This class will examine the many forms and uses of photography in the 19th century, from the daguerreotype to the dawn of the snapshot. We will look at the double origins of the medium in France and England and see how the first positive-negative methods were used for early photographic books. We will consider the ways photography formed American identity, from portraiture to documenting the American West, and the many uses of the medium in the Civil War. Photographic imaging advanced scientific knowledge in many ways during these years. Each technical innovation led to new ways to use photography as an art form, from composite photography to atmospheric pictorialism. We will see how photography could capture movement and truly function to document everyday life by the end of the 19th century.