The countdown is on! The Daguerreian Society Symposium & Photo Fair is just weeks away, and we're excited to share more details on the featured speakers and presentations that will be among the highlights of this year's program.
These talks will take place on Friday, September 26 — the second day of our three-day conference, to be held September 25–27 in Hartford, CT.
For those unable to attend in person, registration for the Virtual Symposium Experience is available HERE.
EXPERT TALKS
Whirlwind Tour of 19th-Century Photography at the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library
Presenter: Matthew Daniel Mason
This presentation offers a fast-paced survey of the rich 19th-century photographic holdings at the library, with an emphasis on the Peter Palmquist and Meserve-Kunhardt collections. It explores rare and significant works, from Mexican War daguerreotypes to Yosemite Valley stereographs, portraits by pioneering women photographers, and images capturing the disruption of the American Civil War and national expansion in the Trans-Mississippi West. By tracing photographic materials across formats, regions, and creators, this talk highlights how these collections illuminate both the artistry and historical narratives of photography’s formative century.
Matthew Daniel Mason, PhD, has served as the Processing Archivist of Visual Resources at Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library since 2004. He oversees the arrangement, description, and preservation of cornerstone photographic holdings including the expansive Meserve-Kunhardt Collection, the rich collections of Peter Palmquist, and visual legacies of Carl Van Vechten and Gordon Parks. Dr. Mason also develops access strategies and cultivates partnerships with creators, information specialists, educators, scholars, and patrons to advance access to and the discovery of the library’s visual holdings. A historian of visual records in context, Dr. Mason earned his doctorate in United States history from the University of Memphis and a Master of Arts in Library and Information Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. An adjunct faculty member at Quinnipiac University since 2007, he has guided students through the history of photography and United States cultural history. His award-winning co-authored books include People of the Big Voice: Photographs of Ho-Chunk Families (2011) and Through a Woman’s Eye: The Early 20th-Century Photography of Alabama’s Edith Morgan (2015). Dr. Mason also lectures nationally on visual culture, archival ethics, and best practices for managing image collections.
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Portraits in the Stream of Time: Images of “Indians” Henry David Thoreau Encountered in New England
Presenter: Jane Turano-Thompson
Henry David Thoreau’s long-standing interest in Native Americans was profound, complicated, and evolved significantly over time. His passion for immersing himself in the “Indian” life was well-known to his friends, including Nathaniel Hawthorne and Ralph Waldo Emerson, and led to his travels and encounters with indigenous peoples in New England and beyond, from the 1840s on. This presentation will explore the images of some of the native inhabitants he encountered and described in his writings, and occasionally mentioned by other travelers. These portraits from public and private collections are not only relics of contact between Thoreau and the real lives of people he met but also documents of interaction between Native and non-Native cultures of sitters and artist/photographers in the greater multi-cultural community in which they were made. The fruits of these portrait sessions can be seen as assertions of self, documents of conflict, and, most importantly, as expressions of identity and survival in what was a rapidly changing landscape.
Jane Turano-Thompson, a graduate of Smith College, is an independent scholar and art historian, specializing in 19th-century American art, culture, and photography. Formerly Editor of The American Art Journal and Consulting Editor of that magazine, she has written for numerous art publications and has lectured at the Dublin Seminar for New England Folklife, the American Antiquarian Society, the New England American Studies Association, Smith College, Middlebury College, the New Bedford Whaling Museum, the Schwenkfelder Library & Heritage Center in Pennsylvania, and numerous other institutions throughout the Northeast. Several images from her collection were exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and published in the accompanying book, Photography and the American Civil War, by Jeff Rosenheim. She was a contributor to the Oxford Encyclopedia of Maritime History, published by Oxford University Press, and the featured speaker at the “Exploring the Eye of History” symposium of the New England Archivists Association.
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A Virginia Family in Pursuit of Their Likenesses: Encounters with “Mr. Tools,”“White Hurce,” and “Mr. Montgomry”
Presenter: Denise Bethel
The history of daguerreotypes most often originates with research devoted to the daguerreotypist; sometimes lacking, however, is a history of the medium from “the other side”— stories passed down to us by the sitters: how they interacted with their portraits, what their pictures meant to them, and when and how they were made. What can we learn by beginning not with the artist, but with the sitter? My accidental stumbling into the “other side” was a surprise, particularly in the case of the elusive “Mr. Tools” and “Mr. Montgomry.” Both “took likenesses” of my friend Llewellyn Hedgbeth’s rural Virginia family and are mentioned, albeit fleetingly, in her family’s daybooks.
Denise Bethel was in the auction business in New York City for over 35 years, first at Swann Galleries and later at Sotheby’s. After leaving Sotheby’s in 2015, she formed Denise Bethel LLC and now works as a consultant to private collectors and institutions, and is a writer and lecturer. Having worked as an auctioneer for so many years, she now especially enjoys helping her old clients give things away.
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Time Stands Still: Horology in Daguerreotypes
Presenter: Bob Frishman
From his digital collection, now numbering more than 800 examples of vintage-photography images showing clocks and watches, Bob Frishman will project and discuss appealing daguerreotypes. These include portraits in which watches announce the sitters’ affluence and sophistication, including occupationals of watchmakers and clockmakers, and photographs in which timekeepers represent human mortality as they have in iconic artworks for seven centuries.
Bob Frishman, founder in 1992 of Bell-Time Clocks in Andover, Massachusetts, has professionally restored nearly 8,000 mechanical clocks. He has published more than 150 articles and reviews, and he has lectured to more than 150 audiences on the history, culture, and technology of timekeeping. His award-winning biography of 18th-century Philadelphia clockmaker Edward Duffield was published in 2024 by the American Philosophical Society. See www.bell-time.com.
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On the Prairie with General Custer and His Hounds
Presenter: Brian Patrick Duggan
From 1862 to 1876, during General George Armstrong Custer’s army career and marriage to Elizabeth “Libbie” Bacon, he appears in 15 photographs with his dogs (occasionally Libbie is there too). Ranging from tintypes to stereo views to albumen images, the majority of these comparatively relaxed images were taken in the field, on campaigns, or on hunts. The Custers’ dogs were photographed with officers, ladies, troopers, Indian scouts, horses, a minister, a dead grizzly bear, and a dying buffalo. And when photographers were not present, the 19th-century equivalent of Photoshop was used to composite Custer with his dogs in published engravings.
These Custer images are held throughout several institutions and private collections, but perhaps the most remarkable was taken on an 1869 buffalo hunt in Kansas. Far from any settlement, a large group of mounted riders and blurred hounds pose behind a dangerous, mortally wounded bull. It’s a tense moment. Photographer W. J. Phillips and his assistant took a huge personal risk to set up the camera and expose this arguably unique, wet-plate photograph. With respect to photography and this image, Libbie Custer declared, “ ... I think this is the first time that the art has been called into use at a buffalo hunt.”
Brian Patrick Duggan, M.A., is a canine historian/image collector and award-winning author of Saluki: The Desert Hound and the English Travelers Who Brought It to the West; Horror Dogs: Man’s Best Friend as Movie Monster; General Custer, Libbie Custer and Their Dogs: A Passion for Hounds from the Civil War to Little Bighorn; and Fireside Tales: An Omnibus of Hound Fiction & Humor. Brian is a retired university technology educator with degrees in filmmaking and education. He’s currently an American Kennel Club judge, the editor for McFarland Publishers’ Dogs in Our World series, and member of the Dog Writers Association of America. His articles have been published internationally, and he has judged Saluki Specialties in Australia, Canada, England, Finland, Germany, New Zealand, and Norway. Having just typed “The End” on his first historical novel, Brian continues to research the 19th-century culture of dog portraits. He and Wendy live with their pack of Salukis in central California.
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New England Photography Studio Advertising Cards: Their Significance in Photographic, Printing, Typographic, and Advertising History
Presenter: Stanley B. Burns, MD
Printed advertising cards inserted into the backs of images offer a unique window into authorship and identity in photography, and their study uncovers layers of history in printing, typography, advertising, and photographic practice. In the mid-1850s, particularly in Massachusetts and throughout New England, photographers began including advertising cards behind their photographs. These cards detailed information such as studio location, pricing, equipment, and often made bold marketing claims — many branding themselves as the “cheapest.” Tracking these cards across time reveals the evolution of photographic formats, business ownership, and marketing strategy. Notably, this practice was entirely absent from major photographic centers such as New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, and Richmond. Representing a neglected chapter in the histories of photography, printing, and design, these cards — and the photographs they identify — remain collectible today, offering an ongoing opportunity for discovery and scholarship.
Stanley B. Burns, MD, is an internationally distinguished author, curator, historian, collector, archivist, and consultant for film and television. He currently holds four professorships at New York University Grossman School of Medicine. Dr. Burns began collecting early photography in 1975, and 50 years later, his archive of more than one million historic photographs is widely considered the most significant and comprehensive private collection of documentary photography. Over the years, he has donated tens of thousands of photographs to more than thirty institutions. Most recently, Yale University Medical School acquired his renowned collection of medical photography, and Dr. Burns has established a fellowship for those pursuing research in the field. In 1977, Dr. Burns founded The Burns Archive to share his photographic discoveries. He has authored 54 books, over 1100 articles, curated over 100 exhibitions, and consulted on dozens of documentaries and feature films. Each of his books has been on unexplored and under-appreciated aspect of history, culture, or photography. His upcoming publication, AMBRO-TYPE, focuses on the advertising of early photographic studios. Dr. Burns is a charter member of The Daguerreian Society.
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Photo Sleuth: Using AI and Crowdsourcing to Identify Portrait Photographs
Presenter: Kurt Luther
In this talk, I will show how technologies like social media, AI-based facial recognition, and digital archives allow us to solve photo mysteries that have eluded families and researchers for over a century. Specifically, I focus on Photo Sleuth (www.civilwarphotosleuth.com), a web-based platform originally developed by my research lab at Virginia Tech to help users identify unknown people in historical photos, primarily from the American Civil War era. The site has grown to over 20,000 registered users and 60,000 photos and has been featured by TIME magazine, Smithsonian magazine, and The History Channel. A new feature called BackTrace allows users to find photos with similar painted backdrops to try to identify unknown photographers and studio locations. In 2024, we founded a non-profit organization, The Photo Sleuth Foundation, to broaden our efforts to identify unknown subjects, photographers, and locations across all eras of historical photographs.
Kurt Luther, PhD, is Associate Professor of Computer Science and, by courtesy, History, at Virginia Tech and President of the Photo Sleuth Foundation, a non-profit organization whose mission is to rediscover the forgotten names and places in historical photographs through research, technology, and community. His team created Civil War Photo Sleuth, an online platform that combines facial recognition technology and crowdsourced human expertise to identify unknown subjects and photographers of American Civil War-era photos. The platform has been featured in TIME, Smithsonian, and The History Channel, and has identified photos in major public collections including the Library of Congress, National Archives, and National Portrait Gallery. He is also a senior editor at Military Images Magazine, where for over a decade he has published a regular column on Civil War photo sleuthing.
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Working in the Field: Creating a Panoramic Daguerreotype
Presenter: Mike Robinson
Frédéric Martens, an engraver, worked at Lerebours’ studio in Paris preparing printing plates for Excursions Daguerreiennes — remarkable views and monuments from around the world. The view from the studio window across the Seine at Pont Neuf was equally remarkable, and Martens sought to capture his full field of view, roughly 140 degrees, on a single daguerreotype plate. In 1844, lenses were limited to a 35-degree angle of view. His solution was to design and patent a camera that allowed the lens to pan across the view via pinion gears and a crank handle. The daguerreotype plate had to be curved to a radius matching the focal length of the lens. There are no surviving examples of Martens’ Megaskop-Kamera; however, the few remaining daguerreotypes made with it are astonishing. It has long been Robinson’s ambition to build a replica of the camera and the apparatus necessary to make curved-plate panoramic daguerreotypes today. In this talk, Robinson will share his experience in designing, constructing, and using this unique camera on location at Niagara Falls and Yosemite Valley.
Mike Robinson, PhD, is an artist-practitioner, teacher, conservator, and historian of the daguerreotype. He also serves as President of The Daguerreian Society. In June 2017, he earned his PhD in Photographic History with his dissertation entitled The Techniques and Material Aesthetics of the Daguerreotype. Robinson has taught graduate and undergraduate courses in 19th-Century Photographic Processes at Ryerson University in Toronto, and has lectured and taught daguerreotype workshops around the world, including in Toronto; Rochester; New York City; Chicago; Lacock Abbey, United Kingdom; Bry-sur-Marne, France; Amsterdam, Netherlands; California and Kolomna, Russia. His daguerreotypes are in the collections of The Portrait Gallery of Canada, The Art Gallery of Ontario, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Nelson-Atkins Museum, Harvard University, Carnegie-Mellon, The Snite Museum, The Fox Talbot Museum, The George Eastman House International Museum of Photography, Musée Metienne, The Russian Museum of Photography, The Museum of Fine Arts Boston, and many private collections.
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Mystery in Miniature: C. L. Goodrich and the Story Behind Three CDVs
Presenter: Carl Mautz
This talk will explore the remarkable life of C. L. Goodrich — a little-known 19th-century express messenger, journalist, adventurer, and showman — through the lens of three extraordinary cartes de visite discovered in a Portland, Oregon antique market. Drawing on genealogical research and Western U.S. history, the presentation traces Goodrich’s eclectic career from Oregon newspaperman to express rider, sometime benefactor of Lotta Crabtree, and founder of multiple publications across California, Idaho, Kansas, and eventually British Honduras (Belize). The talk also considers the likely role of Goodrich’s friend, pioneering photographer Joseph Buchtel, in creating the CDVs, and reflects on how the images, preserved in near-pristine condition, encapsulate both a colorful personality and a turbulent era. Part mystery, part biography, this presentation invites attendees to consider how a few surviving photographs can open a window onto an astonishing life.
Carl Mautz was born in Portland, Oregon, on April 3, 1943. He graduated from the University of Oregon in 1965 with a degree in history and in law in 1969. While practicing law to support his family, Mautz began collecting old photographs in 1972 and soon met legendary itinerant photo dealer Ken Appollo who taught him to appreciate the basics of dealing old photographs and also the importance of imprints on photographs that provided information about each photographer whose work was being collected. In 1975, Mautz met Robert O. Brown, who lived a mile from his home in Portland and later published the Collector’s Guide to 19th Century U. S. Traveling Photographers. Brown had listed a number of photographers from imprints on cartes-de-viste and cabinet cards from western states. This list was included in a box of photographs Brown sold to Mautz, and it was from this list that the Checklist of Western Photographers was created and distributed by Mautz in 1975, eventually leading to his 772-page volume, Biographies of Western Photographers. Mautz retired from law in 1995 and moved to Nevada City, California, where he published 25 books under the imprint of Carl Mautz Publishing. Most of the books relate to the history of photography.
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The Woman's Eye: Case Studies from Latin America
Presenter: Carlos G. Vertanessian
The dawn of photography in Argentina, particularly during the Daguerreian era (1840–1870), remains shrouded in mystery, especially concerning the vital roles played by women. This talk aims to illuminate this neglected period, placing Argentine women photographers within the broader context of their European and American contemporaries. Antonia Brunet de Annat, a French miniature painter, stands as Argentina's pioneering female daguerreotypist. Her remarkable career, encompassing painting, teaching, and photography, culminated in her acquisition of a daguerreotype studio in 1854 — a bold move in a fiercely competitive market, especially as a widow and single mother. Juana Manso, a visionary writer, journalist, and feminist, offers a compelling example of how women strategically utilized photography. In a society resistant to her progressive campaigns for female education and empowerment, Manso harnessed the power of her image to challenge prevailing norms and counteract negative public perceptions. This presentation will examine the work of these early female practitioners in Argentina and across Latin America and will describe the hidden histories and challenging dominant narratives that Vertanessian’s research has uncovered.
Carlos G. Vertanessian is an acclaimed Argentine independent scholar specializing in early photography in Latin America, particularly the daguerreian period in Argentina and Uruguay. He has built an extensive collection of related images and literature, authoring four significant books on visual culture in his country: Primeros Daguerrotipos en Argentina (1843–1844); El retrato imposible: Imagen y poder en el Río de la Plata; Retratos del Plata: Historias del daguerrotipo (1839–1859); and his latest, PRIMERAS. Las argentinas y la fotografía. 1840–1871, which reflects his ongoing dedication to researching women in photography. Two of his books have received national cultural interest declarations from Argentina’s National Academy of Fine Arts and Ministry of Culture. Vertanessian has curated the two most prominent public daguerreotype collections in Argentina at the Museo Histórico Nacional and the Complejo Museográfico Enrique Udaondo. In 2023, he received The Daguerreian Society Fellowship Award “for the advancement of scholarship in the field of photo history and the willingness to share that knowledge.” A national and international guest lecturer and writer, he is a scholar of Instituto Nacional Sanmartiniano, Instituto Nacional Browniano, and Instituto Bonaerense de Numismatica y Antigüedades in Argentina, and is also a Board Member of The Daguerreian Society.
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Navigating the Evolving Market for 19th-Century Photographs — A Panel Discussion
Moderator: Wes Cowan
This panel will explore current trends in the buying and selling of 19th-century photographs, with insights drawn from recent auctions and private sales. Are the drivers of market value shifting? What’s hot — and what’s not? How are changing collector demographics and evolving institutional priorities influencing prices? Join us for a lively discussion on whether we may be entering a new golden age for collecting early photography.
Speakers:
- Wes Cowan, Daguerreian Society Vice President and auctioneer
- Denise Bethel, former longtime head of Sotheby’s New York photographs department, now consultant, writer, and lecturer.
- Katie Horstman, Vice President and Head of American Historical Ephemera & Early Photography, Freeman’s | Hindman Auctions
- Diane Waggoner, PhD, Curator of Photographs, National Gallery of Art, Washington
- Erin Waters, photo historian, collector, and dealer
We look forward to seeing you in Hartford and online!
