Thomas Martin Easterly (October 3, 1809 – March 12, 1882) was a 19th-century American
daguerreotypist and photographer. One of the more prominent and well-known daguerreotypists in the
Midwest United States
The Midwestern United States (also referred to as the Midwest, the Heartland or the American Midwest) is one of the four census regions defined by the United States Census Bureau. It occupies the northern central part of the United States. It ...
during the 1850s, his studio became one of the first permanent
art galleries
An art gallery is a room or a building in which visual art is displayed. In Western cultures from the mid-15th century, a gallery was any long, narrow covered passage along a wall, first used in the sense of a place for art in the 1590s. The long ...
in
Missouri
Missouri (''see #Etymology and pronunciation, pronunciation'') is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it border ...
.
Although his reputation was limited to the Midwest during his lifetime, he is considered to have been one of the foremost experts in the field of daguerreotype photography in the United States during the mid-to-late 19th century. He took the very first known photograph of a lightning bolt in history.
Biography
Born in
Guilford, Vermont
Guilford is a town in Windham County, Vermont, United States. The town was named for Francis North, 1st Earl of Guilford. The population was 2,120 at the 2020 census.
Geography
According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a to ...
, he was the second of five children born to Tunis Easterly and Philomena Richardson. He reportedly came from a poor background, his father being a farmer and part-time shoemaker, and was living away from home at age 11. Around 1830, he was living in
St. Lawrence County, New York although little is known of his early years.
He began working as itinerant calligrapher and a penmanship teacher traveling throughout
Vermont
Vermont () is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, New York (state), New York to the west, and the Provinces and territories of Ca ...
,
New Hampshire
New Hampshire ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...
and New York during the 1830s and 40s. By 1844, he had begun practicing photography taking outdoor photographs of architectural landmarks and scenic sites in Vermont. Among his earliest daguerreotypes, made a decade before outdoor photography was popular or profitable, those of the
Winooski and
Connecticut
Connecticut ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York (state), New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. ...
rivers are the only known examples to be self-consciously influenced by the romantic landscape paintings of the
Hudson River School
The Hudson River School was a mid-19th-century American art movement embodied by a group of landscape painters whose aesthetic vision was influenced by Romanticism. Early on, the paintings typically depicted the Hudson River Valley and the sur ...
artists. He was also the first and only daguerreotypist to identify his work using engraved signatures and descriptive captions.
In the fall of 1845, Easterly traveled to the
Midwest United States
The Midwestern United States (also referred to as the Midwest, the Heartland or the American Midwest) is one of the four census regions defined by the United States Census Bureau. It occupies the northern central part of the United States. It ...
and toured the
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the main stem, primary river of the largest drainage basin in the United States. It is the second-longest river in the United States, behind only the Missouri River, Missouri. From its traditional source of Lake Ita ...
with Frederick F. Webb as representatives of the Daguerreotype Art Union. The two gained some notoriety from their photography of the criminals convicted of the murder of
George Davenport in October of that year. Iowa newspapers reported that Easterly and Webb had achieved a "splendid likeness" of the men shortly before their execution. Easterly and Webb continued touring on the Mississippi and
Missouri
Missouri (''see #Etymology and pronunciation, pronunciation'') is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it border ...
rivers for several months before spending the winter of 1846-47 in
Liberty, Missouri
Liberty is a city in and the county seat of Clay County, Missouri, United States and is a suburb of Kansas City, located in the Kansas City Metro Area. As of the 2020 United States census the population was 30,167. Liberty is home to Willia ...
.
The only known photograph of the first St. Charles Hotel in New Orleans, built to be the world's finest, was taken by Easterly ca. 1847.
The following spring, Easterly and Webb went their separate ways with Easterly traveling on his own to
St. Louis
St. Louis ( , sometimes referred to as St. Louis City, Saint Louis or STL) is an independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It lies near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a populatio ...
. He soon became popular for his portraits of prominent residents and visiting celebrities which were displayed in a temporary gallery on
Glasgow Row
Glasgow is the most populous city in Scotland, located on the banks of the River Clyde in west central Scotland. It is the third-most-populous city in the United Kingdom and the 27th-most-populous city in Europe, and comprises 23 wards w ...
. One of these portraits was that of
Chief Keokuk taken March 1847. He also took a daguerreotype of a
lightning bolt, one of the first recorded "instantaneous" photographic images, while in St. Louis. This was later recorded in the ''
Iowa Sentinel'' as an ''"Astonishing Achievement in Art"''. Before returning to Vermont in August 1847, the ''
St. Louis Reveille'' described his as an ''"unrivaled daguerreotypist"''.

He was brought back to Missouri by
John Ostrander
John Ostrander (born April 20, 1949) is an American writer of comic books, including ''Suicide Squad'', '' Grimjack'' and '' Star Wars: Legacy''.
He co-created the Oracle persona for Barbara Gordon and created the second and modern version of t ...
, founder of the first daguerreotype gallery in St. Louis, in early 1848. Preparing for an extended "tour of the south", Ostringer asked Easterly to manage his portrait gallery. Easterly would continue running the gallery when Ostringer died a short time later. Many of his unique
streetscapes depicting mid-19th-century urban life were taken from the windows of Ostringer's gallery. In June 1850, he married schoolteacher Anna Miriam Bailey and settled in St. Louis permanently. During the 1860s, improvements in photographic development caused daguerreotypes to become out of fashion. Easterly refused to acknowledge these changes believing the highly detailed daguerreotypes were far superior in terms of beauty or permanence urging the public to ''"save your old daguerreotypes for you will never see their like again"''.
During the next decade, both his health and financial situation worsened. Despite the declining interest for pictures on silver, he was able to maintain his gallery until it burned in a fire in 1865. He was forced to move to a smaller location and continued working in near obscurity until his death in St. Louis on March 12, 1882. He had suffered from a long illness and partial paralysis in his final years and is thought to have been caused by prolonged exposure to
mercury, one of the key ingredients used in the daguerreotype process.
After his death, his wife sold most of his personal collection to
John Scholton, another noted St. Louis photographer. The Scholton family eventually donated the plates to the
Missouri Historical Society
The Missouri Historical Society was founded in St. Louis on August 11, 1866. Founding members created the historical society "for the purpose of saving from oblivion the early history of the city and state".
Organization
The Missouri Historica ...
where they remained for nearly a century before being rediscovered during the 1980s by art scholars studying pre-American Civil War photography.
[Palmquist, Peter E. and Thomas R. Kailbourn. ''Pioneer Photographers from the Mississippi to the Continental Divide: A Biographical Dictionary, 1839-1865''. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2005. (pg. 220-222) ] With over 680 plates, the Missouri Historical Society'
Thomas Easterly Collectionis one of the largest collections of daguerreotypes by a single artist in the United States.
References
Further reading
*Davidson, Carla. "The View from Fourth and Olive". ''American Heritage'' 13 (December 1971): 76-91.
*Guidrey, Gail R. "Long, Fitzgibbon, Easterly, Outley: St. Louis Daguerreans". ''St. Louis Literary Supplement'' 1 (November–December 1977): 6-8.
*Kilgo, Dolores A. ''Likeness and Landscape: Thomas M. Easterly and the Art of the Daguerreotype''. St. Louis: Missouri Historical Society Press, 1994.
*Van Ravenswaay, Charles. "Pioneer Photographers of St. Louis". ''Missouri Historical Society Bulletin'' 10 (October 1953): 49-71.
External links
Thomas Easterly Collectionfrom Missouri History Museum's Flickr page
Easterly Photosin th
Missouri History Museum CollectionsThomas Easterly Daguerreotypesa
the Newberry LibraryMissouri Remembers: Artists in Missouri through 1951
{{DEFAULTSORT:Easterly, Thomas Martin
1809 births
1882 deaths
Artists from St. Louis
People from Guilford, Vermont
19th-century American photographers
Photographers from Vermont