Please open https://hotaudiobook.com ONLY on your standard browser Safari, Chrome, Microsoft or Firefox to download full audiobooks of your choice for free.
Title: Mathew Brady
Subtitle: Portraits of a Nation
Author: Robert Wilson
Narrator: Kevin Stillwell
Format: Unabridged
Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
Language: English
Release date: 11-01-13
Publisher: Audible Studios for Bloomsbury
Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 4 votes
Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Artists, Writers, & Musicians
Publisher's Summary:
In the 1840s and 1850s, "Brady of Broadway" was one of the most successful and acclaimed Manhattan portrait galleries. Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, Dolley Madison, Henry James as a boy with his father, Horace Greeley, Edgar Allan Poe, the Prince of Wales, and Jenny Lind were among the dignitaries photographed in Mathew Brady's studio. But it was during the Civil War that he became the founding father of what is now called photojournalism and his photography became an enduring part of American history.
The Civil War was the first war in history to leave a detailed photographic record, and Mathew Brady was the war's chief visual historian. Previously, the general public had never seen in such detail the bloody particulars of war - the strewn bodies of the dead, the bloated carcasses of horses, the splintered remains of trees and fortifications, or the chaos and suffering on the battlefield. Brady knew better than anyone of his era the dual power of the camera to record and to excite, to stop a moment in time and to draw the viewer vividly into that moment.
He was not, in the strictest sense, a Civil War photographer. As the director of a photographic service, he assigned Alexander Gardner, James F. Gibson, and others to take photographs, often under his personal supervision; he also distributed Civil War photographs taken by others not employed by him. Ironically, Brady had accompanied the Union army to the first major battle at Bull Run, but was so shaken by the experience that throughout the rest of the war he rarely visited battlefields, except well before or after a major battle.
MATHEW BRADY is the biography of an American legend - a businessman, an accomplished and innovative technician, a suave promoter, a celebrated portrait artist, and, perhaps most important, a historian who chronicled America during its finest and gravest moments of the 19th century.
Members Reviews:
Finally, a great biography of Brady
Everyone who knows anything about American history, knows the Brady photographs, but few of us know much about the man himself. Robert Wilson has remedied that, giving us the first really complete biography of the man, and of his role not just in American history but in the history of photography and of photojournalism. This is the kind of book that adds immeasurably to the understanding of the beginning of the great leap into modern communications, by a superb writer who knows how to tell the story.
Great Read!
What a wonderful way to learn some civil war history. This book is full of new and interesting information about Brady, the war and photography. Wilson is a masterful writer and storyteller.
A look at early photography and its role in Civil War reporting
This book offers an intriguing look at a crucial period in American history, as viewed from the cameras of Brady and his colleagues. I think history and camera buffs will find much to interest them here.
Matthew Brady, Photographer
Wow! What a photographer! He chronicled the history of this country during the Civil War in photographs. The photos of the horror of that war told the story of brother killing brother. He was an amazing photographer. I wonder what he would have done with the cameras of today. This was a most enjoyable book.
Great history of all photography
Book did not just focus on Brady alone, but entire history of photography.
