Ralph Waldo Emerson - Victorian era public domain image

The daguerreotype is a photographic process invented by the Parisian inventor and entrepreneur Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre (1787-1851) who was the first person to publicly announce a successful method of capturing images. His invention was an immediate hit, and France was soon gripped by ‘daguerreotypomania’. Daguerre released his formula and anyone was free to use it without paying a license fee – except in Britain, where he had secured a patent. Daguerreotypes required a subject to remain still for several minutes to ensure that the image would not blur.