Survey 4: Things are Getting Steamy

Steam, as in the steam engine. Get your minds out of the gutter.

Anyway,

From 1750 to 1850: A Summary

What a lot can happen in just 100 years. The long eighteenth century gave way to the age of enlightenment, in which the industrial revolution began to change the face of the world forever. The French revolution made a big step forward in its beheading of the monarchy; the times of feudalism and kingship had passed and the voice of the people rang out in a new political and philosophical age.

With the invention of the steam engine by James Watt, industrialism and urban cities came to life as mass production rose. Technological and scientific innovation were rampant especially within the new reign of queen Victoria, and with the industrial fabrication of materials such as iron and steel dawned the era of railways. By the mid 19th century, transportation by train and boat had become faster and more efficient than ever, and tools such as the cast-iron and steam press allowed for prints to be produced at an unseen rate.

With this new widespread distribution of printed materials, the role of writers, illustrators and designers became prominent. The creation of new type and layout was needed by advertisers, authors and printers in every occasion. Common people learned to read and write, and the beginnings of public education could be seen in the mid 1800s.

This new industrial era also allowed for foreign trade and policy to reach a peak, and the invention of the telegram facilitated rapid communication. Around this time, Japan opened itself to outside trade and its culture and art made a massive impact on the high society of the Victorian era. It is interesting to see how the style of Japanese artists influenced expressionist painters as well as fashion during the late 1850s to the early 1900s.

 

The Invention of Photography: It came in a flash

In 1802, Thomas Wedgwood (1771–1805), experimented with paper soaked in silver nitrate. As a result of his exploration he found that he was able to copy an image onto the paper with the use of glass and sunlight, but that the result could only be preserved in the dark. These were called photograms. Although he was unsuccessful in preserving his images, Wedgwood was the first to make a documented attempt at capturing camera images in a permanent form.

From 1816 to 1833, Joseph Niepce experimented with the effects of light on treated surfaces. He was the first to manage to fix an image that was captured with a camera, but a minimum of eight hours of exposure was required produce a picture. His partner, artist and entrepreneur Louis Daguerre, continued his work and eventually developed the daguerreotype process. The daguerreotype only needed a few minutes of exposure to the camera, and the results were clear and detailed as opposed to Niepce’s previous attempts which had come out mostly blurry. In 1839, the invention was publicly announced and given to the world by the french government as a ‘free gift’ (unpatented), with instructions published. Thus practical photography was born and spread.

This photograph, the oldest known in the world, was made by the French inventor Nicéphore Niépce in 1825.

“Daguerreotypes used highly polished silver sheets, iodized for sensitivity to light. Light from the subject passed through the camera’s aperture, creating a latent image on a silver sheet that was developed by mercury fumes and fixed by immersion in hyposulfite of soda. Hypo (sodium thiosulphate), discovered by the English scientist John Herschel in 1819, could be used to fix residual salts, an essential stage in the stabilization of photographic images, which otherwise would continue to darken when exposed to light.” (World History Encyclopedia, Photography, this is much too science-y to paraphrase without messing up). The Daguerreotype process was the most common commercial process until the late 1850s.

“Boulevard du Temple”, a daguerreotype made by Louis Daguerre in 1838. Known as the “first photograph to include people”.

In the same year, only a bit later than Daguerre, the English scientist William Henry Fox Talbot announced the success of his paper-based negative and salt print processes. In 1841, Talbot invented the calotype process. It was advantageous over the daguerreotype process, because a calotype negative could be used to make a large number of positive prints by contact printing. The Daguerreotype, on the other hand, could only be copied by rephotographing it with a camera. However, the calotype never became widely used as Talbot patented his process, but his process remains at the base of chemical film cameras today. After these first camera processes were invented, progress was made by inventors in the 1840s such as Hippolyte Bayard, John Herschel,  Janez Puhar, Niépce St. Victor, the Langenheim brothers, John Whipple and William Breed Jones.

“Willy”, Captured by Mary Dillwyn in Wales in 1853.

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