The subject is a man who would become synonymous with the office itself, yet the title of the first US president to be photographed is not his. John Quincy Adams: The Last Founding Father While Abraham Lincoln is the most photographed president of the 19th century, the honor of being the first US president to be photographed goes to John Quincy Adams.
Lincoln Gardner: The First President Photographed
By the late 1830s and early 1840s, the former president, then in his 70s, sat for a series of portraits. While portraits of John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson exist from the 1840s, they were often created using other methods or were retouched photographs.
Because this was taken decades before he became president, it serves as a crucial historical document, showing the founding generation in the twilight of their lives. The famous Gettysburg Address photograph, however, is a myth—Brady's photographer, Mathew Brady, did not capture the actual event.
First President Photographed: Lincoln Gardner's Historic Daguerreotype
Notably, the renowned photographer Mathew Brady captured a daguerreotype of Adams in 1843, several years after he had left the White House. Photographers like Brady and Alexander Gardner captured the weight of the conflict in Lincoln's face.
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