Eleventh International Conference on The Image

Abstract

In advance of the total solar eclipse of 1869, the status of photography as a scientific research tool was experimental. Along with North American scientists, amateur and professional photographers alike embraced on the opportunity to capture an image of the corona during totality. In the weeks leading up to the eclipse, photographers practiced an elaborate choreography of exposing and developing plates in a range of weather conditions with an assortment of solutions. They imposed intense time constraints with razor-thin margins for error to replicate the immediacy of the eclipse event. This massive-scale photographic undertaking served as practice for the Transit of Venus expeditions in 1874 and related questions about the size of the universe. Their astonishing photographs of the eclipse phenomenon generated success and publicity that boosted American science and laid a foundation for the 1878 eclipse mania and its eventual contribution to national scientific greatness. The Philadelphia Photographer’s expedition to Burlington, Iowa provides particular insight into the materials, methods, challenges, and triumphs of early eclipse photography.