Julia Ann Rudolph

[3] Born around 1820 (the exact date and location are unknown), Julia Ann Swift originally trained to be a teacher, earning her certificate in Litchfield, Connecticut, in 1839.

[3][4] By 1852, however, she was working in the Utica, New York, daguerreotype studio of Daniel DeWitt Tompkins Davie, remaining there for three years.

[1] By early 1856, she had moved to Nevada City, California, where she set up her own studio in premises formerly occupied by the photographer George O. Kilbourn, which she advertised as having "all the latest instruments and chemicals.

[1] For a time towards the end of 1856, she reverted to using her birth name; the date of her divorce is unknown, but in December of that year she remarried.

[1] Rudolph stayed in Nevada City for four years before moving her business to K Street in Sacramento, where she pursued her career until at least 1890.