‘Photography’ Outshines Silver Plates and Mercury Vapor

Originally published in November 1855


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“Photography is the general name now applied to sun painting on paper and glass, as being different from the daguerreotype, which is produced on metallic plates. The inventor of photographs is Fox Talbot, of England, who secured patents in Britain and America, but has thrown them open to the public. Photography is destined apparently to supersede the art of Daguerre. In France, the splendid display of photographs in the Great Exhibition of Industry, and the limited number of pictures on metallic plates, affords conclusive proof that, with the French artists, the daguerreotype is becoming obsolete.”

Scientific American, November 1855

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