Samuel Bemis

For the historian see Samuel Flagg Bemis

Dr. Samuel A. Bemis (1793–1881) was one of the earliest photographers in the United States. A small number of his daguerreotypes have survived.

Bemis was a Boston dentist when in April 1840 he acquired an early camera and became one of the first Americans to take a photograph. His extant daguerreotypes include views of Boston and of the White Mountains of New Hampshire. These images are the earliest known American photographs of natural landscapes.

Bemis's interest in photography began in March 1840 when he attended a series of lectures and demonstration of the daguerreotype process given by François Fauvel-Gouraud, a pupil of Louis-Jacques Mandé Daguerre and an agent for Alphonse Giroux & Cie., sole manufacturers of equipment endorsed by Daguerre. (Daguerre had announced his process in early 1839. Gouraud arrived in New York City on November 23, 1839, there exhibited daguerreotypes in December, and in January lectured in Philadelphia. By March he was lecturing in Boston with Edward Everett Hale among his other students; from there he travelled on to Providence, Rhode Island, and by 1842 was listed as a daguerrean in Buffalo, New York.)

Bemis bought his daguerreotype camera from Gouraud for $51, along with twelve daguerreotype plates (16.5 x 21.6 cm) at $2 each. His total investment was $76, a considerable sum. (This is believed to be the first camera sold commercially in the United States.) Four days later, on April 19, 1840, Bemis made his first daguerreotype. His early pictures were taken in Boston. When summer came, he photographed in the White Mountains around Crawford Notch, where he had recently relocated. Bemis was not a masterful technician; his remaining images show inadequate processing of the daguerreotype plates. Bemis actively daguerreotyped until October, 1843, and evidently took up other hobbies. However, his camera apparatus may still be seen in the George Eastman House along with the original bill of sale and a number of his images.

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