The Cincinnati Waterfront, 1848 rochester.edu/news/photos/daguerreotype.html The Porter/Fontayne daguererotypes, panoramic views of the Cincinnati waterfront in 1848. The nature of the process (on copper plates) means that the images are massively more detailed and capable of almost infinite resolution. The nerd-geniuses at Eastman Photographic labs in Rochester NY restored the plates and the University has put them online. Possible to identify the day and hour the image was taken 24 September 1848, just before 2pm. Contains the first images of free blacks ever taken—Cincinnati had the largest ratio of free-blacks of any urban population in this period. Just across the river from the US Army depot at Covington, KY, where Dan Emmett learning military snare drumming from John Juba Clark. Site of Eliza’s escape over the frozen river at the climax of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and of George McDonald Fraser’s more colorful retelling of the story in Flash for Freedom. Great article from Wired magazine detailing how the restoration was accomplished: wired/magazine/2010/07/ff_daguerrotype_panorama/ But go to the above link, plate 3, and zoom in. Just above the side-wheeler Brooklyn, which herself is tied up to a larger boat whose name is obscured (but which has been identified by the steamboat buffs who first ID’d the day & time of the image, based upon shipping schedules), you can see various businesses: a ship chandlery, a blacksmith and “jobing" shop, a steamboat painting company. Just to the west of the chandlery, across the street, is the office block where, in 1848, Stephen Foster was a shipping clerk, just up the hill from the wharves where he probably first heard the melodies that became “O Susannah" and others. The streets that ended at the harbor were known as “Sausage Row" (where a large number of Germans, fleeing the 1848 revolutions, had settled) and “Rat Row". These were also the sites, after the Civil War, for the waterfront bars wherein Lafcadio Hearn saw the creole music and dancing that he described in “Minstrels of the Row." An incredible set of images.
Posted on: Wed, 26 Jun 2013 20:37:20 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015