Earliest known, along with one of the most recent known, photographs of a President

[bigtree]

Michael Shure @michaelshure 3m
Earliest known photograph of a President, along with one of the most recent known photographs of a President. Happy President’s Day.

Link to tweet

[tavernier]

1. Oh my he's a cheerful looking thing isn't he?

[Aristus]

4. The Adamses were not warm and cuddly.

But John Q. was a masterful diplomat.

[murielm99]

17. I would not be warm and cuddly either

if I had to sit still in such a damned cold location.

[Hugin]

8. Considering he had to sit absolutely still for a half an hour...

"making the photograph". His dour expression is understandable.

I can hear the photoneer yelling, "Darn it. His hands are blurred! Take two! Prop him up in the chair with an iron bar strapped to his back, if you have to!"

[Tanuki]

19. In the early days of portrait photography, people usually had a serious facial expression.

You could almost say that smiling was frowned upon.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/12/01/researchers-have-discovered-a-surprising-reason-we-smile-in-photos

"Smiling is a biological reflex. Babies practice smiling as soon as they are born, their bodies rehearsing this essential human gesture. 

But to smile for the camera, to mug and pose, is strictly a learned habit. Historians say that the photographic grin not only a recent ritual, but also a somewhat artificial one: abetted by the camera industry, and entwined with the rise of cheerfulness as an American cultural norm.
....
Though photography was still relatively new in the 1850s, portraiture was not, and tradition said that proper people should not grin or bare their teeth in their pictures. Big smiles were considered silly, childish, or downright wicked.

“In the fine arts a grin was only characteristic of peasants, drunkards, children, and halfwits, suggesting low class or some other deficiency,” Kotchemidova writes, citing research from historian Fred Schroeder."...(moreĺ

[NYC Liberal]

22. He actually wrote about the day this photo was taken. It's a fun read!

He was visiting Niagara Falls, met Tom Thumb, and got a pebble in his eye. (He also thought this was a terrible photo of himself.)

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/02/the-oldest-known-photographs-of-a-us-president/272872/

My first visit this morning immediately after breakfast was to the Female Seminary where I was introduced to the assembled teachers and pupils and addressed in behalf of the trustees of that institution by Mr. Spencer, in a manner so affecting that it made a child of me. It consisted chiefly of extracts which he read from my mother's published letters of 19th August 1774, to my father, and of June, 1778, to me. I actually sobbed as he read, utterly unable to suppress my emotion. Oh, my mother! Is there anything on earth so affecting to me as thy name so precious as thy instructions to my childhood, so dear as the memory of thy life? I answered I know not what. My thoughts were all upon my mother; my heart was too full for my head to think and my presence of mind was gone. At the close of his address, Mr. Spencer presented to me, at the request of the ladies, twelve numbers of a monthly publication from August, 1842, to July, 1843, called "The Young Ladies' Miscellany," the original productions of the Utica Female Academy.

At ten o clock the reception took place on a stage erected in front of the Bleeker House, where Mr. Bacon addressed and welcomed me in the name of the citizens of Utica. I answered him in a speech of about half an hour, sufficiently cheered for my hopes or wishes, but of mortifying inanity to myself. The shaking of some hundred hands then followed and on my way returning to Mr. Johnson's, I stopped and four daguerreotype likenesses of my head were taken, two of them jointly with the head of Mr. Bacon -- all hideous. Then a visit to the dwarf C.F. Stratton, called General Tom Thumb, eleven years old, twenty-five inches high, weighing fifteen pounds, dressed in military uniform mimicking Napoleon.

At Little Falls I was addressed and welcomed by Arphaxad Loomis, an ex-member of the Twenty Sixth Congress, whom I did not recognize till after I had answered. In the valley of the Mohawk we saw the fortress dwelling-house of Sir William Johnson, and that of the Indian chief Brant, said to be his son. About an hour before we reached Schenectady, the wind raised by the rapid motion of the car lodged on the ball of my left eye, beneath the under lid, a small sharp-angled pebble, of the entrance of which I was not conscious when it happened, but which fretted the eye to torture, produced considerable inflammation, and made it impossible for me to look in the face of those whom I was to address. A sumptuous dinner had been prepared for us at Schenectady. I was in anguish unutterable. I retired to a private chamber and washed the eye in cold water without relief. Dr. Duane, who had observed my suffering, followed me to the chamber, examined the eye, discovered the offensive pebble, wiped it out with the corner of a towel, and I was well.

[samnsara]

2. who is the old guy?

[aeromanKC]

9. Joe Biden

But he is young at heart!! (and probably healthier than the 20 years younger me)

[Aristus]

3. John Q. Adams was long-past his Presidency by that point, and was at that time

a Congressional representative for Massachusetts.

He remains the first person to serve as President to be photographed, though.

[samnsara]

6. oh..John Adams son. I just watched that series.

[tavernier]

13. I'm really impressed!

John Q. most certainly knew Washington. We have a photo of a guy who knew Washington! Suddenly history has shrunken in time!

[BobTheSubgenius]

24. If that shrinks history, consider this case.

John Tyler (elected in 1841) had a grandson that is STILL ALIVE! Sibling grandson died in 2012.

That absolutely blew my mind. 2021 back to almost a generation before the Civil War in 2 steps. Incredible.

[tavernier]

26. Excellent!

Although I’m quite certain that my great grand children will someday tell their grandchildren that I dated Ben Franklin. I’m a bit of a Ben groupie.

[samnsara]

5. Im finishing John Adams today...i subscribed to HBO just for that show..

... Its REALLY good...now I need to go watch Hamilton again as he and Adams did not like each other.

[PatSeg]

7. I've watched it at least three times

It is fascinating and I really learned more each time I watched it.

[tavernier]

11. I've watched Hamilton at least a dozen times.

I’m addicted. It’s so good!!

[Boomerproud]

10. The cult has taken over the reply section. Sick people.

They ruin everything they touch. Didn't John Quincy Adam's defend the slaves on the Amistad?

[Buzz cook]

12. Yes. He and hs father were both anti-slavery.nt

.

[whistler162]

14. And here is the life mask of John Adams

https://collections.fenimoreart.org/objects/17/john-adams-17351826-life-mask

[Pepsidog]

15. That's funny, I pulled up that same photo to show my son this weekend. Amazing.

[Pepsidog]

16. That's funny, I pulled up that same photo to show my son this weekend. Amazing.

[VladmireTrumpkins]

18. Question

What year was this taken?

[Aristus]

21. Off the top of my head, I'd say 1847, not long before he died.

His predecessor, the fifth President James Monroe, is the last President for whom no photograph exists.

[catchnrelease]

20. I had to laugh

The comment that said the Adams picture was the Bernie meme without the mask and gloves made me chuckle.

[11 Bravo]

23. That's not Trump. His saggy ass would be hanging off the edge of the seat, and ...

his cellulite-ridden thighs are at least three times larger than the one shown in the picture.

[keithbvadu2]

25. Driver's license photo. We don't look good in those.

Driver's license photo.

We don't look good in those.

[MustLoveBeagles]

27. He bears a passing resemblance to William Hartnell