December 29, 2021 • 31 mins
Cornelius is famous for having taken what’s often called the world’s first selfie - and he's noted for how handsome he looks in it. But he was smart and inventive in a variety of ways, and he innovated in lighting fixtures the same way he did with photography.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy Vie Wilson. Hey. This
is a follow up to our episode on Louis de Game,
But unlike most of our two partners, these two episodes
(00:23):
are intended to each stand on their own, So if
you haven't listened to that one yet, you should be
fine in this one. Similarly, if you're like I don't
want to hear about Robert Cornelius, you could skip it.
You're not gonna miss anything from the gear story. I
hope you do listen, though. Um I periodically see this
image of Robert Cornelius circulate on Twitter, where people discuss
(00:44):
how hot they think this man was, and he does
look mighty dashing in that image. But the fact that
this photo exists is in and of itself, really pretty astonishing.
Cornelius was smart and inventive in ways that do not
often come up in brief social media mentions. Yes, he
absolutely innovated in photography, but he also did some pretty
(01:07):
interesting work with lighting fixtures of all things. So today
we're going to cover how this man and some similarly
minded colleagues in Philadelphia started experimenting with the gears process
as well as other aspects of his life. Robert Cornelius
is born March first, eighteen o nine in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
His parents were Christian and Sarah Cornelius. Christian had emigrated
(01:30):
to the U s from Amsterdam in seventeen eighty three
and had started a lighting and chandelier business. As a kid,
Robert attended private schools and showed a natural interest and
proficiency in chemistry. Gerard Truce, who had been one of
the founders of the American Philosophical Society and part of
the New Harmony Indiana Oa Nite community that we covered
(01:52):
during one of our live shows, was his chemistry teacher.
As Robert started working in the family business in the
early eighteen thirties, Roberts chemistry studies served him well because
he became an expert in metal plating, in particular. In
eighteen thirty two, at the age of twenty three, Robert
married a young woman named Harriet come Ley, with whom
(02:14):
he had eight children, three sons and five daughters. Those
children were Robert, born roughly two years after the wedding.
Sarah Ann Charles born in eighteen thirty nine, John Constance, Harriet,
Fanny and Helen. And aside from those years of birth
that I just mentioned, the exact dates of birth are
(02:35):
unknown for the rest of the children. By autumn of
eighteen thirty nine, at a time when Robert had settled
into both his career in lighting and his family life,
information about Louis Degare's photo process was made available to
the curious minds of the United States. This ran in
multiple papers under the header on photography in the National
(02:57):
Exette of Philadelphia. The article opened with quote, the art
of transferring the outline of an object or the shades
of a picture to chemically prepared paper, simply by the
action of solar light, has attracted, especially in France and England,
the attention of scientific men. It goes on to say
that there have been a number of articles about it,
(03:17):
and that now there's a Frenchman who quote has studied
the art with success. This article continues, quote His explanation
of the process is very simple and maybe understood by
anyone who has the taste and inclination to make an experiment.
Although in its infancy we have seen specimens of drawing
by the photographic mode perfect in outline and shades. Either landscapes,
(03:41):
flowers or figures may be copied with equal facility, and
as the occupation calls not for an artist's skill, anyone
may make the attempt. This article is lengthy and in
spite of touting its own simplicity, and it goes on
to describe exactly how this all works, first with a
general overview and then a step by step description. The
(04:03):
general description reads quote, when silver is dissolved in nitric acid,
a colorless solution of lunar caustic is produced, which, when
evaporated to dryness and exposed to light, becomes dark, the
color depending on the intensity of the light and the
time it has been exposed. Accordingly, paper besmeared with the
(04:24):
solution is darkened, but if any object be put on
it so as to prevent the transmission of light, the
parts covered will remain white or be tinged according to
the density of the object. Hence the art of photography.
The next several columns of this article, uh which him
it takes up many columns in the paper, are as
(04:45):
we said, dedicated to discussion of each step, which they
lay out as one methods of preparing the paper. Two
methods of taking the impressions, three preservation of the impressions,
and then there is an additional section titled method of
taking impressions in which the light and shades are not reversed. Basically,
all of this was all images for the most part,
(05:08):
initially had been reversed of what you would actually see
in reality, but people had worked out how to fix
that problem. And all of this right up was not
prepped by Degear, but by a man named Andrew Pife,
the vice president of the Society of Arts Edinburgh, and
it is an edited version of a paper that he
read at the Royal Society of Arts in Edinburgh. When
(05:29):
papers like the National Gazette and the American Daily Advertiser
ran this story about Degear's work on October thirty nine,
Philadelphia readership took notice, and it was not all good notice.
There were readers who did not even believe the reporting.
That just did not seem possible that an image could
be captured that way. The article mentioned that it took
(05:52):
a full hour to capture an image with the new process,
and plenty of people thought that was ridiculous. Yeah, you'll
actually see some variations in that like, while this article
said that there were other things that were like no,
like thirty minutes, you know, maybe less, maybe more. But
for men like Cornelius, this was a really interesting topic.
(06:13):
For one, he, like a lot of men of industry
in Philadelphia, just was simply interested in emerging technologies. But
for another, it offered a new potential business opportunity at
a time when Robert Cornelius, like a lot of business owners,
was trying to regain stable footing after the eighteen thirty
seven financial panic had caused a dip and revenue. But
(06:34):
before we get to Cornelius's experiments with photography, we have
to talk about another man who was very excited about
the Advertiser's story, and that was Joseph Saxton. Saxton was
a little bit older than Cornelius. He was born on
March twenty two in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania. He started working in
his father's nail factory as a young boy, but he
(06:56):
got tired of it. He had apprenticed with a clockmaker
starting at the age of twelve, and that became his career.
He did well for himself in that job. It led
to him making the belfry clock for Independence Hall when
he was still a young man in his twenties. But
though his education had been vocation specific and related to clockworks,
he was fascinated with all things scientific. Saxton is usually
(07:21):
credited with creating the first photograph made in the US.
That was an image of the state arsenal in Philadelphia
High School that was taken from a window high above
the street at the U. S. Mint in Philadelphia, which
was where Saxton worked. He was a constructor and curator
of the Mints weighing apparatus, and that was taken on
October eighteen thirty nine. That was only the day after
(07:45):
that Dagara type story had run in the papers. The
various components needed for that photo were largely improvised by Saxton.
A description of his first effort, written decades later described
what he used. Quote a seedlets powder box with a
few flakes of iodine answered for a coating box, while
a cigar box and burning glass were improvised for a camera.
(08:07):
An iron spoon served to heat mercury to develop the plate.
But Saxton was just getting started. That first image tested
the waters. He wanted to upgrade the materials he was
using and refine it all, and for that he turned
to Robert Cornelius. This wasn't because Cornelius was also interested
in photography. It was because of his expertise with metals
(08:29):
that he had gained through his work in the lighting business.
Saxton wanted Robert Cornelius to make silver coated copper plates
for him to use for his dagara types, and in
producing these plates, Cornelius found himself wanting to do his
own imaging experiments. And we're going to talk about that
very famous and history making photograph that came out of
(08:49):
Cornelius's interest in photography in just a moment, but first
we will pause for a sponsor break. It is not
known exactly what date Cornelius took the photograph that became
famous as the first photographic self portrait. He took it
(09:13):
behind the family lamp shop sometime in October or November,
so still very soon after the information onto gears process
was shared in the press. The outdoor set up in
the sun enabled him to minimize the needed exposure time.
He simply set his camera a box which was fitted
with an opera glass down on a stable surface, and
(09:33):
then he took the lens cover off and he sat
still for several minutes and then he put the lens
cover back on and that was that. When he developed
the photo using the Dagara type process, he had the
first self portrait photo made in the US. So this
photo itself has a certain charm. It's the one we
mentioned at the top of the episode that sometimes shows
(09:54):
up on lists of historical hotties. Cornelius has touseled hair,
He stares directly a the lens, and he does look
a bit like he walked out of a historical romance novel.
It's not the exact right time period, but I'm going
to describe it as Mr Darcy emerges from the mist.
That is a percent what it looks like to me
as well. I think that's why everybody is like he's beautiful.
(10:17):
So he's not quite centered in the image, which shows
him from his lower chest where his arms are crossed
up to the top of his head. On the left
side of the picture. The details are a little blurred.
It looks like maybe overexposure. This photo was important because
it proved that portraiture was completely possible, and that was
(10:37):
something that detractors claimed was not realistic because of the
length of time the subject had to sit still and
just a few weeks after this photo was made, and
having made additional ones, Cornelius gave a presentation on his
photographic work on December six, thirty nine at the American
Philosophical Society and the Franklin Institute. He showed his photos
(10:59):
and he talked about his process, and as a consequence,
he very quickly began to gain a name for himself
in this new field. The expertise that he was developing
and sharing through such lectures also launched a new business
venture for Cornelius. He partnered up with a man named
Paul Beck Goddard, who was a doctor, a surgeon, and
a chemist, to open a business Indo Garatype Portraiture in
(11:22):
eighteen forty in their studio on Eighth Street, which will
sometimes see written as eight Street depending on what source
you look at. The pair advanced photography in a couple
of different ways. One of the innovations which was achieved
by Cornelius was the lighting setup. He attached a mirror
to one of the windows which was oriented to reflect
off of another mirror that was positioned to light the subject,
(11:46):
and he tempered the glare of the natural sunlight with
another piece of glass. This one with a lilac film
over it. This setup, which was all oriented so that
the subject could look directly at the camera, set the
standard for portrait photography. Cornelius also took photos, for example,
of a street view in eighteen forty and that was
advanced and that it did not flip the image the
(12:07):
way most agia types did. He once again had used
a mirror or another reflective surface we don't know for
certain to create what looked like a true to life image.
Another innovation came from Goddard's tweaking of the chemical makeup
of the plate preparation solution and adding bro mean to
the iodine that was already used. Goddard shortened the needed
(12:29):
exposure time significantly. With his formula, it took just seconds
to capture the image. That was a huge step forward,
and it seems that Cornelius and Goddard recognized the potential
commercial advantage of their new process. There was one that
they didn't initially share with the wider field of photography enthusiasts. Instead,
(12:50):
the business partners purchased all of the Roman along the
East coast that they could so that their faster process
could not be replicated by other people. We should know
as well that whether Goddard was the first to come
up with this idea is really a matter of debate.
European experimenters were proposing similar chemical tweaks to the process
to speed things up at about the same time. Yeah,
(13:13):
that's one thing when you talk about photography history, they're
almost always multiple people working on a process change at
the same time. So you do find some conflicting literature
about who did water came up with? What are right? Up?
In the papers about the Cornelius portrait Studio noted that
sometimes people were not so happy with their likenesses. It
(13:34):
stated that Cornelius and his partner Quote are now occupied
at their establishment corner of Ledge Alley in eight Streets, Philadelphia,
in taking likenesses, which are about seven by five inches
in neat metallic guilt frames, and are taken for five dollars.
As the likenesses are true, the owners are very often
(13:54):
too little flattered by the sun to be pleased with
his painting. But as the French are said, to a
friend of mine who complained that he had made him
look like an assassin, the heliographist might reply, sir, that
is not my fault, but the same article which appeared
in the Botanico Medical Recorder of Columbus, Ohio, that also
described how the process was pretty quick and easy for
(14:18):
the sitter. Quote. When the operate t is seated in
his chair and subjected to the light transmitted through the
purple glass, you would suppose all Mr Cornelius wished was
to make the fellow look blue. But he will be
relieved from such apprehension very soon, as it is only
necessary to sit about a minute till the sun has,
by its powerful pencil transfixed every lineament of your features,
(14:42):
with all their beauties and blemishes and imperishable lines, upon
the plate of silver. Before the person, and about four
ft in front of him, is a bureau, on the
top of which is a mahogany tube or box six
or seven inches square and eighteen inches long, open at
both ends. In the end next to the person to
(15:02):
be represented is fixed a double convex lens, about the
size of a common burning glass, but which the figure
of the face and bust is diminished to the proper
size for the plate of silver on which the likenesses
are to be fixed. When the person is seated, the
strong light is thrown from the mirrors through the purple
plate upon the face and bust, and reflected thence and
(15:25):
through the lens and box, and is transmitted to the
plate of prepared silver fixed at the other end of
the box. Half a minute or more is sufficient to
trace imperishably the delineation on the plate. I feel like
it took less time than it took to read that, yes,
which is what made me laugh and why I wanted
to include the whole thing, because I love that Everyone
(15:46):
keeps talking about it's so simple, and then they take
thirty five sentences to describe this simple thing. I'm like,
is it though? That right of though, was not alone
in reassuring potential visitors to the Cornelia Studio that the
process of having your photograph taken was both easy and painless.
In June of eighteen forty, a brief article, a genuinely
(16:09):
brief article from the Philadelphia Chronicle, was reprinted in the
Tennessee and and that mentioned the studio being open and
available for customers and touts quote, nothing could possibly be
more true than these representations of the human face divine,
for they transferred to the plate the exact image of
the sitters living as they rise. The mode, too, is
(16:31):
as simple as the results are accurate. All you have
to do is place yourself in an easy, well cushioned chair,
assumed the position in which you desire to be perpetuated,
and look steadfastly at a given object for the matter
of half a minute. In your features, expression, everything connected
with your countenance are caught and stamped with a vigor
(16:51):
and solitude that are unsurpassable. Also in June eighteen forty,
Cornelius ran his first advertisement for the studio, which read
quote da Guara type likenesses are. Cornelius, having completed his
arrangements for producing miniatures by the daguerrotype process, respectfully invites
the public to his rooms northeast corner of Eighth Street
(17:13):
and Lodge Alley, where specimens of the art can be seen.
Miniatures from life or copies of busts, portraits, etcetera will
be made of the usual size or for medallion's breastpens, etcetera.
The first customer was a man who had helped the
studio get going, John McAllister, Jr. He was an optician
and had given Cornelius his camera lenses when he first
(17:35):
started experimenting with photography. There's one thing that we should
mention here. We keep calling at the Cornelius studio, although
we have also said that Paul Beck Goddard was Robert
Cornelius's partner, and he was, but he was a silent partner,
assisting with the chemical makeup of their process, but then
staying out of the day to day business. We should
also note that their portrait studio was not the first
(17:57):
in the US, although it was the first infill Aadelphia.
The distinction of the first in the country goes to
Alexander Walcott and John Johnson, who opened a studio in
New York City in March of eighteen forty, just a
couple of months before the Cornelius and Goddard venture. And
just a moment we'll talk about the reputation for quality
that Robert Cornelius gained for his photographic efforts, and we
(18:20):
will cover that right after we hear from some of
the sponsors that make stuffumis and history class possible. The
frames for photographs that were mentioned in the description that
we read before the break may have been away for
(18:41):
Cornelius to integrate his family business into his new venture.
Those frames were unusual in the world of early photography,
and they may have been produced in the lamp factory.
But over time the metal frames were phased out and
Cornelius started using the same types of frames that other
early photographers used, which was sort of a floor old
design leather casing there was much lighter than the brass
(19:03):
frames that he had started with, but each of his
portraits had a studio label on it that was metal
that read de Guero type Miniatures by our Cornelius, eight
Street above Chestnut, Philadelphia. The word Cornelius was doing was
written up in various papers for its quality. Then the
public ledger of Philadelphia the following appeared on marchty quote,
(19:28):
this much admired art seems to be rapidly approaching perfection.
Among those who have been most successful in these attempts
is Mr Robert Cornelius of this city. We saw a
likeness yesterday which had been taken in just about thirty
seconds time. The operation is said to be by no
means troublesome or tiresome. Mr Cornelius has also taken a
(19:49):
number of views of buildings in this city, among them
as one of the Mason Hall St. John's Church in
thirteenth Street, The Western Exchange Hotel, and the entire view
of the city of Philadelphia. These views are publicly exposed
in his saloon at the corner of Lodge Alley and
Eight Streets for the inspection of visitors, and visitors did
(20:11):
indeed visit the studio to see these images, and portrait
bookings were popular with Philadelphia's elite. Remember that five dollars
was no small sum in eighteen forty but bookings were
steady and had to be made a week in advance,
with the caveat that an overcast day would be caused
for cancelation. Cornelius's work became so well regarded as some
(20:32):
of the best photography being done in the US that
selections of his images were sent to France to show
how much experimentation on this side of the Atlantic had
innovated the entire field. In eighteen forty one, Cornelius moved
to a new location in Market Street because it offered
better lighting. This meant he didn't usually have to cancel
appointments if it was overcast. He seemed to be succeeding
(20:55):
in his business. The paper described him as being run
down with his customer. That means like overrun, not that
the not that the business looks shabby, and this was
busy enough to have opened a second studio. He decided
to close his portrait business just a couple of years
after it opened, and that shift away from photography wasn't
necessarily because portrait business was lagging, although it is a
(21:19):
little bit unclear how profitable it actually was even with
that high price. But Cornelius was also eager to work
on alternative fuels for lighting. In the early eighteen forties,
whale oil was still the most common fuel for lighting
a lamp. Gaslight had been introduced several decades earlier, and
it was growing in both accessibility and popularity, but it
(21:41):
had not become the standard, and Robert Cornelius saw an
opportunity to do for lamp light what he had done
for photography by moving it forward. He invented a device
called a solar lamp. Isn't quite what you may think
of when you think about technologies that are today labeled
as solar. It wasn't solar power. It was just brighter
(22:01):
than other lamps, and it did have a different fuel
source than other lamps. Cornelias, who as we have said,
worked in the lamp in chandelier industry his whole career.
Applied for a patent on this lamp, which had a
rounded light deflector like other solar lamps, but his also
had way more options for fuel than other lamps of
(22:21):
the day. His solar lamp worked with lard oil, far
less expensive than whale oil, and that was not all.
You could put solid lard in it as a fuel
to burn, and in a pinch, you could even use
grease leftovers from cooking. Uh. If you want to see
a picture of this, the National Museum of American History
(22:41):
has one in its collection and you can find pictures
of it online. During his first years away from running
the portrait studio, Cornelius also still took photos on occasion,
but that waned over time. Maybe one of the reasons
that Robert Cornelius didn't pursue his photography is more of
a hobby after eighteen three was that there were lots
of other such studios opening up all around the city.
(23:05):
Even as early as eighteen forty. He had to compete
with a studio that opened right across the street from
his shop that was run by J. E. Watson. By
eighteen forty three, there were so many others. Additionally, his
family lighting business, Cornelius and Company, had become really successful.
That took up a lot of his time. Yeah, I
think I read one statistic that by eighteen forty three
(23:26):
there were ten photography studios, which doesn't sound like that
big a number, but that was still just, you know,
a few years after after this whole thing had started,
so it had grown quite quickly. Cornelius obviously was a
man of insight, and just as he had seen the
potential of the Dagara type and how it could be used,
he was also always working on new approaches to lighting,
(23:49):
even when those approaches endangered his previous inventions and made
them obsolete. Because of that desire to innovate, he actually
introduced the first kerosene lamp in each seen five. The
American Gaslight Gallery has a Cornelius kerosene lamp in its collection.
But though he was first to figure out a kerosene
lighting apparatus, Cornelius did not corner that market. Another device
(24:13):
by a different inventor, Johann Stupor, enabled customers to keep
their existing oil lamps. Stupor's invention was an attachment burner
that converted oil lamps to kerosene fuel. This is a
lot more economical option than replacing all of the oil
lamps in your house, so buyers typically chose that. Cornelius
tried to keep up with the kerosene market by inventing
(24:35):
his own conversion burner for using on existing oil lamps,
but he was just kind of too slow. He was
behind the trend at that point, and he couldn't regain
market share. In eighteen seventy seven, after having changed the
name from Cornelius and Company to Cornelius and Baker to
Cornelius and Sons over the years, Robert Cornelius retired. After that,
(24:56):
he spent most of his time at his country house
north of Frankfort, Sylvania. He had purchased that in the
early eighteen fifties. He still had the urge to experiment,
although once he left the lamp business this was gardening. Yeah,
he apparently did some seed experimentation, although I did not
find much documentation on it or information. Cornelius died at
(25:17):
his country house on August tenth, at the age of
eighty four, so he lived for quite a while after retirement.
He was buried at Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia, and
when His obituary ran in the American Journal of Photography.
It was right above an article written by another inventor
who would become much more famous. That article was titled
(25:38):
the Action of the Eye, and it was written by
Nicola Tesla. Today, Cornelius's famous selfie as part of the
collection of the Library of Congress. It's appeared in the
exhibits American Treasures of the Library of Congress and not
An Ostrich and other images from America's Library that was
in was also included in the book Gathering History the
(25:59):
Mary As Carson Collection of Americana in and then in
the e book Great Photographs from the Library of Congress.
And you can also find it online at Library of
Congress LC dot gov. Also will be on our social media. Yeah,
it's also just easy to find. If you do an
(26:19):
Internet search for Robert Cornelius, it's gonna come up. The
studio that Cornelius had had briefly in Philadelphia is now
called out by a historical marker from the Pennsylvania Historical
and Museum Commission, which reads, quote, Robert Cornelius, the metallurgist
and brass founder, opened one of the world's first photographic
studios here in the spring of eighteen forty, his collaboration
(26:43):
with chemist Paul Beck Goddard in successful experiments to reduce
exposure times made it possible to use the camera in portraiture.
Although he has name recognition in Philadelphia and in photography circles,
there's a fresh effort now to make sure that the
images Cornelius made and those early days of dagaratype experimentation
are preserved. In an article appeared in the online publication
(27:07):
Hidden City exploring Philadelphia's urban landscape, the write up features
a woman named Rachel Wetzel, who's a photograph conservator for
Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts and what's the
is on a mission to track down all of the
Cornelius Degarat types you can and ensure that they're preserved.
That effort has gotten a financial boost in the time
(27:28):
since that article appeared, The National Endowment for the Humanities
gave funding for a two year research project with the
goal of documenting all Cornelius portraits. According to the Robert
Cornelius Degara type project Facebook page, which is part of
this effort, quote, this project began as a collaborative scientific
study between Rachel Wetsel of the Conservation Center for Art
(27:49):
and Historic Artifacts and Adrian Lundgren of the Library of Congress.
Those two conservators now have a team to research historical
cleaners on de garatype images. Today, it is known that
fifty four of Cornelius's portraits survive. And now you know
when you look and say wow, you are handsome, that
(28:10):
that is the story of Robert Cornelie. Yeah. Do you
have some listener mail for us? I do. It is
also a little bit photography related because it is about
our recent episode on Wilson A Bentley who photographed all
of those beautiful snowflakes. This is from our listener Maren,
who writes, Hi, Holly and Tracy, I'm a longtime listener
(28:31):
of the show and really enjoyed your episode on Wilson A. Bentley.
Growing up, every December, my mom would wrap up twenty
five books, and each night leading up to Christmas, my
brother and I would alternate picking out one to unwrap
and read. I love this tradition and I think everyone
should adopt it, including myself. Maren goes on this tradition
functioned as our family's advent calendar and also prevented my
(28:53):
brother and I from nagging my mom to unwrap gifts
before Christmas. It was a really fun tradition as each
year there was one into two new books, and my
brother and I like to try to pick out our
old favorites by their shapes. One of my favorites of
these books was actually about Wilson Bentley. It's called Snowfake
Bentley by Jacqueline Briggs Martin. It looks like it may
be at a print now, and it's been several years
(29:15):
since I have read it, but I remember it being
a charming story and having excellent illustrations of Bentley snow crystals.
Being literature lovers, I thought you would enjoy my story
in the book. Thank you for all the hard work
you put into the show, yours, Maren p. S. I
have included a festive picture of my cat, Mazzi. Mazzi
is a torty, which I love because they are usually
(29:38):
little feline spitfires. But also, Marin, thank you because I
actually meant to mention that book at least in the
episode and neglected to You can still get it, at
least on the second hand book market. I think if
you're really eager to get it, you could probably get
your hands on a copy somehow. Yeah, we had a
lot of people mention it, like on Facebook comments and
tweets and things. Yeah, it's cute as pie. Um, and
(30:01):
it is very cool and there is there are very
pretty illustrations, so um, thank you for that reminder that
we should mention it. I'm still busy paging through Bentley's
book on snowflakes that he wrote because it has so
many great photographs in it and I just adore it.
So if you haven't looked at that, that is also great.
Thank you again for writing us. If you would like
(30:23):
to do so, you can do so at History Podcast
at i heeart radio dot com. You can also find
us on social media as Missed in History, which Tracy
just mentioned. You can also subscribe to the podcast if
you haven't gotten around to it yet. That is so
easy to do. You can do it on the I
heart radio app or anywhere you listen to your favorite podcasts.
(30:46):
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Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy Vie Wilson. Hey. This
is a follow up to our episode on Louis de Game,
But unlike most of our two partners, these two episodes
(00:23):
are intended to each stand on their own, So if
you haven't listened to that one yet, you should be
fine in this one. Similarly, if you're like I don't
want to hear about Robert Cornelius, you could skip it.
You're not gonna miss anything from the gear story. I
hope you do listen, though. Um I periodically see this
image of Robert Cornelius circulate on Twitter, where people discuss
(00:44):
how hot they think this man was, and he does
look mighty dashing in that image. But the fact that
this photo exists is in and of itself, really pretty astonishing.
Cornelius was smart and inventive in ways that do not
often come up in brief social media mentions. Yes, he
absolutely innovated in photography, but he also did some pretty
(01:07):
interesting work with lighting fixtures of all things. So today
we're going to cover how this man and some similarly
minded colleagues in Philadelphia started experimenting with the gears process
as well as other aspects of his life. Robert Cornelius
is born March first, eighteen o nine in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
His parents were Christian and Sarah Cornelius. Christian had emigrated
(01:30):
to the U s from Amsterdam in seventeen eighty three
and had started a lighting and chandelier business. As a kid,
Robert attended private schools and showed a natural interest and
proficiency in chemistry. Gerard Truce, who had been one of
the founders of the American Philosophical Society and part of
the New Harmony Indiana Oa Nite community that we covered
(01:52):
during one of our live shows, was his chemistry teacher.
As Robert started working in the family business in the
early eighteen thirties, Roberts chemistry studies served him well because
he became an expert in metal plating, in particular. In
eighteen thirty two, at the age of twenty three, Robert
married a young woman named Harriet come Ley, with whom
(02:14):
he had eight children, three sons and five daughters. Those
children were Robert, born roughly two years after the wedding.
Sarah Ann Charles born in eighteen thirty nine, John Constance, Harriet,
Fanny and Helen. And aside from those years of birth
that I just mentioned, the exact dates of birth are
(02:35):
unknown for the rest of the children. By autumn of
eighteen thirty nine, at a time when Robert had settled
into both his career in lighting and his family life,
information about Louis Degare's photo process was made available to
the curious minds of the United States. This ran in
multiple papers under the header on photography in the National
(02:57):
Exette of Philadelphia. The article opened with quote, the art
of transferring the outline of an object or the shades
of a picture to chemically prepared paper, simply by the
action of solar light, has attracted, especially in France and England,
the attention of scientific men. It goes on to say
that there have been a number of articles about it,
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and that now there's a Frenchman who quote has studied
the art with success. This article continues, quote His explanation
of the process is very simple and maybe understood by
anyone who has the taste and inclination to make an experiment.
Although in its infancy we have seen specimens of drawing
by the photographic mode perfect in outline and shades. Either landscapes,
(03:41):
flowers or figures may be copied with equal facility, and
as the occupation calls not for an artist's skill, anyone
may make the attempt. This article is lengthy and in
spite of touting its own simplicity, and it goes on
to describe exactly how this all works, first with a
general overview and then a step by step description. The
(04:03):
general description reads quote, when silver is dissolved in nitric acid,
a colorless solution of lunar caustic is produced, which, when
evaporated to dryness and exposed to light, becomes dark, the
color depending on the intensity of the light and the
time it has been exposed. Accordingly, paper besmeared with the
(04:24):
solution is darkened, but if any object be put on
it so as to prevent the transmission of light, the
parts covered will remain white or be tinged according to
the density of the object. Hence the art of photography.
The next several columns of this article, uh which him
it takes up many columns in the paper, are as
(04:45):
we said, dedicated to discussion of each step, which they
lay out as one methods of preparing the paper. Two
methods of taking the impressions, three preservation of the impressions,
and then there is an additional section titled method of
taking impressions in which the light and shades are not reversed. Basically,
all of this was all images for the most part,
(05:08):
initially had been reversed of what you would actually see
in reality, but people had worked out how to fix
that problem. And all of this right up was not
prepped by Degear, but by a man named Andrew Pife,
the vice president of the Society of Arts Edinburgh, and
it is an edited version of a paper that he
read at the Royal Society of Arts in Edinburgh. When
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papers like the National Gazette and the American Daily Advertiser
ran this story about Degear's work on October thirty nine,
Philadelphia readership took notice, and it was not all good notice.
There were readers who did not even believe the reporting.
That just did not seem possible that an image could
be captured that way. The article mentioned that it took
(05:52):
a full hour to capture an image with the new process,
and plenty of people thought that was ridiculous. Yeah, you'll
actually see some variations in that like, while this article
said that there were other things that were like no,
like thirty minutes, you know, maybe less, maybe more. But
for men like Cornelius, this was a really interesting topic.
(06:13):
For one, he, like a lot of men of industry
in Philadelphia, just was simply interested in emerging technologies. But
for another, it offered a new potential business opportunity at
a time when Robert Cornelius, like a lot of business owners,
was trying to regain stable footing after the eighteen thirty
seven financial panic had caused a dip and revenue. But
(06:34):
before we get to Cornelius's experiments with photography, we have
to talk about another man who was very excited about
the Advertiser's story, and that was Joseph Saxton. Saxton was
a little bit older than Cornelius. He was born on
March twenty two in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania. He started working in
his father's nail factory as a young boy, but he
(06:56):
got tired of it. He had apprenticed with a clockmaker
starting at the age of twelve, and that became his career.
He did well for himself in that job. It led
to him making the belfry clock for Independence Hall when
he was still a young man in his twenties. But
though his education had been vocation specific and related to clockworks,
he was fascinated with all things scientific. Saxton is usually
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credited with creating the first photograph made in the US.
That was an image of the state arsenal in Philadelphia
High School that was taken from a window high above
the street at the U. S. Mint in Philadelphia, which
was where Saxton worked. He was a constructor and curator
of the Mints weighing apparatus, and that was taken on
October eighteen thirty nine. That was only the day after
(07:45):
that Dagara type story had run in the papers. The
various components needed for that photo were largely improvised by Saxton.
A description of his first effort, written decades later described
what he used. Quote a seedlets powder box with a
few flakes of iodine answered for a coating box, while
a cigar box and burning glass were improvised for a camera.
(08:07):
An iron spoon served to heat mercury to develop the plate.
But Saxton was just getting started. That first image tested
the waters. He wanted to upgrade the materials he was
using and refine it all, and for that he turned
to Robert Cornelius. This wasn't because Cornelius was also interested
in photography. It was because of his expertise with metals
(08:29):
that he had gained through his work in the lighting business.
Saxton wanted Robert Cornelius to make silver coated copper plates
for him to use for his dagara types, and in
producing these plates, Cornelius found himself wanting to do his
own imaging experiments. And we're going to talk about that
very famous and history making photograph that came out of
(08:49):
Cornelius's interest in photography in just a moment, but first
we will pause for a sponsor break. It is not
known exactly what date Cornelius took the photograph that became
famous as the first photographic self portrait. He took it
(09:13):
behind the family lamp shop sometime in October or November,
so still very soon after the information onto gears process
was shared in the press. The outdoor set up in
the sun enabled him to minimize the needed exposure time.
He simply set his camera a box which was fitted
with an opera glass down on a stable surface, and
(09:33):
then he took the lens cover off and he sat
still for several minutes and then he put the lens
cover back on and that was that. When he developed
the photo using the Dagara type process, he had the
first self portrait photo made in the US. So this
photo itself has a certain charm. It's the one we
mentioned at the top of the episode that sometimes shows
(09:54):
up on lists of historical hotties. Cornelius has touseled hair,
He stares directly a the lens, and he does look
a bit like he walked out of a historical romance novel.
It's not the exact right time period, but I'm going
to describe it as Mr Darcy emerges from the mist.
That is a percent what it looks like to me
as well. I think that's why everybody is like he's beautiful.
(10:17):
So he's not quite centered in the image, which shows
him from his lower chest where his arms are crossed
up to the top of his head. On the left
side of the picture. The details are a little blurred.
It looks like maybe overexposure. This photo was important because
it proved that portraiture was completely possible, and that was
(10:37):
something that detractors claimed was not realistic because of the
length of time the subject had to sit still and
just a few weeks after this photo was made, and
having made additional ones, Cornelius gave a presentation on his
photographic work on December six, thirty nine at the American
Philosophical Society and the Franklin Institute. He showed his photos
(10:59):
and he talked about his process, and as a consequence,
he very quickly began to gain a name for himself
in this new field. The expertise that he was developing
and sharing through such lectures also launched a new business
venture for Cornelius. He partnered up with a man named
Paul Beck Goddard, who was a doctor, a surgeon, and
a chemist, to open a business Indo Garatype Portraiture in
(11:22):
eighteen forty in their studio on Eighth Street, which will
sometimes see written as eight Street depending on what source
you look at. The pair advanced photography in a couple
of different ways. One of the innovations which was achieved
by Cornelius was the lighting setup. He attached a mirror
to one of the windows which was oriented to reflect
off of another mirror that was positioned to light the subject,
(11:46):
and he tempered the glare of the natural sunlight with
another piece of glass. This one with a lilac film
over it. This setup, which was all oriented so that
the subject could look directly at the camera, set the
standard for portrait photography. Cornelius also took photos, for example,
of a street view in eighteen forty and that was
advanced and that it did not flip the image the
(12:07):
way most agia types did. He once again had used
a mirror or another reflective surface we don't know for
certain to create what looked like a true to life image.
Another innovation came from Goddard's tweaking of the chemical makeup
of the plate preparation solution and adding bro mean to
the iodine that was already used. Goddard shortened the needed
(12:29):
exposure time significantly. With his formula, it took just seconds
to capture the image. That was a huge step forward,
and it seems that Cornelius and Goddard recognized the potential
commercial advantage of their new process. There was one that
they didn't initially share with the wider field of photography enthusiasts. Instead,
(12:50):
the business partners purchased all of the Roman along the
East coast that they could so that their faster process
could not be replicated by other people. We should know
as well that whether Goddard was the first to come
up with this idea is really a matter of debate.
European experimenters were proposing similar chemical tweaks to the process
to speed things up at about the same time. Yeah,
(13:13):
that's one thing when you talk about photography history, they're
almost always multiple people working on a process change at
the same time. So you do find some conflicting literature
about who did water came up with? What are right? Up?
In the papers about the Cornelius portrait Studio noted that
sometimes people were not so happy with their likenesses. It
(13:34):
stated that Cornelius and his partner Quote are now occupied
at their establishment corner of Ledge Alley in eight Streets, Philadelphia,
in taking likenesses, which are about seven by five inches
in neat metallic guilt frames, and are taken for five dollars.
As the likenesses are true, the owners are very often
(13:54):
too little flattered by the sun to be pleased with
his painting. But as the French are said, to a
friend of mine who complained that he had made him
look like an assassin, the heliographist might reply, sir, that
is not my fault, but the same article which appeared
in the Botanico Medical Recorder of Columbus, Ohio, that also
described how the process was pretty quick and easy for
(14:18):
the sitter. Quote. When the operate t is seated in
his chair and subjected to the light transmitted through the
purple glass, you would suppose all Mr Cornelius wished was
to make the fellow look blue. But he will be
relieved from such apprehension very soon, as it is only
necessary to sit about a minute till the sun has,
by its powerful pencil transfixed every lineament of your features,
(14:42):
with all their beauties and blemishes and imperishable lines, upon
the plate of silver. Before the person, and about four
ft in front of him, is a bureau, on the
top of which is a mahogany tube or box six
or seven inches square and eighteen inches long, open at
both ends. In the end next to the person to
(15:02):
be represented is fixed a double convex lens, about the
size of a common burning glass, but which the figure
of the face and bust is diminished to the proper
size for the plate of silver on which the likenesses
are to be fixed. When the person is seated, the
strong light is thrown from the mirrors through the purple
plate upon the face and bust, and reflected thence and
(15:25):
through the lens and box, and is transmitted to the
plate of prepared silver fixed at the other end of
the box. Half a minute or more is sufficient to
trace imperishably the delineation on the plate. I feel like
it took less time than it took to read that, yes,
which is what made me laugh and why I wanted
to include the whole thing, because I love that Everyone
(15:46):
keeps talking about it's so simple, and then they take
thirty five sentences to describe this simple thing. I'm like,
is it though? That right of though, was not alone
in reassuring potential visitors to the Cornelia Studio that the
process of having your photograph taken was both easy and painless.
In June of eighteen forty, a brief article, a genuinely
(16:09):
brief article from the Philadelphia Chronicle, was reprinted in the
Tennessee and and that mentioned the studio being open and
available for customers and touts quote, nothing could possibly be
more true than these representations of the human face divine,
for they transferred to the plate the exact image of
the sitters living as they rise. The mode, too, is
(16:31):
as simple as the results are accurate. All you have
to do is place yourself in an easy, well cushioned chair,
assumed the position in which you desire to be perpetuated,
and look steadfastly at a given object for the matter
of half a minute. In your features, expression, everything connected
with your countenance are caught and stamped with a vigor
(16:51):
and solitude that are unsurpassable. Also in June eighteen forty,
Cornelius ran his first advertisement for the studio, which read
quote da Guara type likenesses are. Cornelius, having completed his
arrangements for producing miniatures by the daguerrotype process, respectfully invites
the public to his rooms northeast corner of Eighth Street
(17:13):
and Lodge Alley, where specimens of the art can be seen.
Miniatures from life or copies of busts, portraits, etcetera will
be made of the usual size or for medallion's breastpens, etcetera.
The first customer was a man who had helped the
studio get going, John McAllister, Jr. He was an optician
and had given Cornelius his camera lenses when he first
(17:35):
started experimenting with photography. There's one thing that we should
mention here. We keep calling at the Cornelius studio, although
we have also said that Paul Beck Goddard was Robert
Cornelius's partner, and he was, but he was a silent partner,
assisting with the chemical makeup of their process, but then
staying out of the day to day business. We should
also note that their portrait studio was not the first
(17:57):
in the US, although it was the first infill Aadelphia.
The distinction of the first in the country goes to
Alexander Walcott and John Johnson, who opened a studio in
New York City in March of eighteen forty, just a
couple of months before the Cornelius and Goddard venture. And
just a moment we'll talk about the reputation for quality
that Robert Cornelius gained for his photographic efforts, and we
(18:20):
will cover that right after we hear from some of
the sponsors that make stuffumis and history class possible. The
frames for photographs that were mentioned in the description that
we read before the break may have been away for
(18:41):
Cornelius to integrate his family business into his new venture.
Those frames were unusual in the world of early photography,
and they may have been produced in the lamp factory.
But over time the metal frames were phased out and
Cornelius started using the same types of frames that other
early photographers used, which was sort of a floor old
design leather casing there was much lighter than the brass
(19:03):
frames that he had started with, but each of his
portraits had a studio label on it that was metal
that read de Guero type Miniatures by our Cornelius, eight
Street above Chestnut, Philadelphia. The word Cornelius was doing was
written up in various papers for its quality. Then the
public ledger of Philadelphia the following appeared on marchty quote,
(19:28):
this much admired art seems to be rapidly approaching perfection.
Among those who have been most successful in these attempts
is Mr Robert Cornelius of this city. We saw a
likeness yesterday which had been taken in just about thirty
seconds time. The operation is said to be by no
means troublesome or tiresome. Mr Cornelius has also taken a
(19:49):
number of views of buildings in this city, among them
as one of the Mason Hall St. John's Church in
thirteenth Street, The Western Exchange Hotel, and the entire view
of the city of Philadelphia. These views are publicly exposed
in his saloon at the corner of Lodge Alley and
Eight Streets for the inspection of visitors, and visitors did
(20:11):
indeed visit the studio to see these images, and portrait
bookings were popular with Philadelphia's elite. Remember that five dollars
was no small sum in eighteen forty but bookings were
steady and had to be made a week in advance,
with the caveat that an overcast day would be caused
for cancelation. Cornelius's work became so well regarded as some
(20:32):
of the best photography being done in the US that
selections of his images were sent to France to show
how much experimentation on this side of the Atlantic had
innovated the entire field. In eighteen forty one, Cornelius moved
to a new location in Market Street because it offered
better lighting. This meant he didn't usually have to cancel
appointments if it was overcast. He seemed to be succeeding
(20:55):
in his business. The paper described him as being run
down with his customer. That means like overrun, not that
the not that the business looks shabby, and this was
busy enough to have opened a second studio. He decided
to close his portrait business just a couple of years
after it opened, and that shift away from photography wasn't
necessarily because portrait business was lagging, although it is a
(21:19):
little bit unclear how profitable it actually was even with
that high price. But Cornelius was also eager to work
on alternative fuels for lighting. In the early eighteen forties,
whale oil was still the most common fuel for lighting
a lamp. Gaslight had been introduced several decades earlier, and
it was growing in both accessibility and popularity, but it
(21:41):
had not become the standard, and Robert Cornelius saw an
opportunity to do for lamp light what he had done
for photography by moving it forward. He invented a device
called a solar lamp. Isn't quite what you may think
of when you think about technologies that are today labeled
as solar. It wasn't solar power. It was just brighter
(22:01):
than other lamps, and it did have a different fuel
source than other lamps. Cornelias, who as we have said,
worked in the lamp in chandelier industry his whole career.
Applied for a patent on this lamp, which had a
rounded light deflector like other solar lamps, but his also
had way more options for fuel than other lamps of
(22:21):
the day. His solar lamp worked with lard oil, far
less expensive than whale oil, and that was not all.
You could put solid lard in it as a fuel
to burn, and in a pinch, you could even use
grease leftovers from cooking. Uh. If you want to see
a picture of this, the National Museum of American History
(22:41):
has one in its collection and you can find pictures
of it online. During his first years away from running
the portrait studio, Cornelius also still took photos on occasion,
but that waned over time. Maybe one of the reasons
that Robert Cornelius didn't pursue his photography is more of
a hobby after eighteen three was that there were lots
of other such studios opening up all around the city.
(23:05):
Even as early as eighteen forty. He had to compete
with a studio that opened right across the street from
his shop that was run by J. E. Watson. By
eighteen forty three, there were so many others. Additionally, his
family lighting business, Cornelius and Company, had become really successful.
That took up a lot of his time. Yeah, I
think I read one statistic that by eighteen forty three
(23:26):
there were ten photography studios, which doesn't sound like that
big a number, but that was still just, you know,
a few years after after this whole thing had started,
so it had grown quite quickly. Cornelius obviously was a
man of insight, and just as he had seen the
potential of the Dagara type and how it could be used,
he was also always working on new approaches to lighting,
(23:49):
even when those approaches endangered his previous inventions and made
them obsolete. Because of that desire to innovate, he actually
introduced the first kerosene lamp in each seen five. The
American Gaslight Gallery has a Cornelius kerosene lamp in its collection.
But though he was first to figure out a kerosene
lighting apparatus, Cornelius did not corner that market. Another device
(24:13):
by a different inventor, Johann Stupor, enabled customers to keep
their existing oil lamps. Stupor's invention was an attachment burner
that converted oil lamps to kerosene fuel. This is a
lot more economical option than replacing all of the oil
lamps in your house, so buyers typically chose that. Cornelius
tried to keep up with the kerosene market by inventing
(24:35):
his own conversion burner for using on existing oil lamps,
but he was just kind of too slow. He was
behind the trend at that point, and he couldn't regain
market share. In eighteen seventy seven, after having changed the
name from Cornelius and Company to Cornelius and Baker to
Cornelius and Sons over the years, Robert Cornelius retired. After that,
(24:56):
he spent most of his time at his country house
north of Frankfort, Sylvania. He had purchased that in the
early eighteen fifties. He still had the urge to experiment,
although once he left the lamp business this was gardening. Yeah,
he apparently did some seed experimentation, although I did not
find much documentation on it or information. Cornelius died at
(25:17):
his country house on August tenth, at the age of
eighty four, so he lived for quite a while after retirement.
He was buried at Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia, and
when His obituary ran in the American Journal of Photography.
It was right above an article written by another inventor
who would become much more famous. That article was titled
(25:38):
the Action of the Eye, and it was written by
Nicola Tesla. Today, Cornelius's famous selfie as part of the
collection of the Library of Congress. It's appeared in the
exhibits American Treasures of the Library of Congress and not
An Ostrich and other images from America's Library that was
in was also included in the book Gathering History the
(25:59):
Mary As Carson Collection of Americana in and then in
the e book Great Photographs from the Library of Congress.
And you can also find it online at Library of
Congress LC dot gov. Also will be on our social media. Yeah,
it's also just easy to find. If you do an
(26:19):
Internet search for Robert Cornelius, it's gonna come up. The
studio that Cornelius had had briefly in Philadelphia is now
called out by a historical marker from the Pennsylvania Historical
and Museum Commission, which reads, quote, Robert Cornelius, the metallurgist
and brass founder, opened one of the world's first photographic
studios here in the spring of eighteen forty, his collaboration
(26:43):
with chemist Paul Beck Goddard in successful experiments to reduce
exposure times made it possible to use the camera in portraiture.
Although he has name recognition in Philadelphia and in photography circles,
there's a fresh effort now to make sure that the
images Cornelius made and those early days of dagaratype experimentation
are preserved. In an article appeared in the online publication
(27:07):
Hidden City exploring Philadelphia's urban landscape, the write up features
a woman named Rachel Wetzel, who's a photograph conservator for
Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts and what's the
is on a mission to track down all of the
Cornelius Degarat types you can and ensure that they're preserved.
That effort has gotten a financial boost in the time
(27:28):
since that article appeared, The National Endowment for the Humanities
gave funding for a two year research project with the
goal of documenting all Cornelius portraits. According to the Robert
Cornelius Degara type project Facebook page, which is part of
this effort, quote, this project began as a collaborative scientific
study between Rachel Wetsel of the Conservation Center for Art
(27:49):
and Historic Artifacts and Adrian Lundgren of the Library of Congress.
Those two conservators now have a team to research historical
cleaners on de garatype images. Today, it is known that
fifty four of Cornelius's portraits survive. And now you know
when you look and say wow, you are handsome, that
(28:10):
that is the story of Robert Cornelie. Yeah. Do you
have some listener mail for us? I do. It is
also a little bit photography related because it is about
our recent episode on Wilson A Bentley who photographed all
of those beautiful snowflakes. This is from our listener Maren,
who writes, Hi, Holly and Tracy, I'm a longtime listener
(28:31):
of the show and really enjoyed your episode on Wilson A. Bentley.
Growing up, every December, my mom would wrap up twenty
five books, and each night leading up to Christmas, my
brother and I would alternate picking out one to unwrap
and read. I love this tradition and I think everyone
should adopt it, including myself. Maren goes on this tradition
functioned as our family's advent calendar and also prevented my
(28:53):
brother and I from nagging my mom to unwrap gifts
before Christmas. It was a really fun tradition as each
year there was one into two new books, and my
brother and I like to try to pick out our
old favorites by their shapes. One of my favorites of
these books was actually about Wilson Bentley. It's called Snowfake
Bentley by Jacqueline Briggs Martin. It looks like it may
be at a print now, and it's been several years
(29:15):
since I have read it, but I remember it being
a charming story and having excellent illustrations of Bentley snow crystals.
Being literature lovers, I thought you would enjoy my story
in the book. Thank you for all the hard work
you put into the show, yours, Maren p. S. I
have included a festive picture of my cat, Mazzi. Mazzi
is a torty, which I love because they are usually
(29:38):
little feline spitfires. But also, Marin, thank you because I
actually meant to mention that book at least in the
episode and neglected to You can still get it, at
least on the second hand book market. I think if
you're really eager to get it, you could probably get
your hands on a copy somehow. Yeah, we had a
lot of people mention it, like on Facebook comments and
tweets and things. Yeah, it's cute as pie. Um, and
(30:01):
it is very cool and there is there are very
pretty illustrations, so um, thank you for that reminder that
we should mention it. I'm still busy paging through Bentley's
book on snowflakes that he wrote because it has so
many great photographs in it and I just adore it.
So if you haven't looked at that, that is also great.
Thank you again for writing us. If you would like
(30:23):
to do so, you can do so at History Podcast
at i heeart radio dot com. You can also find
us on social media as Missed in History, which Tracy
just mentioned. You can also subscribe to the podcast if
you haven't gotten around to it yet. That is so
easy to do. You can do it on the I
heart radio app or anywhere you listen to your favorite podcasts.
(30:46):
Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of
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Stuff You Missed in History Class News
Hosts And Creators
Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
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Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
40s and Free Agents: NFL Draft Season
Daniel Jeremiah of Move the Sticks and Gregg Rosenthal of NFL Daily join forces to break down every team's needs this offseason.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.