Technology & Dirty JobsDuring the

United States Civil War

Photography, Reporter,

Telegraph

Understanding how cameras work

How the Basic Parts of a Camera Function

• The Body – a light proof box that supports the other parts.

• The film holder – keeps the film in place at the back of the camera.

• The shutter – opens to let in light.

• The lens – gathers light and focuses it unto the film.

Parts of a camera and what they do Shutter Release Button – pulls two small mirrors out of the path of the light entering the lens. AT the same time it opens the shutter , allowing a measured amount of light to strike the film.

The Photocell :

Measures the amount of light entering the camera. It relays the info electronically to a system in the viewfinder to let you know if you need a flash.

Film Holder

Large Mirror reflects light entering lens to viewfinder

Viewfinder

Lens/Shutter area

Understanding Cameras

• A camera is an instrument that captures images from life by directing reflected light onto film.

• If too much light strikes the film, the image will be overexposed and look washed out.

• If too little light reaches the film, the image will be underexposed and look dark.

How’d they do that?

Fast shutter speed freezes the action!

Slow shutter speed and panning blurs background and keeps subject in focus.

Leaving the shutter open for a long time allowed this affect.

Website for the earliest camera – the Camera Obscura

http://brightbytes.com/cosite/what.html

History of Photography

http://www.azuswebworks.com/photography/history.html•The word photography was first used in the year 1839, "the year the invention of the photographic process was made public".

•This process used light-sensitive paper and produced a 'negative image' that could be used to create positive prints.

•These methods required long exposure time, animate objects could not be recorded. No one could hold still long enough! The earliest photographic recordings were architectural and landscape scenes.

So, they’re not smiling because they had to sit so long waiting for the processing!

Speed of film issue makes “ghosts” appear in some photos

Taking Photographs at the Time of the Civil WarPhotography

History

Website

http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/cwp/civilwarphotos.html

Civil War Photographer Mathew Brady

• At the peak of his success as a portrait photographer, Brady turned his attention to the Civil War. Planning to document the war on a grand scale, he organized a corps of photographers to follow the troops in the field. Friends tried to discourage him, citing battlefield dangers and

financial risks but Brady persisted. • Mathew Brady did not actually shoot many of the Civil

War photographs attributed to him. More of a project manager, he spent most of his time supervising his corps of traveling photographers, preserving their negatives and buying others from private photographers freshly returned from the battlefield, so that his collection would be as comprehensive as possible. When photographs from his collection were published, whether printed by Brady or adapted as engravings in publications, they were credited "Photograph by Brady," although they were actually the work of many people.

Most Famous Photographer of the Civil War: Mathew P. Brady

Spectators watching the war

• http://www.civilwar.org/hallowed-ground-magazine/spring-2011/spectators-witness-history-at.html - A website where this practice was discussed.

Another view of spectators

• In Nashville, Tennessee, a photographer set up his stereo camera on the hill with the state capitol building on December 15, 1864. Somewhere in the far distance, the battle of Nashville rages as spectators gaze toward the hazy distance. The photographer made several views of the spectators watching the battle.

• http://www.civilwarphotography.org/index.php/component/content/article/65-3-d-photographs/97-the-battle-of-nashville

Brady Shocked America with the Reality of War

• In 1862, Brady shocked America by displaying his photographs of battlefield corpses from Antietam, posting a sign on the door of his New York gallery that read, "The Dead of Antietam." This exhibition marked the first time most people witnessed the carnage of war. The New York Times said that Brady had brought "home to us the terrible reality and earnestness of war."

Mathew Brady’s Life continued

• After the Civil War, Brady found that war-weary Americans were no longer interested in purchasing photographs of the recent bloody conflict. Having risked his fortune on his Civil War enterprise, Brady lost the gamble and fell into bankruptcy. His negatives were neglected until 1875, when Congress purchased the entire archive for $25,000. Brady's debts swallowed the entire sum. He died in 1896, penniless and unappreciated. In his final years, Brady said, "No one will ever know what I went through to secure those negatives. The world can never appreciate it. It changed the whole course of my life."

•Despite his financial failure, Mathew Brady had a great and lasting effect on the art of photography. His war scenes demonstrated that photographs could be more than posed portraits, and his efforts represent the first instance of the comprehensive photo-documentation of a war.

Civil War Photo Galleries• http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/cwphtml/cwphome.html• http://www.cwc.lsu.edu/cwc/links/photo.htm• http://http://www.civilwarphotos.net/• http://www.civilwarphotography.org/index.php/exhibits/online-

exhibits

A refugee family leaving a war area with belongings loaded on a cart

Log hut company kitchen

Antietam Bridge, Md., September 1862. Soldiers and wagons are

crossing the bridge.

Confederate prisoners captured in the Shenandoah Valley being guarded in a

Union camp

Civil War Photo Mystery

• http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/cwp/mystery.html

Is this photo fact or fiction?

Reports for Newspapers

Another rough job!

Reporters in the field

More reporters in the field

The Telegraph Communication System

Yet another rough job!

How the telegraph works:• How the Telegraph works website

Thomas Edison and the Telegraph and an Interesting Fact:

In 1862, Edison rescued a three-year-old from a track where a boxcar was about to roll into him. The grateful father, J.U. MacKenzie, taught Edison railroad telegraphy as a reward. That winter, he took a job as a telegraph operator in Port Huron. In the meantime, he continued his scientific experiments on the side. Between 1863 and 1867, Edison migrated from city to city in the United States taking available telegraph jobs.

Telegraph battery-wagon near Petersburg, June 1864

Facts about the Telegraph System used during the Civil War

• In addition to the utilization of existing commercial systems, there were built and operated more than fifteen thousand miles of lines for military purposes only

• Serving under the status of quartermaster's employees, often under conditions of personal danger, and with no definite official standing, the operators of the military telegraph service performed work of most vital import to the army in particular and to the country in general.

• • Their services have never been

practically recognized by the Government or appreciated by the people.

More Facts about telegraph operators

• During the war there occurred in the line of duty more than three hundred casualties among the operators -from disease, death in battle, wounds, or capture.

• Scores of these unfortunate victims left families dependent upon charity, as the United States neither extended aid to their destitute families nor admitted needy survivors to a pensionable status.

• One phase of life in the telegraph-room of the War Department was Lincoln's daily visit thereto, and the long hours spent by him in the cipher-room, it is surprising that the White House bad no telegraph office during the war.

The Danger of being a Telegraph Operator

• Other than telegraphic espionage, the most dangerous service was the repair of lines, which often was done under fire and more frequently in a guerilla-infested country. Many men were captured or shot from ambush while thus engaged. Two of Clowry's men in Arkansas were not only murdered, but were frightfully mutilated. In Tennessee, conditions were sometimes so bad that no lineman would venture out save under heavy escort. Three repair men were killed on the Fort Donelson line alone. W. R. Plum, in his " Military Telegraph," says that " about one in twelve of the operators engaged in the service were killed, wounded, captured, or died in the service from exposure."

Civil War Espionage

Famous Spies

• What research shows:– Many Women Spies

• Emma Edmonds• Belle Boyd

– Used telegraph system, newspaper and false reports of battalion movements

– Slaves were used– Men were hung, women

were let go

Creative Methods were used

Now, it’s your turn!

Mission for Reporter/Spy Teams

• Get a digital pictures from within one of the classrooms or activities. – Basically, if you are brave enough, attempt to infiltrate one of the enemy’s actvities.

• Rescue the informant and return him or her to the IMC unharmed.

• Locate the hidden Civil War Treasure from within the school – Scavenger Hunt.

Official Civil War Photographer

• We are a corps of photographers under the direction of Mr. Mathew P. Brady, whose goal it is to document this event on a grand scale that is effecting the lives of the American citizens and may turn into one of the most life changing battles ever fought.

• Our direct commanding oficer is Mr. B.

Iverson who will report directly to President Abraham Lincoln or whoever is this nation’s presiednt when this conflict has been resolved.

• Our work will eventually end up in the archives of teh Library Congress in Washington D.C. for generations in the future to view and learn about the horrors and harsh realities of war.

May we never forget!

The United States Civil War

United States Civil War “May we never forget the lives lost nor the cause

for which they fought...”

Civil War Treasure Certificate

• Please take one of these sheets. Take it to the IMC to collect your prize.

• Good job on surviving as a SPY!

Civil War TreasureTrove

Please take one of the sheets below. Take it to the IMC to collect your prize.

Good job on surviving as a SPY!

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