Alexander Gardner - Misc. Characters

Alexander Gardner 1821-1882

Photographer, Printmaker
As an idealistic young reporter and newspaper editor in Glasgow, Scotland, Alexander Gardner dreamed of forming a semi-socialistic colony somewhere in what he thought of as the unspoiled wilderness of America. He selected a place in Iowa, but even though he sent family and friends to live there, Gardner never joined them. Instead, when he disembarked in New York he remained. The celebrated American photographer Mathew Brady had probably paid for his passage, though how they came to be acquainted is unknown. Gardner, who had spent his spare time in Scotland studying science, became Brady's assistant for seven years. He was manager of Brady's Washington, D.C., gallery until the American Civil War broke out in 1861.
Working for Brady's studio until 1862, Gardner is said to have made three-quarters of the campaign pictures of the Army of the Potomac. In 1866 he published Gardner's Photographic Sketch Book of the War, the first published collection of Civil War photographs, comprised of one hundred photographs by himself and eleven photographers working for him, including Timothy O'Sullivan and John Reekie. It was a commercial failure. After the war Gardner finally traveled West to his promised land, photographing along the way.