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Robert Cornelius
Letter Soliciting Business for Robert Cornelius’s Studio
1840, 11 May
Letter
Historical Society of Pennsylvania
Accession number requested.
LL/84211
Catching a Shadow - Daguerreotypes in Philadelphia 1839-1860
(Accessed: 15 July 2018)
Robert Cornelius opened one of America’s first (and Philadelphia’s first) daguerreotype studios on May 6, 1840, after more than seven months of experimentation. He had obtained a lens from the city’s leading optician John McAllister, built a camera, and in October 1839 purchased seven pounds of “Rich Plate for the daguerreotype business.” John McAllister became Cornelius’s first paying customer. In this letter, Cornelius’s brother-in-law and future partner in the lamp manufacturing business encourages journalist and future Philadelphia mayor, Morton McMichael, to visit the studio for a portrait. In addition to personal solicitations, Cornelius took out many newspaper advertisements touting his new venture. His promotional efforts likely paid off since only a month after the studio’s opening, the United States Gazette reported being “astonished at the excellent likenesses of many well known citizens which Mr. Cornelius has taken.”
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