Featured Earliest Born Person Ever Photographed

This is Hannah Stilley, born 1746, photographed in 1840. She may be the earliest born person ever captured on camera

 

It is not really surptising that glamour photography took almost another century to get off the ground.

 

Ah, the male gaze. Pops up in the most unexpected places, doesn't it? Even when contemplating a possibly-historical early Victorian photograph.

Debora

 

Supposedly the earliest-born woman to be photographed (there was a man born earlier who may be the earliest person).

The person who wrote this blog post doubts the claim about Hannah, referring to it as an "Internet meme." I have not investigated, and had not even heard of this before. http://benbeck.co.uk/firsts/2_The_Human_Subject/photo1h.htm

The person who wrote the post tried to analyze any evidence, and was unconvinced.

 

Yeah, i wouldn't doubt it, this photo just rolled across my twitter feed that i thought was interesting.

 

It is interesting, yes!

 

Yeah, who knows if these social internet thingys are correct but i like the story, mid 18th century, that was awhile back.

 

I'm Ben Beck, the person who wrote the post. Thanks for referring to this page of my website. Check for yourself, but I think you'll find that this claim for Hannah Stilley is unsustainable. It needs to be withdrawn from circulation.

 

I got it from my Twitter feed "History Lovers Club", i wonder where they got it.

 

I agree with you about Hannah Stilley. (I'm the one who brought the link to your post here.) And I like your posts. And brought the link here because it does discuss evidence, and also assesses it.

Unfortunately, once something goes to the Internet and becomes sort of a meme it seems almost impossible to eradicate. I don't know whether you belong to any of the photo collector groups on Facebook? A lot of the members are knowledgeable, serious collectors who often try to debunk some myths about antique photos that are propagated through the Web. But there are also people joining these groups who just want to stick with unsubstantiated claims that they have heard. It's frustrating.

I also do a lot of genealogical research (mostly for my own ancestry but also some others). This frequently happens among researchers in family history. There are a lot of assertions with no discussion of sources. And people copy other people...