#MichaelBurgessShow 7: #PhotographyIcons – Alexander Gardner

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Alexander Gardner

Basic

Born	October 17, 1821 Paisley, Renfrewshire, Scotland
Died	December 10, 1882 (aged 61) Washington D.C., United States
Nationality	Scottish
Citizenship	United Kingdom, United States
Occupation	Photographer, Jeweler, Life insurance
Spouse(s)	Margaret Gardner [1]
Children	2[1]
Parents	James and Jean Gardner[2]

Early life

• born in Paisley, Renfrewshire

• apprentice jeweller at the age of fourteen, lasting seven years

• Gardner had a Church of Scotland upbringing and was influenced by the work of Robert Owen, Welsh socialist and father of the cooperative movement.

• By adulthood he desired to create a cooperative in the United States that would incorporate socialist values.

• In 1850, Gardner and others purchased land near Monona, Iowa, for this purpose, but Gardner never lived there, choosing to return to Scotland to raise more money.

• He stayed there until 1856, becoming owner and editor of the Glasgow Sentinel in 1851.

• Visiting The Great Exhibition in 1851 in Hyde Park, London, he saw the photography of American Mathew Brady, and thus began his interest in the subject.

• Gardner and his family immigrated to the United States in 1856

• He initiated contact with Brady and came to work for him that year, continuing until 1862.

• At first, Gardner specialized in making large photographic prints, called Imperial photographs, but as Brady’s eyesight began to fail, Gardner took on increasing responsibilities.

• In 1858, Brady put him in charge of the Brady’s Washington, D.C. gallery.

Career

Civil War Photography

• Abraham Lincoln became the American President in the November 1860 election and along with his election came the threat of war. Gardner, being in Washington, was well-positioned for these events, and his popularity rose as a portrait photographer, capturing the visages of soldiers leaving for war.

• Brady had the idea to photograph the Civil War. Gardner’s relationship with Allan Pinkerton (who was head of an intelligence operation that would become the Secret Service) was the key to communicating Brady’s ideas to Lincoln. Pinkerton recommended Gardner for the position of chief photographer under the jurisdiction of the U.S.

• Gardner became a staff photographer under General George B. McClellan, commander of the Army of the Potomac. At this point, Gardner’s management of Brady’s gallery ended. The honorary rank of captain was bestowed upon Gardner, and he photographed the Battle of Antietam in September 1862, developing photos in his travelling darkroom.

• Lincoln dismissed McClellan from command of the Army of the Potomac in November 1862, and Gardner’s role as chief army photographer diminished. About this time, Gardner ended his working relationship with Brady, probably in part because of Brady’s practice of attributing his employees’ work as “Photographed by Brady

• That winter, Gardner followed General Ambrose Burnside, photographing the Battle of Fredericksburg.

• Next, he followed General Joseph Hooker. In May 1863, Gardner and his brother James opened their own studio in Washington, D.C, hiring many of Brady’s former staff.

• Gardner photographed the Battle of Gettysburg (July 1863) and the Siege of Petersburg (June 1864–April 1865) during this time.

• In 1866, Gardner published a two-volume work, Gardner’s Photographic Sketch Book of the Civil War.

• Not all photographs were Gardner’s; he credited the negative producer and the positive print printer. As the employer, Gardner owned the work produced, as with any modern-day studio.

• The sketchbook contained work by Timothy H. O’Sullivan, James F. Gibson, John Reekie, William Pywell, James Gardner (his brother), John Wood, George N. Barnard, David Knox and David Woodbury, among others.

• Among his photographs of Abraham Lincoln were some considered to be the last to be taken of the President, four days before his assassination, although later this claim was found to be incorrect, while the pictures were actually taken in February 1865.[3] He also documented Lincoln’s funeral, and photographed the conspirators involved (with John Wilkes Booth) in Lincoln’s assassination. Gardner was the only photographer allowed at their execution by hanging, photographs of which would later be translated into woodcuts for publication in Harper’s Weekly.

Post-war

• After the war, Gardner was commissioned to photograph Native Americans who came to Washington to discuss treaties; and he surveyed the proposed route of the Kansas Pacific railroad to the Pacific Ocean

• After 1871, Gardner gave up photography and helped to found an insurance company.

• When asked about his work, he said, “It is designed to speak for itself. As mementos of the fearful struggle through which the country has just passed, it is confidently hoped that it will possess an enduring interest.”

• He became sick in the winter of 1882 and died shortly afterward on December 10, 1882, at his home in Washington, D.C.

• In 1893, photographer J. Watson Porter, who had worked for Gardner years before, tracked down hundreds of glass negatives made by Gardner, that had been left in an old house in Washington where Gardner had lived.

• The result was a story in the Washington Post and renewed interest in Gardner’s photographs.

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