Mathew B. Brady (May 18, 1822 – January 15, 1896) was one of the outdated photographers in American history. Best known for his scenes of the Civil War, he studied under inventor Samuel F. B. Morse, who pioneered the daguerreotype technique in America. Brady opened his own studio in New York in 1844, and photographed Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, and Abraham Lincoln, among extra public figures.
When the Civil War started, his use of a mobile studio and darkroom enabled lustrous battlefield photographs that brought home the reality of exploit to the public. Thousands of accomplishment scenes were captured, as competently as portraits of generals and politicians upon both sides of the conflict, though most of these were taken by his assistants, rather than by Brady himself.
After the war, these pictures went out of fashion, and the management did not buy the master-copies as he had anticipated. Brady’s fortunes declined sharply, and he died in debt.
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