1863 O'Sullivan Albumen Photograph View of Gettysburg Battlefield from Seminary Ridge

Timothy O'Sullivan (1840 - January 14, 1882) was an American photographer. Very little is known about is personal life. Even his place of birth remains a mystery: either he was born in Ireland, or his parents arrived in New York before his birth. The records to prove either theory do not exist. Our knowledge of O'Sullivan's life begins in his teens, when he apprenticed to New York based photographer Mathew Brady, who would become famous for his Civil War photographs. He soon moved to Washington, D.C. and worked in the Brady studio managed by Alexander Gardner (1821 - 1882). O'Sullivan claimed that he enlisted in the Union Army in 1861, but the records to support this claim have not been found. It is likely that he was given an honorary commission and worked copying maps and plans and took photographs as well. We know O'Sullivan worked with Brady and Alexander Gardner in 1861, and when Gardner left Brady's firm in 1862 O'Sullivan went with him. It is said Gardner left Brady's studio because of Brady's tendency to declare all photos to be taken by 'Brady and Co.' O'Sullivan worked with Gardner throughout the rest of the war and produced many of his most famous images during these years. Both men were at Gettysburg, photographed the Siege of Petersburg, and O'Sullivan was in North Carolina during the siege of Fort Fisher before ending the war at Appomattox Court House. After the war, O'Sullivan became a member of the United States Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel led by Clarence King from 1867 until 1869. He was also part of Lt. George M. Wheeler's survey west of the 100th meridian from 1871 through 1874. O'Sullivan even traveled through the Grand Canyon on the Colorado River, although most of his negatives were lost during that journey. The last few years of his life were spent as the official photographer for the U.S. Geological Survey and the Treasury Department. He died on Staten Island of tuberculosis. More by this mapmaker...

Mathew B. Brady (c. 1822-1824 - January 15, 1896) was an American photographer. Brady's early life is a mystery. In his later years, just before his death, Brady claimed to reporters that he had been born in Warren County, New York, near Lake George, and that he was the youngest of three children to Irish immigrant parents. However, before and during the Civil War, Brady claimed in official documents to have been born in Ireland. Brady moved to Saratoga, New York, at the age of 16, and began studying painting with William Page, a portraitist. Page and Brady moved to Albany, then New York City, in 1839, and Brady continued studying with Page as well as Samuel Morse, Page's former teacher. That year Morse had studied with Louis Jacques Daguerre (the inventor of the daguerreotype - an early form of photography) in France. Morse became an enthusiastic proponent of daguerreotypes and began promoting the new technology in New York. Brady's early involvement with Morse's new venture was limited to making leather cases for the daguerreotypes. But, when Morse opened a studio and began teaching classes on the new method, Brady eagerly became one of his first students. Brady opened his own studio in 1844 and the following year was exhibiting portraits of such luminaries as Edgar Allen Poe and Senator Daniel Webster. He opened another studio in Washington, D.C. in 1849, but had to abandon it in 1850 after falling out with his landlord. Brady hired Alexander Gardner in 1856. In 1858, when Brady decided to open a D.C. studio, he made Gardner the manager. At the beginning of the Civil War, Brady marketed his successful cartes de visite to departing soldiers and their families, but his interest soon turned to documenting the war itself. Brady petitioned General Winfield Scott and President Lincoln to allow his photographers to travel to battle sites. Lincoln approved his request, although he stated that Brady would have to finance everything himself. To do so, Brady developed a mobile photography studio and darkroom and employed over twenty men, each of whom had their own traveling dark room. Among his employees were Alexander Gardner and Timothy O'Sullivan. Brady's assistants took thousands of photographs of Civil War scenes, from the First Battle of Bull Run to Appomattox Court House. After the war, interest in Brady's photographs declined exponentially, leaving him in dire straits. Brady spent over $100,000 (about $1.878 million in 2022) during the war which resulted in the creation of over 10,000 glass negatives. Brady expected that the U.S. government would buy the negatives after the war, but, despite the recommendation of the Joint Committee on the Library, Congress did not purchase Brady's work. This forced Brady to sell his Washington studio in 1870 and later his New York studio, and eventually file for bankruptcy. He died penniless in the charity ward of New York City's Presbyterian Hospital. Learn More...