There’s a common saying that everything old is new again and we can definitely see evidence of that in the midst of current U.S. political campaigns that rely heavily on imagery to craft certain views of the candidates. Images can grip us with differing stories of people, places, and events depending on their content, but also depending on their context and placement. This is a particularly appropriate moment to look at parallels from the past.
Photography ushered in an era of image obsession that has grown steadily over time resulting in an omnipresence of photographs that is largely accepted as normal today. The first commercially viable photographic medium—the Daguerreotype—was created in 1839, followed quickly by the calotype, a process capable of producing negatives to create multiple identical prints. In 1851, the collodion wet plate process that resulted in the production of glass plate negatives was invented. Against this backdrop of rapid technological development, Abraham Lincoln stepped into the political spotlight and predictably became the most photographed president of the time and one of the most-often photographed people of the 19th century. Lincoln posed for at least 36 different photographers, and it is two of those early portrait sessions that helped to shape his political career.
Lincoln’s was the first presidential campaign to use photographic portraits of the candidate, with easily reproducible images used on badges and other campaign materials. Seeing images of the presidential candidates helped the voting public to feel like they knew them a little better. Alexander Hesler (1823-1895) photographed Lincoln near the beginning of his presidential campaign in 1860. The two elegant portraits produced from that session were widely circulated among a public that was clamoring for images and information about the presidential candidates.
In these studio images Lincoln looks refined and dignified, with a gravitas that suggests sincerity and trustworthiness. He looks (dare we say it?) presidential. But there is a bigger story behind these images that starts with another photograph taken by Hesler three years earlier. Hesler’s 1857 image showed a disheveled Lincoln—one who arguably did not look like a convincing leader or a master orator. This earlier disheveled picture, often referred to as the “tousled hair” portrait, was captured when Lincoln was practicing law, traveling from county seat to county seat on the Eighth Judicial Circuit. The photo was captured in a hasty portrait session at Hesler’s Springfield, Illinois, studio.
Lincoln’s political supporters became concerned that this messy portrait was being marketed by Hesler—including in the windows of his photographic studios in Springfield and Chicago—alongside a more polished photograph of Lincoln’s opponent, senator Stephen A. Douglas. In his portrait Douglas appeared to be a more reliable leader and a better choice to hold the highest office in the land. This contrast was especially evident when viewed next to a portrait highlighting Lincoln’s untidy appearance. Hesler captured the two 1860 images at the urging of Lincoln’s political supporters, who then circulated them widely to help inscribe a particular idea of Lincoln as a dignified and reliable figure into the public record.
Lincoln and his supporters understood how to leverage the persuasive power of photographic imagery even at the very beginning of the medium.
Milner Library’s Special Collections holds two large-scale gelatin silver prints from Hesler’s 1860 portrait session. The two prints are from a limited-edition printing and have an equally fascinating story of the life, near-death, and resurrection of a glass plate image, but we’ll save that bit of history for a different day.
All items from the Lincoln Collection of H.K. Sage can be viewed in the Special Collections Reading Room on Floor 6 in Milner Library.
