Brady is perhaps one of the most well-documented photographers of the 19th century, perhaps even in the world, so it’s not entirely clear why this volume was necessary. I’m not a Brady scholar, nor a scholar of 19th century American photography, but I don’t recall the author drawing the reader's attention to major findings, something he would surely do if he had something worth reporting. The Afterward speaks of the necessity for a “reliable biography,” so perhaps it was just a matter of compiling facts and ideas scattered here and there among numerous sources. If such is the case, then job well done on a readable account of an important figure in photographic and American history. Wilson sets out his subject’s relevance early on:
Enough is known about Brady’s life and work...to argue that he was the single most important person in nineteenth-century American photography. His Broadway portrait galleries in the 1840s and ’50s helped popularize photography in its early days and establish the photograph as a thing of value in itself. He helped make being photographed (at least by him and others with fancy studios) a mark of prestige. His efforts to collect portraits of every important American helped create a unifying sense of one American nation, a goal he pursued up until the very moment the Civil War blew it apart. His photographs of the famous, from the Prince of Wales to General Tom Thumb, helped invent the modern idea of celebrity, and his photograph of the presidential hopeful Abraham Lincoln on the day of his Cooper Union speech helped make Lincoln president.
