THE IMAGE OF POE,EDGAR,ALLAN - A DAGUERREOTYPE LINKED TO THE ACADEMY OF NATURAL-SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA

From 1830 to 1850, Philadelphia's scientific, artistic, and literary c ommunities experienced unprecedented synergy. Scientific societies fou nded in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, such as the American Philosophical Society, the Academy of Natural Sciences of Phi ladelphia, and the Franklin Institute, reached a stage of broad expans ion. Medical science and education ballooned, and magazines, newspaper s, and publishers were proliferating. The circle of the educated elite in Philadelphia was large enough to exhibit wide professional diversi ty, yet small enough to allow frequent associations among its members, whether scientists, artists, or both. We propose that a daguerreotype that has appeared since 1937 in several articles, often without attri bution, was taken by Paul Beck Goddard in the winter of 1842-43 in the Academy of Natural Science of Philadelphia's recently constructed bui lding at the corner of Broad and Sansom Streets. Goddard had announced as early as 1842 that he made daguerreotypes ''by the diffused light of a room.'' The daguerreotype studied here is America's earliest exis ting attempt to photograph a complex interior scene using natural ligh ting with human subjects. Our evidence suggests that Edgar Allan Poe a nd Joseph Leidy are in the photo. The final man's identification remai ns speculative: Samuel G. Morton, John K. Mitchell or James C. Booth. The earliest daguerreotype of its kind tells us much about the develop ment of photography by 1842-43. The picture also illustrates Philadelp hia's synergistic linking of the scientific and the artistic creative impulse. The history of the Academy during a determinative period is r eflected in the daguerreotype images: place, people, specimens, and sc ience.