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In the fall of 1839 the daguerreotype first appeared in New York City, adding a truly democratic dimension to American art. The daguerreian image was immensely popular and remarkably cheap. The vast majority of these images were small, simple, direct portraits of one or two people and were found in all sections of the expanding country. The basic aesthetic response to photography was found in these common images.The question of why the daguerreotype was so popular has not as yet been satisfactorily investigated. Richard Rudisill and, before him, Beaumont Newhall established the groundwork for the investigation; however, their interests centered on the history and development of the daguerreotype.1 Rudisill came closer to the question of popularity, but his investigation ventured into many divergent areas without reaching a clear conclusion regarding the popularity of the numerous small daguerreotypes. Nor does Rudisill discuss the second step in American photographic history, i.e., the collodion or wet plate process, which would show the continuing aesthetic response to the photographic image — a response determined on the whole by the daguerreotype. Lastly, he does not deal directly with paintings which formed the aesthetic standard for every visual art form in 19th-century America. Rather than quarrel with either Rudisill's or Newhall's findings, the discussion below carries their work one step further.
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