first surviving daguerreotype in America – by Joseph Saxon (courtesy of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania via Digital Camera World)
Toronto. … Yogi was the Yankee’s catcher for many years. He is famous for his many ‘quotes’ such as Deja Vu All Over Again.
Speaking of which, we all remember the famous earliest French images, but did you know a gentleman in Philadelphia also captured a ‘Daguerreotype’ late in 1839 after the process was announced and reached the new world?
In celebration of the USA’s 250th anniversary, the photo was featured by Digital Camera World along with this story. “Today (July 4th, 2026), America turns 250 years old – which means the US predates the invention of photography by about 50 years. But while the camera didn’t exist to record the Founding Fathers, the oldest known surviving American photograph was taken only shortly after the invention of the daguerreotype in France.
“Inventor Joseph Saxon was working at the US Mint in Philadelphia in the fall of 1839 when he experimented with a relatively new technology from Europe: he took a photo from a window, freezing the nearby Central High School in a small two-inch square. Exposing the photo took a full ten minutes.
“Saxon, however, didn’t take the daguerreotype with a traditional camera. He exposed the daguerreotype, which is a copper plate coated with silver, inside a cigar box with a crude lens attached.”
