Thomas Martin Easterly (October 3, 1809 – March 12, 1882) was a 19th-century American

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 ...

and photographer. One of the more prominent and well-known daguerreotypists in the

Midwest United States The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of the United States. I ...

during the 1850s, his studio became one of the first permanent

art galleries An art gallery is a room or a building in which visual art is displayed. In Western cultures from the mid-15th century, a gallery was any long, narrow covered passage along a wall, first used in the sense of a place for art in the 1590s. The lon ...

Missouri Missouri is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee ...

. Although his reputation was limited to the Midwest during his lifetime, he is considered to have been one of the foremost experts in the field of daguerreotype photography in the United States during the mid-to-late 19th century. He took the very first known photograph of a lightning bolt in history.

Biography

Born in Guilford, Vermont, he was the second of five children born to Tunis Easterly and Philomena Richardson. He reportedly came from a poor background, his father being a farmer and part-time shoemaker, and was living away from home at age 11. Around 1830, he was living in

St. Lawrence County, New York St. Lawrence County is a county in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2020 census, the population was 108,505. The county seat is Canton. The county is named for the Saint Lawrence River, which in turn was named for the Christian saint La ...

although little is known of his early years. He began working as itinerant calligrapher and a penmanship teacher traveling throughout

Vermont Vermont () is a state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to ...

New Hampshire New Hampshire is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...

and New York during the 1830s and 40s. By 1844, he had begun practicing photography taking outdoor photographs of architectural landmarks and scenic sites in Vermont. Among his earliest daguerreotypes, made a decade before outdoor photography was popular or profitable, those of the Winooski and

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...

rivers are the only known examples to be self-consciously influenced by the romantic landscape paintings of the

Hudson River School The Hudson River School was a mid-19th century American art movement embodied by a group of landscape painters whose aesthetic vision was influenced by Romanticism. The paintings typically depict the Hudson River Valley and the surrounding area, ...

artists. He was also the first and only daguerreotypist to identify his work using engraved signatures and descriptive captions. In the fall of 1845, Easterly traveled to the

and toured the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...

with Frederick F. Webb as representatives of the Daguerreotype Art Union. The two gained some notoriety from their photography of the criminals convicted of the murder of

George Davenport Colonel George Davenport, born George William King (1783 – July 4, 1845), was a 19th-century English-American sailor, frontiersman, fur trader, merchant, postmaster, US Army soldier, Indian agent, and city planner. A prominent and well-known ...

in October of that year. Iowa newspapers reported that Easterly and Webb had achieved a "splendid likeness" of the men shortly before their execution. Easterly and Webb continued touring on the Mississippi and

rivers for several months before spending the winter of 1846-47 in

Liberty, Missouri Liberty is a city in and the county seat of Clay County, Missouri, United States and is a suburb of Kansas City, located in the Kansas City Metropolitan Area. As of the 2020 United States Census the population was 30,167. Liberty is home to Willi ...

. The only known photograph of the first St. Charles Hotel in New Orleans, built to be the world's finest, was taken by Easterly ca. 1847. The following spring, Easterly and Webb went their separate ways with Easterly traveling on his own to

St. Louis St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

. He soon became popular for his portraits of prominent residents and visiting celebrities which were displayed in a temporary gallery on Glasgow Row. One of these portraits was that of

Chief Keokuk Keokuk (circa 1780–June 1848) was a leader of the Sauk tribe in central North America, and for decades was one of the most recognized Native American leaders and noted for his accommodation with the U.S. government. Keokuk moved his tribe sev ...

taken March 1847. He also took a daguerreotype of a lightning bolt, one of the first recorded "instantaneous" photographic images, while in St. Louis. This was later recorded in the '' Iowa Sentinel'' as an ''"Astonishing Achievement in Art"''. Before returning to Vermont in August 1847, the '' St. Louis Reveille'' described his as an ''"unrivaled daguerreotypist"''. He was brought back to Missouri by

John Ostrander John Ostrander (born April 20, 1949) is an American writer of comic books, including ''Suicide Squad'', ''Grimjack'' and '' Star Wars: Legacy''. Career Ostrander studied theology with the intent of becoming a Catholic priest, but now describes ...

, founder of the first daguerreotype gallery in St. Louis, in early 1848. Preparing for an extended "tour of the south", Ostringer asked Easterly to manage his portrait gallery. Esterly would continue running the gallery when Ostringer died a short time later. Many of his unique streetscapes depicting mid-19th-century urban life were taken from the windows of Ostringer's gallery. In June 1850, he married schoolteacher Anna Miriam Bailey and settled in St. Louis permanently. During the 1860s, improvements in photographic development caused daguerreotypes to become out of fashion. Easterly refused to acknowledge these changes believing the highly detailed daguerreotypes were far superior in terms of beauty or permanence urging the public to ''"save your old daguerreotypes for you will never see their like again"''. During the next decade, both his health and financial situation worsened. Despite the declining interest for pictures on silver, he was able to maintain his gallery until it burned in a fire in 1865. He was forced to move to a smaller location and continued working in near obscurity until his death in St. Louis on March 12, 1882. He had suffered from a long illness and partial paralysis in his final years and is thought to have been caused by prolonged exposure to

mercury Mercury commonly refers to: * Mercury (planet), the nearest planet to the Sun * Mercury (element), a metallic chemical element with the symbol Hg * Mercury (mythology), a Roman god Mercury or The Mercury may also refer to: Companies * Merc ...

, one of the key ingredients used in the daguerreotype process. After his death, his wife sold most of his personal collection to

John Scholton John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Second ...

, another noted St. Louis photographer. The Scholton family eventually donated the plates to the

Missouri Historical Society The Missouri Historical Society was founded in St. Louis on August 11, 1866. Founding members created the historical society "for the purpose of saving from oblivion the early history of the city and state". Organization The Missouri Historica ...

where they remained for nearly a century before being rediscovered during the 1980s by art scholars studying pre-American Civil War photography.Palmquist, Peter E. and Thomas R. Kailbourn. ''Pioneer Photographers from the Mississippi to the Continental Divide: A Biographical Dictionary, 1839-1865''. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2005. (pg. 220-222)

References

External links

Thomas Easterly Collection
from Missouri History Museum's Flickr page
Easterly Photos in the Missouri History Museum CollectionsThomas Easterly Daguerreotypes
a
the Newberry Library
{{DEFAULTSORT:Easterly, Thomas Martin Commercial photographers 1809 births 1882 deaths Artists from St. Louis People from Guilford, Vermont 19th-century American photographers Photographers from Vermont

Biography

References

Further reading

External links