Figure 1 – Union soldiers on the lawn of Arlington House, June 28, 1864. In the collection of the United States National Archives. This work is in the public domain in the United States because it is a work prepared by an officer or employee of the United States Government as part of that person’s official duties under the terms of Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 105 of the US Code.

It is Memorial Day weekend in the United States, and our thoughts run to the soldiers who sacrificed their lives in what seems like countless wars. Our news media abounds with images of thousands of flag being planted.Then too we think of the Arlington National Cemetery, a national symbol, where so many of these dead are buried.

It has an interesting history. In 1802 George Washington Parke Custis, a  grandson of Martha Washington, acquired the land where the cemetery now stands and began construction of Arlington House. The estate passed to Custis’ daughter, Mary Anna, who was married to United States Army officer Robert E. Lee.   Lee resigned his commission on April 20, 1861 and took command of the armed forces of the Commonwealth of Virginia, later becoming commander of the Army of Northern Virginia. On May 7, the Virginia militia occupied Arlington and Arlington House thus threatening Washington, DC. ^. General Winfield Scott ordered Brigadier General Irvin McDowell to clear Arlington and the city of Alexandria, Virginia, of the confederates   He occupied Arlington without opposition on May 24. In 1862 the grounds of Arlington House became the site of the National Cemetery.  The snub at Lee was an obvious one.  He would have to look out at the dead of the Civil War for the rest of his life. The first burial at Arlington, that of William Henry Christman, was made on May 13, 1864.

The United States National archives has an intriguing photograph, reproduced here as Figure 1.  It was taken on June 28, 1864 and shows Union troops occupying the lawn of Arlington House. There is a certain timelessness of marble contrasted against the soldiers now gone with the wind.  I keep being drawn to the delicate beauty of the stone. And there is that strange similarity evoked by the all too familiar poses.  It could be any of us.  Then too the windows thrown open wide speaks to the Washington heat and humidity that those soldiers must have felt.

Figure 1 – Australian troops charging an Ottoman trench during the Gallipoli Campaign, from the Wikipedia, from the US National Archives and in the public domain.

This past Saturday was the 100th anniversary of the amphibious landing, largely of Australian and New Zealand troops, that marked the beginning of what became know as the Gallipoli Campaign. The naval attack was repelled, and after eight months’ of miserable fighting, with huge casualties on both sides, the land campaign was abandoned and the invasion force was withdrawn. Australia and New Zealand mark the date of the landing as “Anzac Day” The troops that landed that day were referred to as the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps.

The Gallipoli Campaign was typical of the terrible events of the First World War. Was there really a winner? And I think it significant that World War I was really the first major war where photojournalists were able to cover the real action, such as that of Figure 1 showing Australian troops… Photographers covered the Crimean War (1853-1856), the American Civil War (1861 – 1865), and the Paraguayan War (1864 – 1870), but these were images of fortifications, gun emplacements, and casualties in after math.  It really wasn’t until the First World War that cameras became portable enough to be carried into battle and this has changed both our understanding of war and our expectations of war journalists. You would think that we might have learned something in the intervening century.

Figure 1 – Theodore and Elliott Roosevelt watching the Lincoln Funeral procession approaching Union Square in NYC, April 1865. In the archives of the New York Historical Society and in the public domain because of its age.

Yesterday, April 12, 2015, was the 150th anniversary of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.  The death of the leader who had brought his nation through the tragedy of a great and cataclysmic civil war only to fall victim just two days later is, of course, the mythic substance that legends are made of.  And Americans have long wondered how things might have been different or even if they would have been different.

Lincoln was president at a time when photography was coming into its own, as a campaign tool, and yes, as a critical part of legend building.  In commemoration of the date, I thought that I would share a very famous image of the Lincoln funeral procession approaching Union Square in New York City in April (24th or 25th) 1865. If you look very closely at the second story window of the building shown, you will see two you boys watching the funeral  They are six year old Theodore Roosevelt and his brother Elliott.

Figure 1 – “Appomattox courthouse” by Timothy H. O’Sullivan. – In the public domain because of its age.

Significantly, yesterday was the 150th anniversary of Robert E. Lee’s surrender to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomatox Courthouse, thus ending the American Civil War.  Honestly, it should be a very somber moment and for Americans a time to reflect on where we were, where we are, and where we are going. It is not sufficient to excuse the excesses of the past with the fact that we were not there.  We are certainly here now.

There are some marvelous images of yesterday’s reenactment.  These are strikingly brilliant and vibrant in their color. And they may, in that regard, be contrasted with Timothy O’Sulivan’s photograph of Union Soldiers gathered at the court house a century and a half ago.  But the fact is that the world to these men was not monochrome.  Indeed, the color of their lives was, in all probability, made so much more brilliant by the prospects that the war’s end represented to them.

Figure 1 – Video image from NASA of the first space walk by Soviet Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov on March 18, 1965.

We keep having these fifty year anniversaries, always documented with wonderful black and white photographs.  Figure 1 is from NASA and is a photograph from a television image of Alexei Leonov who on March 18, 1965 srepped out of his Voskhod 2 capsule to be the first human to walk in space. Connected to the spaceship with a 5.35 m tether Leonov was outside the spacecraft for 12 minutes and nine seconds. As he tried to return to the safety of his capsule he discovered that his spacesuit had inflated in the vacuum of space to the point where he could fit through the airlock. He was forced to dangerously release a valve in the suit to release some of the air. This is act is defining of the right stuff. At 80 Leonov is the last survivor of the five cosmonauts in the Voskhod program.

Figure 1 – Copy of an 1840 daguerreotype by John William Draper of his daughter Dorothy Catherine Draper, the earliest extant portrait of a woman. In the public domain because of its age.

By now you will have realized that there is nothing that I love better than digging into the photographic past and looking at the faces of the first half of the nineteenth century – so distant yet so close! It is both the familiarity of the people as it is the early photographers applying for the first time the conventions of classical art to this new medium.  It is significant also that we have an incomplete record. It may be known that there is an earlier example, but that is lost to us. Yet there is always the possibility that it will suddenly reappear.

Such is the case when it comes to the earliest example of a portrait of a woman.  Samuel Finley Breese Morse (1791–1872) said in 1855 that he had taken full-length portrait daguerreotypes of his daughter as early as September and October 1839. But these have not survived.

So for the earliest remaining example we have to turn to Figure 1 which is a striking portrait by John William Draper (1811–82), professor of chemistry at the New York University of his daughter Dorothy Catherine Draper (1807–1901),  The image is of a copy.  The original now in the Spencer Museum of Art, in Lawrence, Kansas was taken in 1840.

We are struck by the beauty of this image and by the beauty of this young woman of the early nineteenth century. She is a flower captive of her clothes, which perhaps aided her in holding still for the excruciatingly long exposure.

Several years ago I went to visit the Women’s Suffrage Museum in Seneca Falls, NY.  The first Women’s Rights Convention held in Seneca Falls, NY on July 19-20,1848; so thd the start of the American Suffrage Movement was contemporary with this photograph, and I was struck by the statement that the first step in the liberation of women was freeing them from the confines of their clothing. You have to be able to move, before you can move freely.