Invention Timeline – John Adams Whipple, American Inventor; First to Manufacture the Chemicals Used in the Daguerreotype Process in This Country
b. September 10, 1822 and d. ?
American inventor. He was the first to manufacture the chemicals used in the daguerreotype process in this country. In connection with photography he made many useful inventions and improvements. He prepared his plates and brought out his pictures by steam, invented crayon daguerreotype and crystalotypes (daguerreotypes on glass), and on July 17, 1850, he photographed Alpha Lyra, which is said to have been the first successful experiment in stellar photography.
The wise and active conquer difficulties
By daring to attempt them; sloth and folly
Shiver and shrink at the sight of toil and hazard,
And make the impossibilities they fear.
—Rowe
Each in its orbit through unmeasured space,
Sweeps round the central sun in tireless race.
Say, ye great orbs, have you your land and seas,
Your ever-flowing streams, your forest trees?
Have you your mountains high and valleys wide,
Where your peaceful denizens reside?
Have you true men, who know the wrong and right,
And, knowing, walk in truth, in love and light?
1839, June—An account of the invention by which images were fixed on a plate by gilding it was published. Daguerre, in 1834, discovered photography on paper; he made experiments on metal plates, and in 1833 discovered that a silver plate was made sensitive to light by exposing it to iodine vapors.
