Brady, Mathew. Mathew Brady, Historian with a Camera by James D. Horan.

Bonanza, 1955. [Reprint] Near mint hardcover with dust jacket. One of the three major books on Brady. Includes Brady's youth and career as Brady of Broadway, one of the premier daguerreotypists in New York; the Civil War years, during which Brady was responsible for most of the photographic documentation that still exists; and the post-war years in which he worked with his nephew, Levin Handy, who eventually took over his studio. Numerous text illustrations of photographs and documents plus Picture Album with 453 photographs, followed by detailed appendices of useful information. Includes portraits of many famous people including Andrew Jackson, Stonewall Jackson, John Tyler, John Quincy Adams, James K. Polk, Abraham Lincoln, Robert E. Lee, Dolly Madison, Jenny Lind, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Edwin Forrest, Phineas T. Barnum, Cyrus West Field, Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, Daniel Webster, William H. Prescott, Cardinal Nicholas Patrick Stephen Wiseman, Prince Joseph Charles Paul Bonaparte, Sam Houston, August Belmont, Thomas Hart Benton, William Cullen Bryant, Brigham Young, Caleb Cushing, Junius Brutus Booth, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Washington Irving, Edgar Allen Poe, Stephen A. Douglas, Phoebe Cary, Franklin Pierce, Nicholas Philip Trist, Rembrandt Peale, Judah P. Benjamin, Sir Francis Napier, John C. Fremont, Horace Greeley, Alexander T. Stewart, Martin Van Buren, Louis Blanc, Adelina Patti, Charlotte Cushman, James Buchanan and his Cabinet, Ole Bull, Prince of Wales, John Bell, J.C. Breckenridge, John Brown (abolitionist), Edwin M. Stanton, Salmon P. Chase, Edmund Ruffin, Henry A. Wise, Cassius M. Clay, Hannibal Hamlin, Francis B. Cutting, Montgomery Blair, Gideon Welles, Kit Carson, Clara Barton, pugilist Joe Coburn, Tom Thumb, Willliam Pitt Fessenden, Jefferson Davis, Stephen Mallory, Alexander H. Stephens, John Slidell, Allan Pinkerton, John Plumbe, Samuel Morse, William C. Bouch, Generals George Pickett, Braxton Bragg, Jubal A. Early, Turner Ashby, Wade Hampton, Simon B. Buckner, G.J. Rains, John H. Winder, William J. Hardee, James Longstreet, Albert Sidney Johnston, J.E.B. Stuart, George A. Custer, George McClellan, Philip Henry Sheridan, Phil Kearney, Lew Wallace, Judson Kilpatrick, George H. Thomas, James H. Wilson, Winfield Scott Hancock, Emerson Opdyke, Orville E. Babcock, Benjamin F. Butler, John A. Dix, William T. Sherman, Ulysses S. Grant, and other officers of note. Also the Lincoln assassination conspirators John Wilkes Booth, Lewis Payne, George Atzerodt, Edward Spangler, Samuel Arnold, John Surratt, et al. Some of the photographs are by photographers associated with Brady such as Alexander Gardner and Timothy O'Sullivan. Postwar photos include Thomas Edison, Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, Chester A. Arthur, Grover Cleveland, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, et al. Summary:

Mathew Brady: Historian with a Camera by James D. Horan is a 1955 biographical monograph and visual archive published by Crown Publishers. The volume provides a comprehensive account of Mathew Brady's life while chronicling the birth of American photojournalism.

Highlights

• Biographical Account: Explores Brady's early career under Samuel F. B. Morse, his rise as a premier portrait photographer in New York and Washington, D.C., and his ambitious, self-funded effort to document the American Civil War.

• Financial & Historical Legacy: Details the immense personal and financial toll of Brady's wartime enterprise, highlighting how the U.S. government's initial neglect of his master glass-plate negative collection led to his eventual bankruptcy and death in poverty.

• Visual Archive: Features over 500 picture reproductions, including rarely seen portraits of major 19th-century political and cultural figures—such as Abraham Lincoln, Edgar Allan Poe, and Clara Barton—alongside iconic Civil War battlefield landscapes.

Mathew Brady (c. 1822–1896) was a pioneering 19th-century American photographer widely celebrated as a father of modern photojournalism. After studying portraiture and early photographic processes under Samuel F. B. Morse, Brady opened successful daguerreotype studios in New York City and Washington, D.C., quickly earning acclaim for capturing high-profile portraits of politicians, cultural figures, and U.S. presidents. With the outbreak of the American Civil War, he organized and financed a team of field photographers to create a comprehensive visual record of the conflict, bringing the harsh realities of battlefield carnage and camp life directly to the American public. Despite his immense historic legacy, his self-funded wartime documentation project resulted in financial hardship, leading to insolvency before his death in 1896.