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Honored Contributor
Posts: 18,221
Registered: ‎11-08-2014

HISTORICAL FIGURES WHO LIVED LONG ENOUGH TO BE PHOTOGRAPHED

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We're so lucky that some great figures of the past, lived long enough into the infancy of photography, so that we have that kind of record of them.  Not just oil portraits.

 

We've all seen the images of Lincoln.  I like this for the detail-- the expression in his eyes, etc.  Look how his tie is slightly sideways and his shirt front rumpled.  Endearing details caught by an early camera!

 

Calamity-Jane-commons.wikimedia.org_.jpg

 

Calamity Jane, above.   She looks determined!

 

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Frederick Douglass-- this must be a famous photographic portrait of him, since I've seen it many times.  Love the way it catches a force of personality and seriousness, that pierces right through the lens.

 

John-Quincy-Adamshistory.com_.jpg

 

This one of John Quincy Adams, 6th president (betw. 1825--1829) is astonishing in its detail.  It's been faintly colorized, but, wow.  The worn marble of the fireplace, the leather bookbindings, most of all, his gaze and clasped hands.  I wonder if he had arthritis.  Love his jacket.  This one is so oddly moving.

 

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Amazing Emily Dickinson.  Another widely known photo, or should I say, daguerrotype, but still with such impact.

 

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And this one of a very young Count Leo Tolstoy!   That stopped me in my tracks-- we usually see the author of "War and Peace",  "Resurrection" and "Anna Karenina" as a long-bearded older man.  Some early photographer caught him here when he was twenty.  He has a certain intensity, would you say?

 

Harriet-Tubman-history.com_.jpg

 

A slender slip of Harriet Tubman--  again, you can get such a feeling of strong personality.  Additionally, the delicacy of those slender fingers are a detail you'd never get from a hundred historical accounts...

 

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And here above is Timothy H. O'Sullivan's famous "darkroom wagon", a portable dark room, showing how intrepid photographers would trek through the American Old West, on their quest to record everything.  This was taken in the Carson Sink, in Nevada.

 

If you do a search of "historical figures who lived long enough to be photographed",  the site will appear and other interesting (and less well-known) portraits come up.

Honored Contributor
Posts: 16,837
Registered: ‎03-10-2010

Re: HISTORICAL FIGURES WHO LIVED LONG ENOUGH TO BE PHOTOGRAPHED

How interesting @Oznell !  Thank you so much for posting these!


The Bluebird Carries The Sky On His Back"
-Henry David Thoreau





Esteemed Contributor
Posts: 6,602
Registered: ‎03-09-2010

Re: HISTORICAL FIGURES WHO LIVED LONG ENOUGH TO BE PHOTOGRAPHED

Amazing portraits. Some I would of never guessed that's what they looked like. DH being a civil war buff has that pic of Lincoln in his den.  Thanks @Oznell  for another interesting post. ❤️

Esteemed Contributor
Posts: 6,417
Registered: ‎03-12-2010

Re: HISTORICAL FIGURES WHO LIVED LONG ENOUGH TO BE PHOTOGRAPHED

I love looking at old, historical photos.  Thanks @Oznell for this great thread!

Esteemed Contributor
Posts: 7,755
Registered: ‎05-08-2010

Re: HISTORICAL FIGURES WHO LIVED LONG ENOUGH TO BE PHOTOGRAPHED

Mesmerizing, @Oznell .  The few times I have been able to drag my DH with me to antique shops, it is always the pictures that caught his attention.  If I couldn't find him, I knew where to look.........gazing at a picture, almost hypnotized.  He would always say, I wonder what these people were like, what was their life like.  

 

Again, thanks for the post.

Fear not Brothers and Sisters! I have read THE BOOK..........we win!!!
Honored Contributor
Posts: 13,935
Registered: ‎03-10-2010

Re: HISTORICAL FIGURES WHO LIVED LONG ENOUGH TO BE PHOTOGRAPHED

Thanks for taking the time to post these photos.

Honored Contributor
Posts: 17,511
Registered: ‎06-17-2015

Re: HISTORICAL FIGURES WHO LIVED LONG ENOUGH TO BE PHOTOGRAPHED

@Oznell   Thank you for an interesting thread.

 

The picture of Leo Tolstoy was one I had never seen.

 

You are right-the expressions (people didn't smile in photos back them) show the determination and the eyes almost say what each one was to accomplish.

 

Great pics.

"" Compassion is a verb."-Thich Nhat Hanh
Super Contributor
Posts: 283
Registered: ‎08-30-2020

Re: HISTORICAL FIGURES WHO LIVED LONG ENOUGH TO BE PHOTOGRAPHED

The only thing I regret with Lincoln, is that he didn't live long enough for us to hear a recording of his voice.  It was pretty close, though.  There is a recording of John Wilkes Booth's brother Edwin reciting Othello, so had Lincoln lived longer,  we would be able to listen to him as well.

Trusted Contributor
Posts: 1,379
Registered: ‎06-14-2011

Re: HISTORICAL FIGURES WHO LIVED LONG ENOUGH TO BE PHOTOGRAPHED

@Oznell  these pictures are sooo detailed for their time.  Thank you for a very interesting and different thread.  I loved history.  And always loved looking at the pictures down through time.  Amazing how far pictures have come.  

Respected Contributor
Posts: 4,318
Registered: ‎10-11-2017

Re: HISTORICAL FIGURES WHO LIVED LONG ENOUGH TO BE PHOTOGRAPHED

@Oznell , thanks so much. Very interesting.