![PT Barnum and General Tom Thumb by Root, c1850](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/54/PT_Barnum_and_General_Tom_Thumb_by_Root%2C_c1850.png)
Marcus Aurelius Root (1808–1888) was a writing teacher and photographer. He was born in
Granville, Ohio
Granville is a Village (United States)#Ohio, village in Licking County, Ohio, United States. The population was 5,646 at the United States Census 2010, 2010 census. The village is located in a rural area of rolling hills in central Ohio. It is e ...
and died in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
.
On 20 June 1846, he bought
John Jabez Edwin Mayall
John Jabez Edwin Paisley Mayall (17 September 1813 near Oldham, Lancashire – 6 March 1901 in Southwick, West Sussex) was an English photographer who in 1860 took the first carte-de-visite photographs of Queen Victoria. He is most well known ...
's Chestnut Street photography studio that was in the same building as Root's residence in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
. Root had success as a
daguerreotypist
Daguerreotype (; french: daguerréotype) was the first publicly available photographic process; it was widely used during the 1840s and 1850s. "Daguerreotype" also refers to an image created through this process.
Invented by Louis Daguerre an ...
working with his brother, Samuel Root. The Root Brothers had a gallery in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
from 1849 to 1857.
Marcus Aurelius Root authored an important book on photography entitled ''
The Camera and the Pencil''.
References
1808 births
1888 deaths
19th-century American photographers
People from Granville, Ohio
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