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Photo, Print, Drawing Secretary of the Navy Judah P. Benjamin, Confederate States of America.

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About this Item

Title

  • Secretary of the Navy Judah P. Benjamin, Confederate States of America.

Summary

  • Judah P. Benjamin (1811-84) was a wealthy lawyer who served as attorney general, secretary of war, and secretary of state in the cabinet of Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy. (In this photograph he is misidentified as secretary of the navy). Born in Saint Thomas, Virgin Islands, he was raised in Charleston, South Carolina, and attended law school at Yale. He practiced law in New Orleans and became a planter who at one point owned 140 slaves. Benjamin was elected to the U.S. Senate from Louisiana in 1852 and served until early 1861 when, with the secession of the southern states, Davis appointed him attorney general, making him the first Jew to hold a cabinet-level office in an American government. After the war, he fled to England, where he practiced law and wrote a book regarded as a legal classic, The Sale of Personal Property (1868). His face appeared on the Confederate two-dollar bill, although in a different image from the one shown here. The image is from an album of mostly Civil War-era portraits by the famous American photographer Matthew Brady (circa 1823-96) that belonged to Emperor Pedro II of Brazil (1825-91), a collector of photography as well as a photographer himself. The album was a gift to the emperor from Edward Anthony (1818-88), another early American photographer who, in partnership with his brother, owned a company that in the 1850s became the leading seller of photographic supplies in the United States. Dom Pedro may have acquired the album during a trip to the United States in 1876 when he, along with President Ulysses S. Grant, opened the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. Brady was born in upstate New York, the son of immigrants from Ireland. Best known for his photographs documenting the battles of the American Civil War, he began his career in 1844 when he opened a daguerreotype portrait studio at the corner of Broadway and Fulton Streets in New York City. Over the course of the next several decades, Brady produced portraits of leading American public figures, many of which were published as engravings in magazines and newspapers. In 1858 he opened a branch in Washington, DC. The album, which also contains a small number of non-photographic prints, is part of the Thereza Christina Maria Collection at the National Library of Brazil. The collection is composed of 21,742 photos assembled by Emperor Pedro II throughout his life and donated by him to the national library. The collection covers a wide variety of subjects. It documents the achievements of Brazil and Brazilians in the 19th century and also includes many photographs of Europe, Africa, and North America.

Names

  • Anthony, Edward, 1818-1888 Contributor.
  • Brady, Mathew B., 1823?-1896 Contributor.

Created / Published

  • New York : Edward Anthony, [1861 to 1876]

Headings

  • -  United States of America--Louisiana
  • -  1861 to 1876
  • -  Benjamin, J. P. (Judah Philip), 1811-1884
  • -  Confederate States of America
  • -  Confederate States of America. Navy
  • -  Government officials
  • -  Lawyers
  • -  Memory of the World
  • -  Politics and government
  • -  Portrait photographs
  • -  Portraits
  • -  United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865

Notes

  • -  Title devised, in English, by Library staff.
  • -  Original resource extent: 1 photographic print : carte-de-visite, albumen paper ; 8.6 x 5.5 centimeters.
  • -  Original resource at: National Library of Brazil.
  • -  Description based on data extracted from World Digital Library, which may be extracted from partner institutions.

Medium

  • 1 online resource.

Source Collection

  • The Photographic Album

Digital Id

Library of Congress Control Number

  • 2021669608

Online Format

  • compressed data
  • image

Additional Metadata Formats

IIIF Presentation Manifest

Rights & Access

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The Library asks that researchers approach the materials in this collection with respect for the culture and sensibilities of the people whose lives, ideas, and creativity are documented here.

Credit Line: [Original Source citation], World Digital Library

More about Copyright and other Restrictions

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Cite This Item

Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Chicago citation style:

Anthony, Edward, Contributor, and Mathew B Brady. Secretary of the Navy Judah P. Benjamin, Confederate States of America. Louisiana United States of America, 1861. [New York: Edward Anthony, to 1876] Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2021669608/.

APA citation style:

Anthony, E. & Brady, M. B. (1861) Secretary of the Navy Judah P. Benjamin, Confederate States of America. Louisiana United States of America, 1861. [New York: Edward Anthony, to 1876] [Photograph] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2021669608/.

MLA citation style:

Anthony, Edward, Contributor, and Mathew B Brady. Secretary of the Navy Judah P. Benjamin, Confederate States of America. [New York: Edward Anthony, to 1876] Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/2021669608/>.