Presidents

There are no photographs of George Washington. He died in 1799, 40 years before the camera came to America, so every image of him is a painting, an engraving or a copy of one. Abraham Lincoln, by contrast, sat for photographers many times, and his face changed so much during the war that the pictures read like a diary.

That gap is the story of a collection like this one. The early presidents come down to us through portrait painters and the printmakers who copied them. Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson appear in engravings, lithographs and on postage stamps, which kept their faces in circulation long after their terms. Benjamin Franklin never held the office but belongs in the company anyway, since his portrait was nearly as widely printed as any president's.

With Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant the camera takes over. Mathew Brady photographed both, and after the Civil War their portraits were copied endlessly for parlor walls and memorial prints.

Theodore Roosevelt is the president photographers loved most, and the numbers here show it. He was photographed in the uniform he wore with the Rough Riders in Cuba in 1898, on horseback, out West, on speaking tours, with his big and lively family in the White House, and at the conservation sites he worked to protect. He understood the press better than any president before him and he gave the photographers plenty to work with.

Herbert Hoover is a surprise to many people. Before his presidency he ran food relief for occupied Belgium and headed the U.S. Food Administration during World War I, so he was a national figure for more than a decade before 1929. Franklin D. Roosevelt closes the set. Worth noticing is how rarely he was shown using his wheelchair or braces. Photographers of the day generally agreed not to show it, and the pictures reflect that choice.