David Bachrach

He made contributions to the technical, artistic, and professional advancements in the field as well as being the founder of a photographic dynasty that became a unique institution in the United States.

He regularly published in the leading photographic journals of the time and experimented with self-toning papers.

He developed the first practical process for photographic printing on canvas, and a forerunner of the present-day photoengraving system.

The Bachrachs, beginning with David, established the idea of "official portraiture," becoming the leading portrait photographers in the United States well into the 1960s.

One of his earliest photographs is of the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania in 1863, when he was 18 years old.