The "The 1st Inauguration Photograph Ever Taken" Story

 It was an ordinary day.  Reading about the recent Inauguration and looking at photograph after photograph of our county's most recent event.  Then I turned to page A9 of the local newspaper and there was a double-column wide, sepia-tone wet-plate collodion photograph of the Capitol building in Washington D.C. which at the time was still under construction. 

This sepia-tone photograph is the first ever taken at a Presidential Inauguration.
Taken March 4, 1851.

The stone yard, slightly visible in the foreground, is covered with wooden boards that served as the platform for the crowd.  The photograph was taken by Mr. John Wood who was the photographer for the Architect of the Capitol from 1856 to 1861.  The image seen here, as noted before, was taken using the wet-plate collodion method which is an early photographic technique invented by Englishman Frederick Scott Archer in 1851.  The process involved adding a soluble iodide to a solution of collodion (cellulose nitrate) and coating a glass plate with the mixture.  In the darkroom the plate was immersed in a solution of silver nitrate to form silver iodide.  The plate, still wet, was placed in the camera and exposed to light. or the scene being photographed.  It was then developed by pouring a solution of Pyrogallic acid over it and was fixed with a strong solution of sodium thiosulfate.  Immediate development and fixing was necessary because, after the collodion film had dried, it became waterproof and the reagent solutions could not penetrate it.  Other photographic styles of the time were the calotype, ambrotype and tintype.  Perhaps you have heard of one of these before.  The much earlier daguerrotype method of photography yielded only a positive and could not be reproduced as a photograph taken on glass which could act as a negative.  My guess is that Mr. Archer had a portable darkroom very close to where he took this photograph.  Mr. Wood's photograph is among a group of free-use archival images that have been made available by the Library of Congress for use by anyone, thus they carry no copyright.  What is rather interesting about the photograph displayed here from March 4, 1857 is the fact that it features Lancaster, Pennsylvania's own James Buchanan being sworn in as President of the United States.  He was the 15th President of the United States.  Luckily the weather was beautiful and the crowds were massive according to the local newspaper; The Lancaster Daily Evening Express.  I searched and searched the newspaper's archives, but was not able to find a photograph to go with the story  from March 4th.  My guess is that the photograph shown above was never posted in the Lancaster Newspaper.

This is a Presidential photo of Abraham Lincoln taken on Nov. 8, 1863.
You can see the big change in photographic technology from 1851 to 1863.

As far as President Buchanan, he would be the only bachelor in our nation's history.  His niece, Harriett Lane, served as his First Lady.  Two days after his  inauguration, the Supreme Court delivered the Dred Scott vs. Sanford decision, and in his final address before congress as President, Buchanan declared that the government could not legally prevent states from seceding from the Union.  It was that final act as President that influenced his poor historical standing.  No one knows if he could have prevented the Civil War had he ruled differently that day.  President Buchanan's home is a few miles from my home here in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and I have taken many trips through it in order to write a story or two about his home known as Wheatland.  Named so due to the fact that the fields around his house were at one time covered with wheat.  Many Lancasterians are now hoping that President Buchanan will move up a notch on the list of worst Presidents and no longer be voted the worst President we ever had.  Time will tell!  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.