Mathew B. Brady

Mathew B. Brady. Civil War Photographer. Childhood Home Near this Site, Matthew Brady was born of Irish immigrant parents and grew up here in Johnsburg off what is today called Pasco Road. Some records suggest that he was actually born here. Youngest of three children, his father was Andrew, his mother was Samantha Julia., He is perhaps the most celebrated photographer of the nineteenth century becoming known as the father of photojournalism., Brady studied under portrait painter William Page and then also Samuel B. Morse who was promoting the new innovation of photography, the daguerreotype., Brady opened his own photography studio in NYC in 1844 and throughout his career photographed thousands of people including: Generals Grant, Lee, Custer, Burnside and Jackson; Clara Barton, Walt Whitman and Mary Todd-Lincoln., Brady also photographed many presidents of his time. Lincoln stated that public awareness through Brady's photographs of him helped him to become President. Of the many portraits of Lincoln, several have been chosen for the five dollar bill, the Lincoln penny and a ninety cent postage stamp., Early in the Civil War he was given permission by President Lincoln to enter the battlefield with some two dozen employees for the purpose of photographically recording the events and subsequently having the pictures made public to the general populace, thereby exposing the gruesome reality of the conflict., Matthew Brady gave much to history but received a meager return. In his later years he became severely depressed due to bankruptcy, the death of his wife (Juliette Handy, m1887) and loss of eyesight., He died on January 15, 1896 from complications due to a streetcar accident and was buried in Congressional Cemetery in Washington, DC paid for by the veterans of the 7th infantry.