Author: RODGERS, H.J.
Title: Twenty-Three Years Under a Sky-light, or Life and Experiences of a Photographer.
Description: Hartford, H.J. Rodgers 1872. Octavo publisher's brown cloth; 235pp and errata leaf, 53 wood engravings, some full page. A particularly nice copy. ¶ First edition of what appears to be the first professional memoir of a photographer; it was reprinted the next year year with some changes. If someone manages to dig up an earlier example of a professional photographer's memoir - I can't - then I firmly claim this as the first guide book written for the subjects of portrait photography. Much of this is a humorous treatment of all the mistakes made by photographer and sitter with advice for the sitter; the running title throughout is 'The people's guide to photography'. Rodgers was an adherent to the doctrines of physiognomy and phrenology and urges that phrenology be part of the education of all artists in his chapter on phrenological photography.

Keywords: photography c19th America trades social history technology