Charleston Loan Exhibition

31 The history of photography began in the nineteenth century with the invention of the daguerreotype, a new form of art that manipulated light and allowed art- ists to take the likeness of a sitter in a matter of minutes. Developed in 1839 by Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre, this new technology was introduced in America around 1840. In New Orleans, a young George Smith Cook (1819–1902) tediously practiced the art of the daguerreotype, noting the result of different light exposures and the camera position on the clarity and look of the plate. 1 Smith spent most of the next decade traveling with his wife and children throughout the United States, and built his reputation as one of the nation’s leading photographers. Journeying to South Carolina in 1849, Cook realized the lucrative potential for his craft in Charleston and set up a studio. He was well established when, in his Charleston studio, he captured the images of then three-year-old Charlotte Helen Middleton (1854–1937), grand- daughter of Alicia Hopton Russell Middleton, and an enslaved household nurse identified by the donor as Lydia. 2 Both sitters gaze intently at the photographer, blond-haired Charlotte comfortably settled in her caregiver’s lap. In contrast, Lydia sits erect, with her hair completely covered in a textile, its complex wrapping echoing styles worn by her African ancestors. A plaid scarf covers her shoulders, she wears an apron over her patterned-fabric dress. BJO, KS 1. Jack C. Ramsay, Jr., Photographer…Under Fire : The Story of George C Cook (Green Bay, WI: Historical Resource Press, 1994), 24. 2. Object file, Gibbes Musuem of Art/Carolina Art Association, Charleston, SC. George Smith Cook (American, 1819–1902) Charlotte Helen Middleton with nurse, Lydia Charleston, SC, 1857 Hand-tinted ambrotype, 3¾ x 2¾ inches Lent by Gibbes Museum of Art/Carolina Art Association, Charleston, SC, 1937.005.0010