welcome to the ancestral findings podcast this is episode 232 have
you ever heard of Matthew Brady join me today as we look into his life
and his photographs to know what the Civil War really looked like
[Music] Matthew Brady was a photographer whose work is quite well-known and famous
today in addition to taking photographs of 19th century politicians who we would otherwise have
no images of except paintings he also documented the American Civil War in photographs in fact the
Civil War is the first war to be documented and disseminated to the public via newspapers using
photographic accompaniment the vast majority of those photos were taken by Mathew Brady or one of
his many personally trained assistants he and his assistants marched out across the country during
a very dangerous time for travel in search of the most compelling truthful images of the war amongst
them they took more than ten thousand photographs of the war letting the average civilian Americans
see in real graphic detail just what was happening to the men on the battlefields of the nation those
images were important for the American public without them most Americans who weren't in the
fray relied on letters from loved ones who were in the military to describe the war to them naturally
most men wouldn't want to overly concern their wives mothers daughters and sisters so they often
downplayed just how difficult the conditions were and how gory the conflicts between North and South
could be with Mathew Brady's photographs appearing in newspapers across the country people could see
the truth for themselves and it motivated quite a few civilian groups to form to give supplies and
relief to the soldiers in different ways because of his work and due to the fact that photographing
a war in progress was an entirely new thing Mathew Brady gave a more defined structure to the role
of photographers as historians by documenting modern life in photographs photographers were
creating valuable historical resources for future generations to use to understand the past and to
know what it was like with more intimacy than a painting could provide because of him photography
became a powerful tool in the world not just for family photos but in politics society in general
and the culture of the times and places in which the photographs are taken this is still true of
photography today in the digital era photography was officially invented by louis jacques monday
de guerre in 1839 that is the same year brady left his home in upstate New York and his Irish parents
to come seek his fortune in New York City with so many others he worked briefly in a department
store as a clerk and then made jewelry cases including those in which early photos called
daguerreotype were displayed in 1844 he decided to get in on the photography craves himself and
opened his own studio at the corner of Broadway and Fulton as an expert marketer brady was
soon recognized and sought-after as one of the best-known photographers of the era attracting
high-profile clients he was even mentioned in the first issue of the new photographic art journal
in 1851 the article on him in the new journal described Brady as a Fountainhead of the new
photography business he also won a gold medal in a prestigious photography contest in London
that year interestingly the other two winners in that contest were also American photographers he
expanded his business to include paper prints as well as daguerreotype s' moved his studio into a
more luxurious one and even opened a second studio in Washington DC in this location he
was able to attract prominent politicians and his famous 1860 photograph of Abraham Lincoln
is considered instrumental in making Lincoln a more famous and recognizable figure nationwide
Brady's photographs were beginning to have actual influence on current events and this
just increased his reputation and desirability among the elite as a photographer when the Civil
War started Brady saw an opportunity to document the war in photographs for all Americans to see
he assembled a group of photographers who he trained and sent them out following the
armies on both sides of the conflict not only are the photo graphs that were produced the
first photographic documentation of a war they are the first photographic documentation of any
major historical happening Brady invested a ton of money into this venture all of it from the private
fortune he had accumulated over the years as a top celebrity photographer however even though
his photographs of the war were widely published he never made the money back he invested in the
project newspapers couldn't afford to pay him what he needed to recoup his financial losses and as a
result he became nearly destitute after the war without even enough money to continue operating
a prestigious photography studio without even one nice studio to his name his fame rapidly
disappeared following the war and he was never the go-to name in high-profile photography he
was before the war began though his work in photographing the war practically bankrupted
him it made him famous to future generations this is because his civil war photographs became a part
of the National Archives and gained a reputation as the best source for visual information about
the mid to late 19th century and the Civil War scholars revived their interest in his work
in the 1930s during the work of the Civilian Conservation Corps in documenting the history
of photography and the Civil War itself and his work had a big influence on those who were using
photography to document the Great Depression in fact Mathew Brady was their inspiration today
Mathew Brady is once again the famous photographer he was before he began his civil war photographic
documentation project he would likely be very happy to know that his name fame and excellent
reputation live on among photographers and historians alike he provided something unique
to history the photographic documentation of a war and distribution of those photographs to
the public while the war was happening his name will always have a place in American
history because of that valuable project [Music] there are plenty of reasons for getting involved
in doing genealogy however did you also know that it is a fun fascinating hobby in and of
itself next time I'll give you some of the best reasons for getting involved in genealogy it is a
hobby you will love you have been listening to the ancestral findings podcasts to get more genealogy
tips head over to our website ancestral findings dot-com and subscribe to our mailing list now
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