What Do I Want, John Henry?
November 1862
Medium
Albumen print, pl. 27 from the album "Gardner's Photographic Sketch Book of the War, vol. 1" (1866)
Dimensions
17.7 × 22.9 cm (7 × 9 1/16 in.)
Classification
photograph
Department
Photography and Media
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
196400
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
At the start of the Civil War, Alexander Gardner was granted unlimited access to photograph the Union troops. The images Gardner produced over the next four years—documenting the aftermath of battles and the life of soldiers in camp—were seen primarily in exhibitions and circulated in smaller form as cartes de visite. He published Gardner’s Photographic Sketch Book of the War in 1865, at the war’s end. With two volumes of 50 albumen prints each, the album retailed for $150—the equivalent of seve...
About the Artist
Alexander Gardner · 1840–1882
Alexander Gardner was born on 17 October 1821 in Paisley, Renfrewshire, Scotland, and came of age in a culture shaped by radical social thought. Influenced by the cooperative ideals of Robert Owen, Gardner initially apprenticed as a jeweler and harbored dreams of founding a utopian community in America. His encounter with photography changed the course of his life. After seeing Mathew Brady's cele...