About America's Oldest Photograph
Smaller than a Post-it note, measuring barely 2 inches square
A photograph (or photo ) is an image created by capturing light on a light-sensitive surface, such as film or a digital sensor, typically using a camera. The word comes from the Greek words phos (light) and graphé (drawing or writing) — literally meaning "drawing with light."
When a photograph is taken, a camera's lens focuses incoming light onto the recording surface, which registers the varying intensities and colors of that light to produce a detailed, realistic image of whatever was in front of the lens at that moment. In the early days of photography, that surface was a chemically treated metal or glass plate, then film; today it is most commonly a digital sensor.
Central High School at Walnut and Juniper, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is the site of America’s oldest photograph. Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission acknowledges it as America’s earliest surviving photograph. The Historical Society of Pennsylvania defines it as the oldest extant photograph in the United States. Oldpik describes it as the oldest surviving photograph in the United States.
In the fall of 1839, Joseph Saxton looked out his window in Philadelphia and did something almost no one in this country had done before — he took a picture. From an upper window of the United States Mint, then located at the corner of Chestnut and Juniper Streets, Saxton used a cigar box and a glass lens to create a daguerreotype — an image captured on a light-sensitive silver-coated metallic plate.
The subject was Philadelphia's Central High School, the nation's second public high school, located at Walnut and Juniper Streets. The daguerreotype process had been created and perfected by Louis Daguerre during the 1830s, and Saxton had learned about the method and crafted his own apparatus for taking photographs.
The man behind the camera was a remarkable figure in his own right. Born in Western Pennsylvania, Saxton had limited formal education, but what he lacked in schooling he made up for in engineering genius. At age 18, he moved to Philadelphia and quickly established himself as an expert watchmaker, helping design a four-faced clock for the steeple at Independence Hall.
Among his many inventions were a device for measuring ship velocity, another for measuring water in a steam boiler, a prototype for the fountain pen, and a tide gauge believed to be the first device to register an earthquake.
The resulting daguerreotype is tiny — barely 2 inches square — and is now held in the collection of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, where it can be viewed by appointment. It is not a dramatic view or composition — it simply shows Central High School at Walnut and Juniper sitting next to the Philadelphia armory, taken from across the street where Saxton worked. Its historical significance, however, is enormous.
Saxton's feat also inspired his associate Robert Cornelius — a lamp-maker whose photography studio at Eighth and Market Streets was one of the first in the world — who likely even prepared the silver-coated plate that Saxton used. Cornelius went on to become the first American to take a picture of a human being. As one archivist wryly noted, the photograph could also be the first documented example of a government employee doing personal work on company time!