This presentation features a biography of the underappreciated Bertha Beckmann-Wehnert , the first woman in Germany to become a professional photographer in the early s.
As a very young woman Bertha Beckmann went to Prague to learn the new technique of daguerreotype from the famous photo-pioneer Wilhelm Horn. She came back and started her journey as a travelling daguerreotypist in and around Dresden and Leipzig. She met another daguerreotypist, Eduard Wehnert. They married in and worked together until he died only two years later. Beckmann-Wehnert decided to emigrate to America in , and opened an atelier on Broadway Street in New York City, surrounded by many well-known and successful daguerreotype studios.
So she offered something very new at that time: she made calotypes! Many prominent people including U. Senator Henry Clay, and singer Jenny Lind came to her studio to get their calotype portraits taken. After some successful years in America, she came back to Leipzig in and again she opened another photo studio where she worked up to Collector and photohistorian of 19th century photography since 52 years.
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