World Digital Library

George Washington (1732‒99) was the first president of the United States, a founding father and national hero revered by both North and South during the American Civil War. He had limited formal education, but he learned surveying and served in the French and Indian War with the Virginia militia under General Edward Braddock of the British army. He rose to the rank of colonel, and was the logical choice to command the Continental Army in the American War of Independence. Washington wished to return to private life after the war, but was drafted to chair the convention that drew up the United States Constitution. He then served two terms as president and established a powerful precedent by retiring in 1787, when he returned to his estate at Mount Vernon. Washington died before the invention of photography, but several portraits of him were painted during his lifetime. The image is from an album of mostly Civil War-era portraits by the famous American photographer Matthew Brady (circa 1823‒96) that belonged to Emperor Pedro II of Brazil (1825‒91), a collector of photography as well as a photographer himself. The album was a gift to the emperor from Edward Anthony (1818‒88), another early American photographer who, in partnership with his brother, owned a company that in the 1850s became the leading seller of photographic supplies in the United States. Dom Pedro may have acquired the album during a trip to the United States in 1876 when he, along with President Ulysses S. Grant, opened the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. Brady was born in upstate New York, the son of immigrants from Ireland. Best known for his photographs documenting the battles of the American Civil War, he began his career in 1844 when he opened a daguerreotype portrait studio at the corner of Broadway and Fulton Streets in New York City. Over the course of the next several decades, Brady produced portraits of leading American public figures, many of which were published as engravings in magazines and newspapers. In 1858 he opened a branch in Washington, DC. The album, which also contains a small number of non-photographic prints, is part of the Thereza Christina Maria Collection at the National Library of Brazil. The collection is composed of 21,742 photos assembled by Emperor Pedro II throughout his life and donated by him to the national library. The collection covers a wide variety of subjects. It documents the achievements of Brazil and Brazilians in the 19th century and also includes many photographs of Europe, Africa, and North America.

Vice President Alexander H. Stephens, Confederate States of America

Alexander H. Stephens (1812‒83) was vice president of the Confederate States of America. Born on a small farm in the Georgia Piedmont, he studied law, was admitted to the bar, and soon was elected to the Georgia state assembly. In 1843 he was elected to the U.S. Congress as a member of the Whig Party. Unusually for a southern politician, he had reservations about the annexation of Texas and opposed the Mexican War and President James K. Polk’s vast program of territorial expansion, all of which he believed would create unnecessary friction between north and south and in the end endanger the institution of slavery, which he supported. When Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860, Stephens urged his fellow Georgians to reject secession. When secession came, Stephens was chosen as vice president, in part to provide a large-state, one time anti-secessionist counterweight to the more radical President Jefferson Davis from the small state of Mississippi. Stephens was not close to Davis, and criticized his conduct of the war. After the Civil War, Stephens was elected to Congress in 1873 and as governor of Georgia in 1882. He served only four months as governor before he died in office. The image is from an album of mostly Civil War-era portraits by the famous American photographer Matthew Brady (circa 1823‒96) that belonged to Emperor Pedro II of Brazil (1825‒91), a collector of photography as well as a photographer himself. The album was a gift to the emperor from Edward Anthony (1818‒88), another early American photographer who, in partnership with his brother, owned a company that in the 1850s became the leading seller of photographic supplies in the United States. Dom Pedro may have acquired the album during a trip to the United States in 1876 when he, along with President Ulysses S. Grant, opened the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. Brady was born in upstate New York, the son of immigrants from Ireland. Best known for his photographs documenting the battles of the American Civil War, he began his career in 1844 when he opened a daguerreotype portrait studio at the corner of Broadway and Fulton Streets in New York City. Over the course of the next several decades, Brady produced portraits of leading American public figures, many of which were published as engravings in magazines and newspapers. In 1858 he opened a branch in Washington, DC. The album, which also contains a small number of non-photographic prints, is part of the Thereza Christina Maria Collection at the National Library of Brazil. The collection is composed of 21,742 photos assembled by Emperor Pedro II throughout his life and donated by him to the national library. The collection covers a wide variety of subjects. It documents the achievements of Brazil and Brazilians in the 19th century and also includes many photographs of Europe, Africa, and North America.

The Photographic Album is an album of portraits by the famous American photographer Matthew Brady (circa 1823‒96) that belonged to Emperor Pedro II of Brazil (1825‒91), a collector of photography as well as a photographer himself. The album was a gift to the emperor from Edward Anthony (1818‒88), another early American photographer who, in partnership with his brother, owned a company that in the 1850s became the leading seller of photographic supplies in the United States. Dom Pedro may have acquired the album during a trip to the United States in 1876 when he, along with President Ulysses S. Grant, opened the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. Brady was born in upstate New York, the son of immigrants from Ireland. Best known for his photographs documenting the battles of the American Civil War, he began his career in 1844 when he opened a daguerreotype portrait studio at the corner of Broadway and Fulton Streets in New York City. Over the course of the next several decades, Brady produced portraits of leading American public figures, many of which were published as engravings in magazines and newspapers. In 1858 he opened a branch in Washington, DC. The album, which also contains a small number of non-photographic prints, is part of the Thereza Christina Maria Collection at the National Library of Brazil. The collection is composed of 21,742 photos assembled by Emperor Pedro II throughout his life and donated by him to the national library. The collection covers a wide variety of subjects. It documents the achievements of Brazil and Brazilians in the 19th century and also includes many photographs of Europe, Africa, and North America.

Stephen A. Douglas (1813‒61) was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1843 and to the Senate in 1846, where he emerged as a nationally prominent spokesman for the Democratic Party. He is best known for the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858. Running for his third term in the Senate, Douglas was challenged by Abraham Lincoln, a lawyer from Springfield who had served one term in the House. Between August 21 and October 15 the two men debated seven times before audiences in different cities and towns in Illinois, with the central issue being slavery. Douglas championed what was known as popular sovereignty, the position that held that the voters of each territory should determine whether it entered the Union as a free state or a slave state. Lincoln opposed the extension of slavery to new states and territories under all circumstances. In the November 2 election the Republicans won more popular votes than the Democrats, but the state legislature voted to return Douglas to the Senate. Douglas ran for president in 1860, but was defeated by Lincoln. The image is from an album of mostly Civil War-era portraits by the famous American photographer Matthew Brady (circa 1823‒96) that belonged to Emperor Pedro II of Brazil (1825‒91), a collector of photography as well as a photographer himself. The album was a gift to the emperor from Edward Anthony (1818‒88), another early American photographer who, in partnership with his brother, owned a company that in the 1850s became the leading seller of photographic supplies in the United States. Dom Pedro may have acquired the album during a trip to the United States in 1876 when he, along with President Ulysses S. Grant, opened the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. Brady was born in upstate New York, the son of immigrants from Ireland. Best known for his photographs documenting the battles of the American Civil War, he began his career in 1844 when he opened a daguerreotype portrait studio at the corner of Broadway and Fulton Streets in New York City. Over the course of the next several decades, Brady produced portraits of leading American public figures, many of which were published as engravings in magazines and newspapers. In 1858 he opened a branch in Washington, DC. The album, which also contains a small number of non-photographic prints, is part of the Thereza Christina Maria Collection at the National Library of Brazil. The collection is composed of 21,742 photos assembled by Emperor Pedro II throughout his life and donated by him to the national library. The collection covers a wide variety of subjects. It documents the achievements of Brazil and Brazilians in the 19th century and also includes many photographs of Europe, Africa, and North America.

William Hickling Prescott (1796‒1859) was a prominent American historian, best known for his major works History of the Conquest of Mexico (1843) and History of the Conquest of Peru (1847). From a prosperous New England family, he graduated from Harvard in 1814. He suffered poor health, including near-blindness, throughout his life, but he was able to carry out his research with the help of his wife, Susan Amory Prescott, and others who read for him. For his meticulous use of archival documents and rare books as original sources, he is often called America’s first scientific historian. He chose big, sweeping themes for his work, and wrote about them with grace and a narrative flair. His other books include History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, the Catholic (1837) and A History of the Reign of Philip the Second, King of Spain (1855–58). The image is from an album of mostly Civil War-era portraits by the famous American photographer Matthew Brady (circa 1823‒96) that belonged to Emperor Pedro II of Brazil (1825‒91), a collector of photography as well as a photographer himself. The album was a gift to the emperor from Edward Anthony (1818‒88), another early American photographer who, in partnership with his brother, owned a company that in the 1850s became the leading seller of photographic supplies in the United States. Dom Pedro may have acquired the album during a trip to the United States in 1876 when he, along with President Ulysses S. Grant, opened the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. Brady was born in upstate New York, the son of immigrants from Ireland. Best known for his photographs documenting the battles of the American Civil War, he began his career in 1844 when he opened a daguerreotype portrait studio at the corner of Broadway and Fulton Streets in New York City. Over the course of the next several decades, Brady produced portraits of leading American public figures, many of which were published as engravings in magazines and newspapers. In 1858 he opened a branch in Washington, DC. The album, which also contains a small number of non-photographic prints, is part of the Thereza Christina Maria Collection at the National Library of Brazil. The collection is composed of 21,742 photos assembled by Emperor Pedro II throughout his life and donated by him to the national library. The collection covers a wide variety of subjects. It documents the achievements of Brazil and Brazilians in the 19th century and also includes many photographs of Europe, Africa, and North America.

Millard Fillmore (1800‒74) was the 13th president of the United States. The son of a poor tenant farmer from western New York, Fillmore received only a very limited education. After being apprenticed to a clothier, he read law with a local judge and was admitted to the New York state bar in 1823. A member of the Whig Party, he served three terms in the New York state legislature and four terms in the U.S. House of Representatives before being chosen as the vice-presidential running mate of Zachary Taylor in the election of 1848. He succeeded to the presidency upon Taylor’s death in July 1850. The major achievement of Fillmore’s presidency was the Compromise of 1850, worked out by Whig Party leader Henry Clay, which helped to avoid civil war for another decade. He also dispatched Commodore Matthew C. Perry on his famous mission to open Japan to trade with the West. The image is from an album of mostly Civil War-era portraits by the famous American photographer Matthew Brady (circa 1823‒96) that belonged to Emperor Pedro II of Brazil (1825‒91), a collector of photography as well as a photographer himself. The album was a gift to the emperor from Edward Anthony (1818‒88), another early American photographer who, in partnership with his brother, owned a company that in the 1850s became the leading seller of photographic supplies in the United States. Dom Pedro may have acquired the album during a trip to the United States in 1876 when he, along with President Ulysses S. Grant, opened the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. Brady was born in upstate New York, the son of immigrants from Ireland. Best known for his photographs documenting the battles of the American Civil War, he began his career in 1844 when he opened a daguerreotype portrait studio at the corner of Broadway and Fulton Streets in New York City. Over the course of the next several decades, Brady produced portraits of leading American public figures, many of which were published as engravings in magazines and newspapers. In 1858 he opened a branch in Washington, DC. The album, which also contains a small number of non-photographic prints, is part of the Thereza Christina Maria Collection at the National Library of Brazil. The collection is composed of 21,742 photos assembled by Emperor Pedro II throughout his life and donated by him to the national library. The collection covers a wide variety of subjects. It documents the achievements of Brazil and Brazilians in the 19th century and also includes many photographs of Europe, Africa, and North America.

Montgomery Blair (1813‒83) was postmaster general in the cabinet of President Abraham Lincoln. Born and educated in Kentucky, he graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1836 but soon left the army to study law. He moved to Saint Louis, Missouri, where he practiced law with his brother and where his father was an influential newspaper editor. In 1842‒43 he served as the mayor of Saint Louis. In 1853 he moved to Washington, DC, where he and his large family lived for a time in Blair House, across from the White House. The members of the Blair family were prominent border state exponents of a view that opposed slavery, but they did not espouse rapid abolition or full equality for blacks. In 1856 Blair represented the defendant in the infamous Dred Scott case before the United States Supreme Court, arguing unsuccessfully that Scott was entitled to his freedom by virtue of his residence in free territory. As a member of the cabinet, Blair was a staunch Unionist who stood alone in counseling Lincoln that he must not abandon Fort Sumter, lest the South be confirmed in its view that the North would not fight to preserve the Union. Blair threatened to resign if the fort was not reinforced. The image is from an album of mostly Civil War-era portraits by the famous American photographer Matthew Brady (circa 1823‒96) that belonged to Emperor Pedro II of Brazil (1825‒91), a collector of photography as well as a photographer himself. The album was a gift to the emperor from Edward Anthony (1818‒88), another early American photographer who, in partnership with his brother, owned a company that in the 1850s became the leading seller of photographic supplies in the United States. Dom Pedro may have acquired the album during a trip to the United States in 1876 when he, along with President Ulysses S. Grant, opened the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. Brady was born in upstate New York, the son of immigrants from Ireland. Best known for his photographs documenting the battles of the American Civil War, he began his career in 1844 when he opened a daguerreotype portrait studio at the corner of Broadway and Fulton Streets in New York City. Over the course of the next several decades, Brady produced portraits of leading American public figures, many of which were published as engravings in magazines and newspapers. In 1858 he opened a branch in Washington, DC. The album, which also contains a small number of non-photographic prints, is part of the Thereza Christina Maria Collection at the National Library of Brazil. The collection is composed of 21,742 photos assembled by Emperor Pedro II throughout his life and donated by him to the national library. The collection covers a wide variety of subjects. It documents the achievements of Brazil and Brazilians in the 19th century and also includes many photographs of Europe, Africa, and North America.

Gideon Welles (1802‒78) was secretary of the navy in the cabinet of President Abraham Lincoln. Born in Glastonbury, Connecticut, the son of a merchant and shipbuilder, Welles studied law but never practiced. He worked as a journalist for the Hartford Times and Weekly Advertizer and in 1825 he was elected to the Connecticut General Assembly. A longtime Democrat, he broke with his party over the issue of slavery and helped to found the Hartford Evening Press to promote the Republican Party and its principles. When Welles took office in March 1861, the U.S. Navy consisted of a mere 45 ships, of which only 12 were ready for service. Over the course of the next four years the navy purchased or had constructed 313 vessels, and bought or leased another 184 ships. By blockading the Confederate coast, cooperating with the army to capture New Orleans, and working with the army to gain control of such important inland waterways as the Cumberland, Tennessee, and ultimately the Mississippi rivers, the Navy under Welles made a major contribution to winning the war for the North. The image is from an album of mostly Civil War-era portraits by the famous American photographer Matthew Brady (circa 1823‒96) that belonged to Emperor Pedro II of Brazil (1825‒91), a collector of photography as well as a photographer himself. The album was a gift to the emperor from Edward Anthony (1818‒88), another early American photographer who, in partnership with his brother, owned a company that in the 1850s became the leading seller of photographic supplies in the United States. Dom Pedro may have acquired the album during a trip to the United States in 1876 when he, along with President Ulysses S. Grant, opened the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. Brady was born in upstate New York, the son of immigrants from Ireland. Best known for his photographs documenting the battles of the American Civil War, he began his career in 1844 when he opened a daguerreotype portrait studio at the corner of Broadway and Fulton Streets in New York City. Over the course of the next several decades, Brady produced portraits of leading American public figures, many of which were published as engravings in magazines and newspapers. In 1858 he opened a branch in Washington, DC. The album, which also contains a small number of non-photographic prints, is part of the Thereza Christina Maria Collection at the National Library of Brazil. The collection is composed of 21,742 photos assembled by Emperor Pedro II throughout his life and donated by him to the national library. The collection covers a wide variety of subjects. It documents the achievements of Brazil and Brazilians in the 19th century and also includes many photographs of Europe, Africa, and North America.

Secretary of the Interior Caleb B. Smith

Caleb B. Smith (1808‒64) was President Abraham Lincoln’s first secretary of the interior. He was born in Boston but at a young age moved with his parents to Cincinnati. After studying law in Ohio, as a young man he left the state for Indiana, where he was admitted to the bar, practiced law, and became active in politics. He was elected to five terms in the Indiana House of Representatives (1833‒42), followed by four terms in the U.S. House of Representatives (1843‒49). A member of the Whig and later the Republican Party, Smith played a major role in securing the support of the Indiana delegation for Lincoln at the 1860 Republican convention in Chicago and helped to win the state for Lincoln in the November general election. Smith’s appointment to the cabinet reflected the role that Indiana and he personally had played in electing Lincoln. Smith headed the Department of Interior until December 1862, when he resigned and was appointed by Lincoln to a federal judgeship. The image is from an album of mostly Civil War-era portraits by the famous American photographer Matthew Brady (circa 1823‒96) that belonged to Emperor Pedro II of Brazil (1825‒91), a collector of photography as well as a photographer himself. The album was a gift to the emperor from Edward Anthony (1818‒88), another early American photographer who, in partnership with his brother, owned a company that in the 1850s became the leading seller of photographic supplies in the United States. Dom Pedro may have acquired the album during a trip to the United States in 1876 when he, along with President Ulysses S. Grant, opened the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. Brady was born in upstate New York, the son of immigrants from Ireland. Best known for his photographs documenting the battles of the American Civil War, he began his career in 1844 when he opened a daguerreotype portrait studio at the corner of Broadway and Fulton Streets in New York City. Over the course of the next several decades, Brady produced portraits of leading American public figures, many of which were published as engravings in magazines and newspapers. In 1858 he opened a branch in Washington, DC. The album, which also contains a small number of non-photographic prints, is part of the Thereza Christina Maria Collection at the National Library of Brazil. The collection is composed of 21,742 photos assembled by Emperor Pedro II throughout his life and donated by him to the national library. The collection covers a wide variety of subjects. It documents the achievements of Brazil and Brazilians in the 19th century and also includes many photographs of Europe, Africa, and North America.

Edwin McMasters Stanton (1814‒69) was secretary of war from 1862 to 1868. Born in Steubenville, Ohio, he completed one year at Kenyon College before being forced to leave for financial reasons. He studied law with a local attorney and became a successful lawyer, practicing in Steubenville, Pittsburgh, and eventually Washington, DC, where he served for a time as attorney general in the administration of President James Buchanan. Following the resignation of Lincoln’s first secretary of war, Simon Cameron, Stanton was appointed to the post. He proved to be an administrative genius who cleaned up procurement scandals left over from Cameron and ensured the equipping and provisioning of the vast Union war establishment. Stanton stayed on in his post into the Reconstruction era, but he fell out with President Andrew Johnson over what Stanton saw as the latter’s excessively lenient policies toward the former Confederate states. The image is from an album of mostly Civil War-era portraits by the famous American photographer Matthew Brady (circa 1823‒96) that belonged to Emperor Pedro II of Brazil (1825‒91), a collector of photography as well as a photographer himself. The album was a gift to the emperor from Edward Anthony (1818‒88), another early American photographer who, in partnership with his brother, owned a company that in the 1850s became the leading seller of photographic supplies in the United States. Dom Pedro may have acquired the album during a trip to the United States in 1876 when he, along with President Ulysses S. Grant, opened the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. Brady was born in upstate New York, the son of immigrants from Ireland. Best known for his photographs documenting the battles of the American Civil War, he began his career in 1844 when he opened a daguerreotype portrait studio at the corner of Broadway and Fulton Streets in New York City. Over the course of the next several decades, Brady produced portraits of leading American public figures, many of which were published as engravings in magazines and newspapers. In 1858 he opened a branch in Washington, DC. The album, which also contains a small number of non-photographic prints, is part of the Thereza Christina Maria Collection at the National Library of Brazil. The collection is composed of 21,742 photos assembled by Emperor Pedro II throughout his life and donated by him to the national library. The collection covers a wide variety of subjects. It documents the achievements of Brazil and Brazilians in the 19th century and also includes many photographs of Europe, Africa, and North America.

Sam Houston (1793‒1863) was born in Virginia. As a teenager he lived for three years among the Cherokee Indians, whose language and culture he learned. He enlisted in the army in 1813 and fought in the War of 1812. After studying law and being elected to Congress and then as governor of Tennessee, he moved to Texas, where he played a large role in the uprising of American settlers against Mexican rule. He served for two terms as president of the independent Republic of Texas. After Texas was annexed by the United States, he served in the U.S. Senate and as governor of Texas. Like his hero and mentor Andrew Jackson, he was a slave owner who nonetheless favored preservation of the Union. He opposed the secession of Texas from the United States and was deposed as governor in 1861 when Texas opted to join the Confederacy. The image is from an album of mostly Civil War-era portraits by the famous American photographer Matthew Brady (circa 1823‒96) that belonged to Emperor Pedro II of Brazil (1825‒91), a collector of photography as well as a photographer himself. The album was a gift to the emperor from Edward Anthony (1818‒88), another early American photographer who, in partnership with his brother, owned a company that in the 1850s became the leading seller of photographic supplies in the United States. Dom Pedro may have acquired the album during a trip to the United States in 1876 when he, along with President Ulysses S. Grant, opened the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. Brady was born in upstate New York, the son of immigrants from Ireland. Best known for his photographs documenting the battles of the American Civil War, he began his career in 1844 when he opened a daguerreotype portrait studio at the corner of Broadway and Fulton Streets in New York City. Over the course of the next several decades, Brady produced portraits of leading American public figures, many of which were published as engravings in magazines and newspapers. In 1858 he opened a branch in Washington, DC. The album, which also contains a small number of non-photographic prints, is part of the Thereza Christina Maria Collection at the National Library of Brazil. The collection is composed of 21,742 photos assembled by Emperor Pedro II throughout his life and donated by him to the national library. The collection covers a wide variety of subjects. It documents the achievements of Brazil and Brazilians in the 19th century and also includes many photographs of Europe, Africa, and North America.

Washington Irving (1783‒1859) was one of the most widely read American authors of his day, and one of the first to be recognized in Europe for his works of fiction. Born in New York City of Scottish and Cornish ancestry, Irving frequently wrote about old New York (New Amsterdam) and the Hudson Valley under the original Dutch settlers, at first by creating a literary persona, the fictional Dutchman “Diedrich Knickerbocker.” His most famous work, The Sketch-Bookof Geoffrey Crayon (1819‒20), purportedly by another persona, contained the famous “Rip Van Winkle,” “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” and other tales. Irving also wrote biographies of Christopher Columbus and George Washington, and served as U.S. minister to Spain in 1842‒46. The image is from an album of mostly Civil War-era portraits by the famous American photographer Matthew Brady (circa 1823‒96) that belonged to Emperor Pedro II of Brazil (1825‒91), a collector of photography as well as a photographer himself. The album was a gift to the emperor from Edward Anthony (1818‒88), another early American photographer who, in partnership with his brother, owned a company that in the 1850s became the leading seller of photographic supplies in the United States. Dom Pedro may have acquired the album during a trip to the United States in 1876 when he, along with President Ulysses S. Grant, opened the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. Brady was born in upstate New York, the son of immigrants from Ireland. Best known for his photographs documenting the battles of the American Civil War, he began his career in 1844 when he opened a daguerreotype portrait studio at the corner of Broadway and Fulton Streets in New York City. Over the course of the next several decades, Brady produced portraits of leading American public figures, many of which were published as engravings in magazines and newspapers. In 1858 he opened a branch in Washington, DC. The album, which also contains a small number of non-photographic prints, is part of the Thereza Christina Maria Collection at the National Library of Brazil. The collection is composed of 21,742 photos assembled by Emperor Pedro II throughout his life and donated by him to the national library. The collection covers a wide variety of subjects. It documents the achievements of Brazil and Brazilians in the 19th century and also includes many photographs of Europe, Africa, and North America.

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804‒64) was an American novelist and short-story writer. Descended from an early Puritan family, he was born in Salem, Massachusetts, and educated at Bowdoin College. His works, many of which are set in colonial New England, explore moral and spiritual conflicts and the power of the past over the present. His best-known works include Twice-Told Tales (1837), Mosses from an Old Manse (1846), The Scarlet Letter (1850), The House of the Seven Gables (1851), and The Blithedale Romance (1852). He served as American consul at Liverpool in 1853‒57 and was a friend or acquaintance of many important American writers, including Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Herman Melville, and Henry David Thoreau. The image is from an album of mostly Civil War-era portraits by the famous American photographer Matthew Brady (circa 1823‒96) that belonged to Emperor Pedro II of Brazil (1825‒91), a collector of photography as well as a photographer himself. The album was a gift to the emperor from Edward Anthony (1818‒88), another early American photographer who, in partnership with his brother, owned a company that in the 1850s became the leading seller of photographic supplies in the United States. Dom Pedro may have acquired the album during a trip to the United States in 1876 when he, along with President Ulysses S. Grant, opened the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. Brady was born in upstate New York, the son of immigrants from Ireland. Best known for his photographs documenting the battles of the American Civil War, he began his career in 1844 when he opened a daguerreotype portrait studio at the corner of Broadway and Fulton Streets in New York City. Over the course of the next several decades, Brady produced portraits of leading American public figures, many of which were published as engravings in magazines and newspapers. In 1858 he opened a branch in Washington, DC. The album, which also contains a small number of non-photographic prints, is part of the Thereza Christina Maria Collection at the National Library of Brazil. The collection is composed of 21,742 photos assembled by Emperor Pedro II throughout his life and donated by him to the national library. The collection covers a wide variety of subjects. It documents the achievements of Brazil and Brazilians in the 19th century and also includes many photographs of Europe, Africa, and North America.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807‒82) was an American poet, translator, and educator, whose poems were immensely popular with the reading public of his day. A graduate of Bowdoin College in his native Maine, he served as professor of modern European languages first at Bowdoin and later at Harvard. In his long career he managed to combine the writing of poems on American subjects with translation of works by many of the great European poets. His narrative poems on American historical subjects include Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie (1847), The Song of Hiawatha (1855), and The Courtship of Miles Standish (1858). His most famous translation is that of Dante’s Divine Comedy, which he published in 1867. Longfellow is said to have known a dozen European languages. The image is from an album of mostly Civil War-era portraits by the famous American photographer Matthew Brady (circa 1823‒96) that belonged to Emperor Pedro II of Brazil (1825‒91), a collector of photography as well as a photographer himself. The album was a gift to the emperor from Edward Anthony (1818‒88), another early American photographer who, in partnership with his brother, owned a company that in the 1850s became the leading seller of photographic supplies in the United States. Dom Pedro may have acquired the album during a trip to the United States in 1876 when he, along with President Ulysses S. Grant, opened the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. Brady was born in upstate New York, the son of immigrants from Ireland. Best known for his photographs documenting the battles of the American Civil War, he began his career in 1844 when he opened a daguerreotype portrait studio at the corner of Broadway and Fulton Streets in New York City. Over the course of the next several decades, Brady produced portraits of leading American public figures, many of which were published as engravings in magazines and newspapers. In 1858 he opened a branch in Washington, DC. The album, which also contains a small number of non-photographic prints, is part of the Thereza Christina Maria Collection at the National Library of Brazil. The collection is composed of 21,742 photos assembled by Emperor Pedro II throughout his life and donated by him to the national library. The collection covers a wide variety of subjects. It documents the achievements of Brazil and Brazilians in the 19th century and also includes many photographs of Europe, Africa, and North America.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803‒82) was the most prominent American essayist and philosopher of the 19th century. Born in Boston, he was educated at the Boston Latin School and at Harvard College. He studied divinity and served for a time as a Unitarian minister but left the ministry in 1832, after the death of his first wife. He then settled in Concord, Massachusetts, and spent the remainder of his life writing and lecturing. He made several trips to Europe, where he met such poets and thinkers as Walter Savage Landor, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth, and Thomas Carlyle, who became a lifelong friend. Emerson was part of the group of American philosophers known as the Transcendentalists, whose members included the early feminist and political radical Margaret Fuller and the writer Henry David Thoreau. Emerson’s best known essays include “The American Scholar,” “Self-Reliance,” and “Friendship.” The image is from an album of mostly Civil War-era portraits by the famous American photographer Matthew Brady (circa 1823‒96) that belonged to Emperor Pedro II of Brazil (1825‒91), a collector of photography as well as a photographer himself. The album was a gift to the emperor from Edward Anthony (1818‒88), another early American photographer who, in partnership with his brother, owned a company that in the 1850s became the leading seller of photographic supplies in the United States. Dom Pedro may have acquired the album during a trip to the United States in 1876 when he, along with President Ulysses S. Grant, opened the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. Brady was born in upstate New York, the son of immigrants from Ireland. Best known for his photographs documenting the battles of the American Civil War, he began his career in 1844 when he opened a daguerreotype portrait studio at the corner of Broadway and Fulton Streets in New York City. Over the course of the next several decades, Brady produced portraits of leading American public figures, many of which were published as engravings in magazines and newspapers. In 1858 he opened a branch in Washington, DC. The album, which also contains a small number of non-photographic prints, is part of the Thereza Christina Maria Collection at the National Library of Brazil. The collection is composed of 21,742 photos assembled by Emperor Pedro II throughout his life and donated by him to the national library. The collection covers a wide variety of subjects. It documents the achievements of Brazil and Brazilians in the 19th century and also includes many photographs of Europe, Africa, and North America.

George Bancroft (1800‒91) was one of the most important American historians of the 19th century. After graduating from Harvard, he became one of the first Americans to gain a doctorate in Germany, where he studied at the University of Göttingen. The first volume of his monumental History of the United States of America was published in 1834; the tenth and final volume appeared in 1874. Bancroft was also active in politics and diplomacy. A Jacksonian Democrat, he served as secretary of the navy in 1845‒46 under President James K. Polk, and was later U.S. minister to Great Britain (1846‒49) and Prussia (1867‒74). During the Civil War he was a War Democrat who supported Lincoln in the election of 1864. The image is from an album of mostly Civil War-era portraits by the famous American photographer Matthew Brady (circa 1823‒96) that belonged to Emperor Pedro II of Brazil (1825‒91), a collector of photography as well as a photographer himself. The album was a gift to the emperor from Edward Anthony (1818‒88), another early American photographer who, in partnership with his brother, owned a company that in the 1850s became the leading seller of photographic supplies in the United States. Dom Pedro may have acquired the album during a trip to the United States in 1876 when he, along with President Ulysses S. Grant, opened the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. Brady was born in upstate New York, the son of immigrants from Ireland. Best known for his photographs documenting the battles of the American Civil War, he began his career in 1844 when he opened a daguerreotype portrait studio at the corner of Broadway and Fulton Streets in New York City. Over the course of the next several decades, Brady produced portraits of leading American public figures, many of which were published as engravings in magazines and newspapers. In 1858 he opened a branch in Washington, DC. The album, which also contains a small number of non-photographic prints, is part of the Thereza Christina Maria Collection at the National Library of Brazil. The collection is composed of 21,742 photos assembled by Emperor Pedro II throughout his life and donated by him to the national library. The collection covers a wide variety of subjects. It documents the achievements of Brazil and Brazilians in the 19th century and also includes many photographs of Europe, Africa, and North America.

William Cullen Bryant (1794‒1878) was an American poet and journalist. Born in western Massachusetts of New England Puritan stock, he practiced law in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, for a short time before achieving literary fame with the publication in 1817 of “Thanatopsis,” his best known poem. Bryant’s poems of nature, in which he found moral lessons in the natural beauties of the local landscape, earned him the appellation the “American Wordsworth,” after the English poet William Wordsworth (1770‒1850). He also worked as a journalist, editing The New York Evening Post from 1829 until 1878. He helped to found the Republican Party and championed the abolition of slavery. The image is from an album of mostly Civil War-era portraits by the famous American photographer Matthew Brady (circa 1823‒96) that belonged to Emperor Pedro II of Brazil (1825‒91), a collector of photography as well as a photographer himself. The album was a gift to the emperor from Edward Anthony (1818‒88), another early American photographer who, in partnership with his brother, owned a company that in the 1850s became the leading seller of photographic supplies in the United States. Dom Pedro may have acquired the album during a trip to the United States in 1876 when he, along with President Ulysses S. Grant, opened the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. Brady was born in upstate New York, the son of immigrants from Ireland. Best known for his photographs documenting the battles of the American Civil War, he began his career in 1844 when he opened a daguerreotype portrait studio at the corner of Broadway and Fulton Streets in New York City. Over the course of the next several decades, Brady produced portraits of leading American public figures, many of which were published as engravings in magazines and newspapers. In 1858 he opened a branch in Washington, DC. The album, which also contains a small number of non-photographic prints, is part of the Thereza Christina Maria Collection at the National Library of Brazil. The collection is composed of 21,742 photos assembled by Emperor Pedro II throughout his life and donated by him to the national library. The collection covers a wide variety of subjects. It documents the achievements of Brazil and Brazilians in the 19th century and also includes many photographs of Europe, Africa, and North America.

John-James Audubon (1785‒1851) was a self-taught artist and ornithologist known for his magnificent Birds in America, with its 435 folio engravings. The illegitimate son of a French sea captain, Audubon was born in Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti) and grew up in France, where he learned to draw local birds. He immigrated to the United States at age 18. He published Birds of America by subscription over an 11-year period, beginning in 1827. About 175 sets of the work were sold in Europe and the United States. In 1840‒44 he published a smaller, lower-cost edition of the book in seven volumes, which made his drawings known to the wider public. The image is from an album of mostly Civil War-era portraits by the famous American photographer Matthew Brady (circa 1823‒96) that belonged to Emperor Pedro II of Brazil (1825‒91), a collector of photography as well as a photographer himself. The album was a gift to the emperor from Edward Anthony (1818‒88), another early American photographer who, in partnership with his brother, owned a company that in the 1850s became the leading seller of photographic supplies in the United States. Dom Pedro may have acquired the album during a trip to the United States in 1876 when he, along with President Ulysses S. Grant, opened the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. Brady was born in upstate New York, the son of immigrants from Ireland. Best known for his photographs documenting the battles of the American Civil War, he began his career in 1844 when he opened a daguerreotype portrait studio at the corner of Broadway and Fulton Streets in New York City. Over the course of the next several decades, Brady produced portraits of leading American public figures, many of which were published as engravings in magazines and newspapers. In 1858 he opened a branch in Washington, DC. The album, which also contains a small number of non-photographic prints, is part of the Thereza Christina Maria Collection at the National Library of Brazil. The collection is composed of 21,742 photos assembled by Emperor Pedro II throughout his life and donated by him to the national library. The collection covers a wide variety of subjects. It documents the achievements of Brazil and Brazilians in the 19th century and also includes many photographs of Europe, Africa, and North America.

Major General Francis Preston Blair, Jr.

Francis Preston Blair, Junior (1821‒75) was a member of prominent political family with ties to the border states of Missouri and Maryland but which opposed slavery and stood with Lincoln during the Civil War. After serving two terms in the Missouri Senate, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1856 as a Free Soil Democrat, an opponent of the expansion of slavery to the territories. He switched his affiliation to the Republican Party in 1860. During the secession crisis that followed Lincoln’s election, he organized Unionist elements in Saint Louis (including German immigrants opposed to slavery) and did much to keep Missouri in the Union. He left Congress in 1862 and was appointed a brigadier general in the Union army. He raised seven Missouri infantry regiments and led a brigade under General William Tecumseh Sherman at the Battle of Vicksburg. After the war he was elected to the U.S. Senate, where he served one term. The image is from an album of mostly Civil War-era portraits by the famous American photographer Matthew Brady (circa 1823‒96) that belonged to Emperor Pedro II of Brazil (1825‒91), a collector of photography as well as a photographer himself. The album was a gift to the emperor from Edward Anthony (1818‒88), another early American photographer who, in partnership with his brother, owned a company that in the 1850s became the leading seller of photographic supplies in the United States. Dom Pedro may have acquired the album during a trip to the United States in 1876 when he, along with President Ulysses S. Grant, opened the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. Brady was born in upstate New York, the son of immigrants from Ireland. Best known for his photographs documenting the battles of the American Civil War, he began his career in 1844 when he opened a daguerreotype portrait studio at the corner of Broadway and Fulton Streets in New York City. Over the course of the next several decades, Brady produced portraits of leading American public figures, many of which were published as engravings in magazines and newspapers. In 1858 he opened a branch in Washington, DC. The album, which also contains a small number of non-photographic prints, is part of the Thereza Christina Maria Collection at the National Library of Brazil. The collection is composed of 21,742 photos assembled by Emperor Pedro II throughout his life and donated by him to the national library. The collection covers a wide variety of subjects. It documents the achievements of Brazil and Brazilians in the 19th century and also includes many photographs of Europe, Africa, and North America.

“Young Africa: Or, The Bone of Contention” is a print, copyrighted by Edward Anthony (1818‒88) in 1862, that was intended as a commentary on slavery, the major cause of the American Civil War (1861‒65) then raging. The print depicts a young African-American child, presumably a slave. A counterpart print, “Young America,” also copyrighted by Anthony in 1862, shows a white child of similar age. Both prints were included in an album of mostly Civil War-era portraits by the famous American photographer Matthew Brady (circa 1823‒96) that belonged to Emperor Pedro II of Brazil (1825‒91), a collector of photography as well as a photographer himself. The album was a gift to the emperor from Edward Anthony (1818‒88), another early American photographer who, in partnership with his brother, owned a company that in the 1850s became the leading seller of photographic supplies in the United States. Dom Pedro may have acquired the album during a trip to the United States in 1876 when he, along with President Ulysses S. Grant, opened the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. Brady was born in upstate New York, the son of immigrants from Ireland. Best known for his photographs documenting the battles of the American Civil War, he began his career in 1844 when he opened a daguerreotype portrait studio at the corner of Broadway and Fulton Streets in New York City. Over the course of the next several decades, Brady produced portraits of leading American public figures, many of which were published as engravings in magazines and newspapers. In 1858 he opened a branch in Washington, DC. The album, which also contains a small number of non-photographic prints, is part of the Thereza Christina Maria Collection at the National Library of Brazil. The collection is composed of 21,742 photos assembled by Emperor Pedro II throughout his life and donated by him to the national library. The collection covers a wide variety of subjects. It documents the achievements of Brazil and Brazilians in the 19th century and also includes many photographs of Europe, Africa, and North America.

President George Washington

Vice President Alexander H. Stephens, Confederate States of America

The Photographic Album

Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois

William H. Prescott

President Millard Fillmore

Postmaster General Montgomery Blair

Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles

Secretary of the Interior Caleb B. Smith

Secretary of War Edwin Stanton

Governor Sam Houston of Texas

Washington Irving

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Ralph Waldo Emerson

George Bancroft

William Cullen Bryant

John James Audubon

Major General Francis Preston Blair, Jr.

Young Africa: Or, The Bone of Contention