Solomon Nunes Carvalho (April 27, 1815 - May 27, 1897) was an American painter, photographer, author and inventor. He may be best known as an explorer who traveled through the territory of Kansas, Colorado and Utah with
John C. Frémont on his fifth expedition. Many famous images of the Old West are based on images he made, although many others have been lost or confused with those taken by
Mathew Brady and other contemporaries.
Early and family life
He was born in 1815 in
Charleston, South Carolina to Sarah Cohen D'Azevedo and her husband David Nunes Carvalho, who were both born in England to
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
families of
Portuguese descent. He was named for his grandfather (1743-pre-1811), who had escaped persecution in
Portugal
Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...
and lived in Amsterdam before finally settling in Britain, from which his two sons would emigrate to Barbados and then America. This Solomon's father, David Nunes Carvalho would help establish the first Reform Jewish congregation in the United States, the Reformed Society of Israelites, in Charleston in 1825. His brother (Solomon's uncle),
Emanuel Nunes Carvalho
Emanuel Nunes Carvalho (1771, London, England - 1817, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) was an American Jewish religious leader and lexicographer.
Career
Emanuel Nunes Carvalho was born in London, England in 1771. In 1799, Carvalho, whose merchant ...
, was a cantor and rabbi in Barbados, Charleston and Philadelphia, where he died in 1817. By 1840, David Nunes Carvalho had moved his family to Philadelphia, where they lived in Mulberry Ward with a free black servant. According to family tradition, the younger Carvalho studied with
Thomas Sully
Thomas Sully (June 19, 1783November 5, 1872) was a portrait painter in the United States. Born in Great Britain, he lived most of his life in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He painted in the style of Thomas Lawrence. His subjects included nation ...
.
Isaac Leeser
Isaac Leeser (December 12, 1806 – February 1, 1868) was an American Orthodox Jewish religious leader, teacher, scholar and publisher. He helped found the Jewish press of America, produced the first Jewish translation of the Bible into English, ...
(1806-1868), hazzan of
Congregation K.K. Mikveh Israel married Solomon Nunes Carvalho and Sarah Miriam Solis (1824-1894) on October 15, 1845 in Philadelphia. By 1850 they lived with his father and family in
Baltimore
Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...
, and had a son David and daughter Charity. Solomon Carvalho considered his Jewish identity important as he traveled through the Atlantic coastal states on business. He was a board member of the Philadelphia Hebrew Education Society in 1849–1850. The following year, he became a member of New York's historic
Congregation Shearith Israel
The Congregation Shearith Israel (Hebrew: קהילת שארית ישראל ''Kehilat She'arit Yisra'el'' "Congregation Remnant of Israel") – often called The Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue – is the oldest Jewish congregation in the Unit ...
, in whose cemetery (established that year), he would ultimately be buried. Solomon and his wife Sarah would help found Baltimore's Beth Israel Sephardic synagogue, although it disbanded in 1859. Sarah also founded the Baltimore Hebrew English Sunday School (before financial reasons led the family to relocate to New York City) and a small synagogue in Harlem (the Hand-in-Hand Congregation) in 1870.
Career
His father had established a workshop 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 ...
by the time Solomon was 19, and another in
Baltimore, Maryland
Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...
by 1849, where both became interested in portrait photography using the
daguerreotype method. They also had offices of some type in Charleston, South Carolina and in New York City. A portrait Solomon painted at age 25, "Child with Rabbits" would later be incorporated into
national bank note
National Bank Notes were United States currency banknotes issued by National Banks chartered by the United States Government. The notes were usually backed by United States bonds the bank deposited with the United States Treasury. In addition, ...
s of several U.S. state banks.
In 1853, Colonel
John C. Frémont, who had made several trips exploring the west and had unsuccessfully tried to make daguerreotypes to document his group's journeys, invited the young artist to accompany him as he attempted to prove that a “central route” near the thirty-eighth parallel would be the best path for a planned transcontinental railroad. Accepting the challenge, Carvalho traveled from New York to St. Louis by rail, and then took a steamboat up the
Missouri River to
Westport in
Missouri
Missouri is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee): Iowa to the north, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee to the east, Arkansas t ...
. During the trip, despite the frigid weather which made chemical combinations difficult, Carvalho made near daily portraits of expedition members, the Native Americans they met, and the landscape. Solomon Carvalho would nearly die on that trip of scurvy, starvation and frostbite, and he and his friend
Frederick W. von Egloffstein would be nursed back to health by kindly Mormons in
Parowan, Utah
Parowan ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Iron County, Utah, United States. The population was 2,790 at the 2010 census, and in 2018 the estimated population was 3,100.
Parowan became the first incorporated city in Iron County in 1851. A ...
and Salt Lake City, as Frémont and several other surviving members would continue to California. Carvalho later recovered enough to reach Los Angeles, California and its small Jewish community, helping them organize the Hebrew Benevolent Society. A major part of his near 300 daguerreotypes taken during the expedition were lost in a fire. The surviving ones would later be given by Fremont to
Mathew Brady to copy on wet plate negatives, and they became mixed up with others of Brady's work.
Carvalho published his diary of the five-month journey, ''Incidents of Travel and Adventure in the Far West; with Colonel Fremont's Last Expedition (1860),'' possibly before Frémont's presidential campaign or to fulfill a promise made to Mormon leaders during his recuperation.
After the
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states ...
, Carvalho moved his family to New York City, but cataracts impaired his continuing portrait work by 1869, and would ultimately blind him. He became an inventor, and two patents he received for steam superheating in 1877 and 1878 would not only win the Medal of Excellence from the American Institute of New York, but achieve financial security for the family. He and Sarah remained active in New York's Jewish community, and he tried to harmonize modern scientific thought and the biblical story of creation found in the
book of Genesis
The Book of Genesis (from Greek ; Hebrew: בְּרֵאשִׁית ''Bəreʾšīt'', "In hebeginning") is the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. Its Hebrew name is the same as its first word, ( "In the beginning" ...
in his final years, although that work was never published.
Death and legacy
Solomon Carvalho died in 1897 in
Pleasantville,
Westchester County, New York
Westchester County is located in the U.S. state of New York. It is the seventh most populous county in the State of New York and the most populous north of New York City. According to the 2020 United States Census, the county had a population ...
, and is buried in historic
Beth Olom cemetery in Ridgewood,
Queens County, New York. His son David Nunes Carvalho (1845-1925) would become a famous paper, ink and handwriting analyst and author, with his forensic work acknowledged by
Arthur Conan Doyle, although his testimony at the second trial of
Alfred Dreyfus (that Major Esterhazy wrote the treasonous notes) would fail to acquit the accused officer.
Carvalho is considered a pioneer in travel photography as were, for example,
Francis Bedford,
George Wilson Bridges,
Maxime Du Camp
Maxime Du Camp (8 February 1822 – 9 February 1894) was a French writer and photographer.
Biography
Born in Paris, Du Camp was the son of a successful surgeon. After finishing college, he indulged in his strong desire for travel, thanks to ...
, and
Francis Frith
Francis Frith (also spelled Frances Frith, 7 October 1822 – 25 February 1898) was an English photographer of the Middle East and many towns in the United Kingdom.
Frith was born in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, attending Quaker schools at Ackwo ...
. Carvalho's words, ''"Emigration is a gate to the Salt Lake Valley, veiled in obscurity, and unknown to the citizens of the United States" – Solomon Carvalho 1852'', were memorialized on Emigration Canyon Monument in one of Salt Lake City's parks. A historic marker dedicated to Col. Fremont and Solomon Carvalho's contribution was raised on Wild Horse Butte in Utah.
Filmmaker Steve Rivo made a
documentary film
A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in te ...
entitled ''Carvalho's Journey'', that was released in 2015 and has aired on PBS.
Carvalho's Journey: A One-Hour Documentary Film
/ref>
References
External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:Carvalho, Solomon Nunes
1815 births
American Reform Jews
Jewish American artists
19th-century Sephardi Jews
American people of Portuguese-Jewish descent
American Sephardic Jews
Burials at Beth Olom Cemetery
American photographers
1897 deaths
19th-century American painters
People from Baltimore
People from Charleston, South Carolina
People from Pleasantville, New York
Jewish explorers
Sephardi Reform Jews