Frederick Langenheim was a German-American photographer and pioneer of stereoscopic photography. With his brother, he made the first set of panoramic pictures of Niagara Falls and a sequential set of pictures of the first American total solar eclipse ever photographed.
Early life
Langenheim was born in Brunswick, Germany on May 5, 1809. He emigrated to America in 1840 to Philadelphia where his brother William was already living. William had immigrated to America in 1834 and lived in Texas for a while before moving to Florida and eventually to Philadelphia in 1839.
Langenheim and his brother William began working in 1840 for a German language newspaper edited by George Francis Schreiber in Philadelphia. Langenheim acquired a daguerreotype camera in 1841 from Von Voigtlander and formed a partnership with Schreiber in a photographic studio business for a couple of years. In 1843 Langenheim went into the photography studio business with his brother at 26–27 Exchange Street in Philadelphia. It was the W. & F. Langenheim firm and known as the Philadelphia daguerrotype establishment. They made in 1842 the first advertising picture in history. It was of patrons eating and drinking in the restaurant in the Philadelphia Exchange Building. The picture of people dining was hung in the hall of the building to attract potential customers for the dining room. In 1845, Langenheim took the first set of panoramic pictures of Niagara Falls ever photographed. The panoramic set of five adjacent scenes were placed in panels in a display frame. The daguerreotype pictures were the first of Niagara Falls according to photo historian Robert Taft. They were the first such pictures to gain world fame. There were eight sets of copies made. A set was sent to Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre and five crowned heads of Europe, Queen Victoria, and one each to the reigning rulers of Brunswick, Prussia, Saxony, and Wurttemberg. The seventh set was given to United States presidentJames Knox Polk. The eighth set was retained by the Langenheim brothers. Langenheim invented a technique in 1846 for coloring daguerreotype plates and was issued a patent for it. With his brother in 1849 Langenheim used a photography technique invented by Abel Niépce de Saint-Victor which produced negative lantern glass slides. They renamed it "hyalotype" photography and patented it in 1850. The hyalotype glass slides were produced by an albumen process and were used for views of historic buildings in New York City, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. These slides were also used in portraits of famous Americans. In 1850, Langenheim with his brother introduced stereoscopy and were the first Americans to sell stereocards to the public. Langenheim and his brother were the first to produce stereographs commercially in America. They operated the American Stereoscopic Company from about 1850 to 1860 in Philadelphia. On May 26, 1854, Langenheim and his brother took interval timed pictures of the first American total solar eclipse ever photographed. There were eight phases taken of different time sequences. They are the earliest known eclipse pictures taken in the United States. The seven surviving pictures are owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The pictures range in size from 1.25 inches high by 1 inch wide to. Six daguerreotypists and another photographer took images of the event, but only the Langenheim ones survive.
Langenheim and his brother William were active in selling photographs until William died in 1874; at that point, Langenheim retired. He died on January 10, 1879.
