[3] After arriving in the United States, August lived in Lower Manhattan at 9 Elizabeth Street as a cabinetmaker.

27,241, was earned on February 21, 1860, for a "Photographic Apparatus"[9] This invention was used to take successive exposures using the same wet plate.

By the early 1870s, Semmendinger moved his family and business to New Jersey and purchased land just across the Hudson River in Fort Lee.

In the summer of 1874, Semmendinger displayed his "photograph camera box" at the Fifth Cincinnati Industrial Exposition.

[14] By 1882, his factory on Gerome Avenue (formerly Eickhoff or Ichoff Street) was a leading Fort Lee manufacturing industry employer.

[18] Semmendinger's idea of utilizing that portion of the camera just under the lens and converting it into a sort of cupboard was thought novel.

1829) and together had eight children: Theodore, Alvina, Roland, Guido, Clara, Aloise, August, and Pythagoras.