John Johnson (inventor)

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John Johnson
John Johnson photo 1871.jpg
circa 1870
Born(1813-05-28)May 28, 1813
Saco, Maine
DiedMay 3, 1871(1871-05-03) (aged 57)
Saco, Maine
NationalityAmerican
OccupationMechanic
Known for
  • subject of first portrait picture
  • partner of first portrait studio
Camera light path from reflecting mirror ('C') of a person's portrait image with the rays concentrated onto a plate ('B').
Johnson's father getting portrait taken at Beard's London studio in the 1840s using Wolcott style mirror camera.

John Johnson (May 28, 1813 – May 3, 1871) was a watchmaker technician and maker of dental instruments. He was a nineteenth-century experimental photographer and inventor. With a business partner he made the first patented camera that took photographs. They started the world's first commercial portrait studio. Johnson developed portrait studio franchises throughout England and sold photography license rights.

Early life[]

Johnson was born in Saco, Maine on May 28, 1813. His father was William Short Johnson.[1]

Mid life[]

Johnson lived his childhood and got his initial schooling in Pembroke, New Hampshire. The first job he obtained was in 1832, as an assistant to a watchmaker in New York City. In 1837 he formed a business with Alexander S. Wolcott there, making dental instruments.[2][3]

Career[]

On October 6, 1839, Johnson took to Wolcott a detailed copy of the specifications on Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre's method of capturing a likeness of a person.[4][5][6] Wolcott was familiar with the mechanics of optics and experimented on improving Daguerre's basic methods of using lenses.[7] He made a camera that day with improvements on the basic design.[2] The camera was a wooden box 15 inches long, 8.5 inches high, and 8 inches wide, with a 7-inch concave mirror in the back.[8]

The camera had a large opening in front where the light rays, reflected from the person, passed through an aperture to display their portrait image. The photosensitive two-inch exposure plate was in a detachable frame in the center of this aperture opening, just inside the box. The operator of the camera would set up the focusing of the portrait picture on a non-sensitized plate first. Once the camera was focused with all of the mechanical items involved, the camera operator would replace the focusing plate with the sensitized plate to take the picture.[8]

Wolcott realized that exposure time could be reduced by improving the mechanical arrangement of the image-focusing process.[9] He did this with a concave reflector of a 3–4 inch diameter that produced a short focus length.[10] The focused image was formed onto a chemically treated silver surfaced plate that was sensitive to light. The plate was about 2×2.5 inches and could hold the picture indefinitely.[11]

Johnson and his partner Wolcott started experimenting with the Daquerre camera design on October 6, 1839. Wolcott had constructed a workable camera within 24 hours and took a picture of Johnson.[12] Wolcott took this picture on October 7, the first portrait in the world.[13][14][15]

On March 4, 1840, they opened the first studio in the world as a commercial enterprise for taking portrait pictures of people.[11][16][17] The customer would sit for their likeness to be captured on a permanent medium for future viewing.[18][19] The commercial photography studio was located in New York City at Broadway and Chambers Street.[20][21] Johnson, with Wolcott, created the world's first photography portrait studio as a business.[22][23][24] They opened their commercial daguerreotype photography portrait studio in March 1840.[25][26][27]

Europe[]

Wolcott's camera design details were taken to London by Johnson's father, William S. Johnson, in February 1840 with the intention of getting an English patent.[28] A European franchise financial arrangement was worked out by him with Richard Beard, a coal merchant and entrepreneur.[20][29] Johnson himself traveled to London in the fall of 1840 to give technical instructions to Beard who was setting up a photographer's studio on top of the Royal Polytechnic Institution located on Regent Street.[5][6] They hired John Frederick Goddard, a chemist and optics technician, to help set up the studio.[30] Beard then developed franchises of portrait studios throughout England using British Patent 8546 that he bought from Johnson for a claimed amount of £7,000.[28][31]

Goddard created a chemistry formula using iodine monobromide to make the image plate sensitive to light so that an image would develop on it much faster than the daguerreotype cameras of the time. The image plate used iodine chloride to make the plates sensitive to light, which helped to shorten the camera exposure time. The concave mirror reflector improvement and the photosensitive plate were the key innovative features Wolcott based his 1840 camera invention on that made portraits a possibility.[28] This made exposure time as low as a few minutes in bright sunlight and since a person could be still for that time it thus made portraits possible.[32][33] Beard then opened the first public portrait studio of Europe in London in March 1841,[30] the Daguerrean gallery at the Polytechnic Institute.[28][34]

Johnson in 1842 received a patent in the United States for prepared photographic plates ready for permanently holding images. This was the first patented camera that took photographs. He obtained from Beard the patent rights for taking daguerreotype portrait pictures in the counties of Lancashire, Cheshire and Derbyshire in England. He opened a portrait studio in 1843 next to the Athenaeum on Victoria Street in Derby. Johnson in 1844 sold the studio to William Akers and sold the English daguerreotype licence for Derbyshire to Thomas Roberts, a newsagent.[6]

Later life[]

Johnson was treasurer of the American Photographic Society.[35] In 1866 he became the first president of York Institute, an educational organization.[6][36] Johnson died on May 3, 1871, in Saco, Maine.[37]

Legacy[]

An 1840 model of Wolcott-Johnson's portrait camera was discovered in 1976 at the Saco Museum in Maine.[38][39] It was deposited there by Johnson when he was the first curator of the museum, which was known as the York Institute.[40]

References[]

  1. ^ Rinhart, Floyd; Rinhart, Marion (April 1977). "Wolcott and Johnson; Their Camera and Their Photography". History of Photography. Benezit Dictionary of Artists (Oxford University Press): 99–109, 129–134.
  2. ^ a b Heathcote 2002, pp. 87–89.
  3. ^ "Wolcott, Alexander Simon & Johnson, John". Benezit Dictionary of Artists. Oxford University. 2020. doi:10.1093/benz/9780199773787.article.B2230803. Retrieved October 16, 2020.
  4. ^ "Next Year Will Be Celebrated The Centennial of Photography". The Times-Independent. Moab, Utah. November 24, 1938 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. ^ a b Simkin, David (2005). "John Johnson (1813–1871)". Derbyshire Photographers' Profiles. Retrieved August 14, 2017.
  6. ^ a b c d "John Johnson 1813 - 1871". Science Museum Group collection. Science Museum Group UK. 2020. Retrieved October 12, 2020.
  7. ^ Watson, Elmo Scott (June 13, 1940). "Again is Raised the Question of Who Made the First Camera in the U.S." The Times-Independent. Moab, Utah. p. 2 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. ^ a b Gernsheim 1955, p. 91.
  9. ^ Watson, Elmo Scott (November 25, 1938). "The First Portrait". The Pleasant Grove Review. Pleasant Grove, Utah. p. 7 – via Newspapers.com.
  10. ^ Taft 2008, p. 33-35.
  11. ^ a b Robertson 2011, p. 580.
  12. ^ Hannavy 2013, p. 1501.
  13. ^ Taft 2008, pp. 33–35.
  14. ^ Watson, Elmo Scott (November 25, 1938). "Next Year will be celebrated the Centennial of Photography". The Ironwood Times. Ironwood, Michigan. p. 10 – via Newspapers.com. On October 7, 1939, Wolcott made a successful portrait of Johnson and this Taft calls the first.
  15. ^ Watson, Elmo Scott (June 14, 1940). "Took The First Photographic Portrait". Piute County News. Junction, Utah. p. 6 – via Newspapers.com. Wolcott, who was an instrument maker and manufacturer of dental supplies, took a daguerrotype of his partner, John Johnson, on October 7, 1839, according to Taft, and this was the first photographic portrait.
  16. ^ McGraw-Hill 1969, p. 459.
  17. ^ Neblette 1949, p. 12.
  18. ^ Kane 1997, p. 414.
  19. ^ Glenner 1990, p. 11.
  20. ^ a b SPSE 1957, p. 6.
  21. ^ "America's First Look into the Camera: Daguerreotype Portraits and Views, 1839–1862". Library of Congress. 2017. Retrieved August 14, 2017. In 1840, the first commercial portrait gallery, New York's Wolcott and Johnson, used large mirrors mounted outside the studio to project as much sunlight onto the customer as possible, in a sitting that could last for as long as eight minutes.
  22. ^ "Timeline". The History of Photography Archive. 2017. Retrieved August 14, 2017.
  23. ^ Karad 2014, p. 49.
  24. ^ "Early Portraiture". The Central News. Perkasie, Pennsylvania. December 30, 1897. p. 4 – via Newspapers.com.
  25. ^ Marzec 2004, p. 49.
  26. ^ Martin 1988, p. 34.
  27. ^ PJA 1868, p. 175.
  28. ^ a b c d Hannavy 2013, p. 126.
  29. ^ Chaudhuri 2007, p. 64.
  30. ^ a b KodakMuseum 1989, p. 21.
  31. ^ "New York Correspondence". Photographic Journal of America. 5 (49): 175–177. 1868.
  32. ^ Coe 1978, p. 18.
  33. ^ Rosenblum 1997, p. 196.
  34. ^ "Beard's Coloured Photographic". The Guardian. London, England. May 18, 1850. p. 4 – via Newspapers.com.
  35. ^ "By-Laws of the American Photographic Society". The Photographic and Fine Art Journal. XIL: 21. 1861. Retrieved October 12, 2020.
  36. ^ "About the Saco Museum". SacoMuseum.org. Saco Museum. 2020. Retrieved October 12, 2020.
  37. ^ Heathcote 2002, p. 87.
  38. ^ "Brevard Couple Locates Rare Camera". Florida Today. Cocoa, Florida. August 11, 1976. p. 5B – via Newspapers.com.
  39. ^ "Oldest camera found". The Journal News. White Plains, New York. December 14, 1978. p. 64 – via Newspapers.com.
  40. ^ "Experts Have History Framed". Florida Today. Cocoa, Florida. January 5, 1977. p. 1D – via Newspapers.com.

General references[]

  • Chaudhuri, Arun (2007). Indian Advertising:1780-1950. Tata McGraw-Hill Education. ISBN 978-0-07-060461-2.
  • Coe, Brian (1978). Cameras: Daguerreotypes to Instant. Crown Publishers. ISBN 978-0-517-53381-9.
  • Gernsheim, Helmut & Alison (1955). The history of photography. Oxford University Press. OCLC 1126380910. Being able to take portraits in as 'short' a time as from hours to 5 minutes, Wolcott and Johnson had opened the world's first 'Daguerrean Parlor' in New York City at the beginning of March 1840.
  • Glenner, Richard A. (1990). The American dentist. Pictorial Histories Pub. Co. ISBN 978-0-929521-05-3. He also developed a system of photographic studio lighting in February 1840 and on March 13, 1840 opened the world's first commercial photographic studio. Wolcott made dental instruments and equipment with his partner, John Johnson.
  • Hannavy, John (2013). Enclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Photography. Routledge. ISBN 978-1135873271.
  • Heathcote, Bernard & Pauline (2002). A faithful likeness. B. & P. Heathcote. ISBN 978-0-9541934-0-9.
  • Kane, Joseph Nathan (1997). Famous first facts. H.W. Wilson. ISBN 978-0-8242-0930-8. #5813. The first commercial photography studio in the world was opened on March 4, 1840, in New York City by Alexander S. Wolcott and John Johnson. On May 8, 1840, Wolcott received the first photography patent, for “a method of taking likenesses by means of a concave reflector and plates so prepared that luminous or other rays will act thereon.” The photographs, 2 by 2.5 inches, were not reversed, as were daguerrotypes with refracting lenses.
  • Karad, Ashok (27 March 2014). Clinical Orthodontics. Elsevier Health Sciences. ISBN 978-81-312-3168-5.
  • KodakMuseum (June 1989). The Story of popular photography. Trafalgar Square Pub. ISBN 978-0-943955-15-5.
  • Martin, Elizabeth (1988). Preserving Old Photographs. Collins. ISBN 978-0-00-412142-0.
  • Marzec, Robert P. (2004). The Mid-Atlantic Region. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-313-32954-8.
  • McGraw-Hill (1969). Focal Encyclopedia of Photography. McGraw-Hill. OCLC 11720.
  • Neblette, Carroll Bernard (1949). Photography. D. Van Nostrand company inc. OCLC 1710949. Alexander Wolcott ... He opened a studio for the making of Daguerreotypes in New York City on March 4, 1840. This was the first commercial photographic establishment in the United States.
  • PJA (1868). Photographic Journal of America ... Benerman & Wilson.
  • Robertson, Patrick (11 November 2011). Robertson's Book of Firsts. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1-60819-738-5. The first, a profile portrait of New York dental supplies manufacturer John Johnson, was taken by his partner Alexander S. Wolcott on 7 October 1839. It was a mere 9 mm square. The partners open the world's first photographic portrait studio the following March.
  • Rosenblum, Naomi (1 February 1997). A world history of photography. Abbeville Press. ISBN 978-0-7892-0028-0.
  • SPSE (1957). Photographic Science and Engineering. Society of Photographic Scientists. OCLC 231782886. Wolcott opened a portrait studio on March 13, 1840.
  • Taft, Robert (November 2008). Photography and the American Scene. Acls History E Book Project. ISBN 978-1-59740-586-7.
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