Mathew Brady
Mathew Brady
The "Father of Photojournalism" is best known for his invaluable
photographs of the American Civil War. He was a successful and
well-known portrait photographer before the war began
(Abraham Lincoln's likeness on the $5 bill is modelled after
Brady's portrait of him) and he spent around $100,000 during the
war on his photographs, which numbered in the thousands. The
pictures brought the truth and grotesque horror of the war to the
doorsteps of all Americans - a marked change from the
propaganda and half-truths coming from print journalists at the
time. Unfortunately, after the war no one wanted to be reminded
of the horrors of it, and Brady was unable to sell his photographs
or recoup his losses.
Eventually Congress bought his collection for a mere $2,840, but
Brady's life had already been ruined by poverty and alcoholism,
and he died in relative obscurity in 1896.
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