Google's homepage doodle for November 18th celebrates Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre (1787-1851) who invented one of the earliest forms of permanent photography, which he aptly named the Daguerreotype. Daguerre had been working with a partner, Nicéphore Niépce, to find a way of affixing an image seen through a lens onto a permanent surface. Niépce died in 1933, but Daguerre continued with their experiements and finally in 1839, he presented the first photographs to the French Académie des Sciences. (from: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/dagu/hd_dagu.htm - accessed November 18, 2011)In celebration of this groundbreaking invention, we are posting pictures of the daguerreotypes in our Archival collection. Unfortunately, we do not know who these two people are, but the photographs have been dated to ca. 1845. For more information on caring for daguerreotypes, you can visit the Daguerreotype Research Portal.
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