Most of our cellphones today are capable of taking pictures. Hundreds of thousands of digital images are taken and shared via social media. Cameras, film and prints are almost exclusively used today by artists, which brings photography to its humble beginnings.
Jacques Louis Daguerre invented the first commercial method of capturing an image using a copper plate coated in silver and light-sensitive chemicals in 1839. By the 1840s there were several American daguerrian artists making studio portraits and still life compositions. A daguerreotype of Joseph Naper taken around 1857 is one of the earliest types of photography in the image collection at Naper Settlement. There are a few unidentified daguerreotypes as well as ambrotypes and tintypes. The photographer of these images are not known.
The earliest known photographers in Naperville are Clark, Finley, Harner, Ludwig Luplau, Metzler, and Naperville’s most prolific artist, Christian Kendig.
Once paper photography was perfected, the cumbersome glass ambrotypes and metal tintypes were abandoned for fancy paper stock like c.d.v.s (cartes de visite, French for “calling cards”) and cabinet cards. Studios were highly decorated with props to pose the subjects and even the cards were highly embellished with designs. Photographers like Kendig advertised as photographic artists in art studios.
Although George Eastman registered the trademark, “Kodak” in 1888, it wasn’t until the invention of the Brownie camera in 1900 that created a mania with people taking pictures. Amateur photography produced thousands of images of Naperville alongside professionals like Bannister (who took over Kendig’s studios), Louis Hohlweg, Phillips, M. C. Ripsky, and Charles Koretke. Some of Koretke’s most famous images are found in the 1917 Homecoming book.
Currently the Naperville Heritage Society image collection contains over 14,000 images on all forms of photography. But the collection lacks images from the 1940s to present-day. Help us fill this void, donate your images of Naperville for future generations to enjoy.
Editor’s Note / Recently Positively Naperville columnist Bryan Ogg, left, was photographed 2016-digital style after attending a performance of “Naperville” on stage at Theater Wit in Chicago.
“I highly recommend Mat Smart’s play, ‘Naperville,'” noted Ogg, with a smile, adding another positive review to many raves for the Jeff Award-winning play.
