seen, sitting on a bench and reading a paper 176 years ago. #

Daguerreotype portrait of General Zachary Taylor in uniform, taken by Mathew Brady during or after the Mexican-American War, between 1846 and 1849. Taylor was later elected as the 12th President of the United States, serving until his death in office in 1850. #

A self-portrait of Robert Cornelius, made in October or November of 1839. This is believed to be the earliest extant American portrait photo. Shortly after the French announcement of the Daguerreotype process, Cornelius, a young Philadelphian working out of doors to take advantage of the light, made this head-and-shoulders self-portrait using a box fitted with a lens from an opera glass. In the portrait, Cornelius stands slightly off-center with hair askew, in the yard behind his family's lamp and chandelier store, peering uncertainly into the camera. #

A formally dressed man shows nine different daguerreotypes in a display frame to promote a daguerreotype studio in one of the first known photographic advertisements, made in 1845. #

Joseph Avery, stranded on rocks in the Niagara River in July of 1853. Three men boating in the Niagara River were overwhelmed by the river’s strong current, lost control of their boat, and crashed into a rock. The current carried two men immediately over the falls to their deaths. The daguerreotype shows the third man, stranded on a log that had jammed between two rocks. He weathered the current for 18 hours before succumbing to the river. The image is one of the earliest examples of a news photograph. #

The Clark sisters, in a portrait made between 1840 and 1860. Writing on the back identifies the women as (left to right) “Aunt Harriet Allen, Aunt Ladonna Hoy, Grandma Joanette C-B, Aunt Julia Millard, and Aunt Laura” #

The children of Lt. Montgomery C. Meigs, probably Mary Montgomery, Charles, Montgomery, and John Rodgers, in a donkey cart with a dog, circa 1850. From a note accompanying the image: “The children of Lt. M.C. Meigs, Eng. Corp U.S.A. taken in Detroit, Mich. This donkey was bought from two French trappers and missionaries to the Indians who came down from the primeval forests of the N.W.” #

A portrait of William Cranch made between 1844 and 1860. Cranch was the nephew (by marriage) of John Adams, and served as an American judge and as the second reporter of decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States. Cranch was born on July 17, 1769 in the town of Weymouth, in the Province of Massachusetts Bay—then still a crown colony of Great Britain. You are viewing a photograph of a man who was born before the United States existed. #