Robert Cornelius

Profile photo is Cornelius's 1839 photograph of himself. The back reads, "The first light picture ever taken". The Cornelius portrait is the first known photographic portrait ever taken.

http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2004664436/ -- "Daguerre announced his invention of a photographic method to the French Academy of Sciences in August 1839. That October, a young Philadelphian, Robert Cornelius, 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. Early daguerreotypy required a long exposure time, ranging from three to fifteen minutes, making the process nearly impractical for portraiture. (Source: "Photographic Material," by Carol Johnson. In Gathering History: the Marian S. Carson Collection of Americana, 1999, p. 100)"

Cornelius was the son of Christian Cornelius, a Dutch immigrant to Philadelphia in 1783. A well-to-do manufacturer of lamps and chandeliers, the elder Cornelius sent his son to private school where he took a special interest in chemistry. In 1831, he began to work for his father and specialized in silver-plating and metal polishing, a skill for which he was so sufficiently well-renowned, that in 1844, the newly-created Smithsonian Institute entrusted some of its early experiments to him. It was natural, then, for Joseph Saxton to approach Cornelius for the silver plate required for his daguerreotype of Central High School, and equally natural for Cornelius himself to become interested in the procedure.

Cornelius did not make much of his achievement. In fact, it only survived by chance. In 1864, Marcus Aurelius Root, one of several pupils Cornelius took, published The Camera and the Pencil, which provided much of the information on which all historians of early American photography rely. Root organized the exhibit on the history of photography at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876, where it was noticed by Julius Sachse, whose father had worked as a designer for Cornelius and who was the subject of one of the earliest daguerreotypes. Sachse, himself a noted Philadelphia photographer and future editor the American Journal of Photography, began taking an interest in Cornelius' work, interviewing him and other aged members of the American Philosophical Society and trying to get the story straight.

Shortly before he died in 1893, Cornelius told Sachse that he had taken portraits as early as October, 1839. No corroborating evidence was found until 1975, when Murphy D. Smith, librarian at the American Philosophical Society, found a photograph of Goddard dated on the back December 6, 1839, the date Cornelius and Goddard introduced their invention to the Society. Cornelius had earlier taken a self-portrait, but because it was off-center he had Goddard pose for another for presentation to America's leading learned Society.

Some thirty early daguerreotypes, of higher quality and greater quantity than any other pioneers, by Cornelius have survived. Most are portraits of Philadelphia notables, one is of Market Street outside Cornelius' studios, but the two most interesting are of Cornelius himself and Martin Hans Boye, taken in December, 1843, showing them performing chemical experiments.

Cornelius operated two photographic studios, both located at Eighth and Market Streets, between 1839 and 1843. But then as professional studios mushroomed, he either lost interest or realized he could make much more money running his gas and lighting company. He did so for the next half-century, supplying much of the illumination for Philadelphia's 1876 Centennial Exposition. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1862 The APS is the oldest learned society in the United States and was founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1743.

https://petapixel.com/2013/12/05/pioneering-photographer-robert-cor...

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/33755033/robert-cornelius

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Cornelius

Father of 8, 3 sons and 5 daughters

http://explorepahistory.com/hmarker.php?markerId=1-A-190