Cold Open

It’s midday on March 8th, 1839, in Paris, France.

A horse-drawn fire wagon clatters to a stop outside a burning theater. As firefighters jump out, one young and enthusiastic new recruit heads straight for the blaze. He pushes through the smoke and tries to move the panicking crowd away from the flames.

Locals are hurling buckets of water through the theater’s shattered windows, but the fireman orders them back. Everyone retreats except a middle-aged man, who grabs the fireman’s heavy jacket and pleads for help. He says he owns the theater, and he needs his equipment from inside. His livelihood depends on it.

He thrusts a set of keys into the fireman’s hands, imploring him to help. The fireman hesitates for a moment—but then nods.

He follows the theater owner to a side door and unlocks it.

Then the fireman takes a deep breath and steps inside. Smoke is filling the room, but he can see enough to realize that he’s in a cluttered workshop. The shelves are crammed with chemicals. Microscopes, glass lenses, and wooden tripods lie strewn across the floor. And strangest of all are the blurry, silver-toned metal plates shimmering in the low light.

The fireman doesn’t know what he’s risking his life for. But the roof is starting to buckle. So, there’s no time to lose.

He grabs a leather sack and sweeps everything he can inside. Beakers, boxes, odd contraptions—all of it crammed in.

Then, he lifts the sack to his shoulder and bolts for the door.

Outside, he drops the bundle at the grateful theater owner’s feet—just as the roof caves in behind them in a roar of dust and flame.

Though he didn't know what he collected from the fire, this fireman has just saved a revolutionary new technology—a way to capture light and freeze an image of the real world onto a metal plate. After losing his theater in the fire, Louis Daguerre will dedicate himself to promote the technology he’s invented. And after the French government sees its potential, they’ll make the new photographic technique a free gift to the world on August 19th, 1839.

Introduction

From Noiser and Airship, I’m Lindsay Graham, and this is History Daily.

History is made every day. On this podcast—every day—we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world.

Today is August 19th, 1839: The Gift of Photography.

Act One: Capturing the Volcano

It’s the summer of 1818 at Paris’s Ambigu Theater, 21 years before a fire almost destroys Louis Daguerre’s invention.

A 30-year-old Louis peers out at the audience from the wings of the stage, watching with anxious excitement. Louis is Paris’s most famous theater designer—he’s put together the special effects for tonight’s show, and he wants to see the crowd's reaction.

Beneath the stage, gas lamps flicker to life, casting a red and orange glow up through the floor. A deep rumble spreads through the auditorium, mimicking the tremors of an erupting volcano. A few audience members gasp—it’s so vivid, it feels like the theater might actually explode. And backstage, Louis smiles. It seems to be another triumph.

Born in Orleans in 1787, Louis’s formal schooling was cut short by the chaos of the French Revolution. Which was just as well, because he was drawn to the traveling performers, carnival acts, and magicians that filled his childhood streets. He studied drawing and design under a local architect, and in 1803, he moved to Paris to apprentice under a stage designer.

Still a teenager, Louis worked on the new must-see entertainment in Paris: panoramas, enormous 360-degree paintings mounted on circular walls and viewed from raised platforms. For nine years, Louis worked to make his panoramas of famous cities, historic battles, and natural wonders as detailed and as realistic as possible. His skills then led him to the post of chief painter at the Ambigu Theater. And once he started work there in 1816, he quickly gained fame for his innovative stagecraft and groundbreaking special effects. Soon, Parisians were visiting the theater less for the actors and more to marvel at Louis's work. And tonight’s on-stage volcano is his most spectacular illusion yet.

As the noise of the faux eruption fades, it’s replaced with thunderous applause. But Louis doesn’t hang around to listen. He slips away from the wings and returns backstage to oversee preparations for the next special effect.

For the four years that follow, Louis continues to work at the Ambigu. But despite all his success, Louis grows tired with working for someone else. So, in 1822, he leaves the Ambigu to co-found his own theater. The Diorama is like no other auditorium Paris has seen before. It’s an innovative new art form that doesn’t feature actors at all—instead, it showcases panoramic paintings with light effects, moveable props, even water features like fountains. Audiences watch, amazed, as the scene transforms before their eyes. One moment, they’re in Ancient Athens. The next, they’re at Niagara Falls.

The Diorama in Paris proved to be a sensation, and Louis opens more theaters all across Europe and the United States. But soon, even this immersive illusion feels limiting to Louis. Paint and light can only take an audience so far. Louis dreams of creating something even better—a way to capture a scene with absolute realism and precision.

He sets up a workshop behind the Paris Diorama, and, after each show ends and the curtain falls. But he’s not working with canvas and brushes anymore. Surrounded by books and scientific equipment, Louis plans to capture a real-life image using chemicals instead of paints.

But Louis is no chemist, so he contacts Nicéphore Niépce, an older French scientist who’s also experimenting with similar ideas. At first, Nicephore is wary of the newcomer to his field. He knows that whoever creates a method of capturing images first will make a fortune. But gradually, Nicephore starts to trust Louis, and the two men share their ideas.

And in 1826, Nicephore reveals that he’s made a breakthrough—capturing the view from his workshop. He did it by first coating a metal plate with light-sensitive asphalt, then carefully exposing it to light over several hours. After he washed the plate, a cloudy image appeared. Nicephore names his pioneering image View from the Window at Le Gras, although it’s difficult to make out much in the blurry image. Nevertheless, Louis immediately sees the revolutionary potential of Nicephore’s breakthrough and encourages him to keep experimenting.

But progress is painfully slow. Nicephore’s method is unpredictable. Most of the plates he develops turn out blank, and the technique still isn’t ready when Nicephore suffers a sudden stroke and dies in 1833.

But Louis will refuse to let the invention die with him. Instead, he’ll take on the mantle of his dead friend and become a photographic pioneer. But he’ll have to go back to the drawing board if he’s ever to capture light and sell it to the world.

Act Two: Hiding in Plain Sight

It’s 1837 in Louis Daguerre’s studio in Paris, four years after the death of Nicéphore Niépce.

As dusk settles over the French capital, 49-year-old Louis leans over his desk, staring at a copper plate covered with silver iodine. The surface shimmers with a violet sheen, but contains no image. He’s exposed the plate to light all day, but nothing has materialized. Disheartened, Louis puts the plate in his chemical cabinet, slams the door, and then heads to bed.

Over the past few years, Louis's experiments have been no more successful than Nicéphore’s. Although he’s produced the occasional blurry picture, he’s struggled to find a reliable way of capturing an image—and that’s far from the only difficulty he’s faced. An outbreak of cholera forced the Paris Diorama to temporarily close, and Louis was plunged into debt. He only just avoided having to sell the theater and his scientific equipment. But his determination to honor the memory of Nicéphore has kept him working.

So today, the morning after his latest failed experiment, Louis returns to the studio and removes the copper plate from the cabinet. But before he cleans it, he notices something —the faint outline of tree branches and rooftops. As if by magic, an image has appeared overnight.

Stunned, Louis quickly realizes that one of the chemicals in the cabinet must have leaked onto the plate, permanently fixing the image in place. But which chemical, he has no idea.

To find out, Louis prepares another plate, places it back in the cabinet, and removes one of the chemical bottles at random. The next day, he sees an image has appeared again. So he rules that bottle out. Over the next week, he repeats this experiment every day, removing the chemicals one by one. At last, the chemical cabinet is empty, but somehow, an image still appears on that day’s plate.

Perplexed, Louis runs his hand across the interior of the cabinet—and his fingers catch on something sharp: a broken thermometer. Then it hits him: whatever spilled out of the thermometer must release fumes that developed the images. After consulting with chemists, Louis identifies the missing ingredients: mercury and sodium thiosulfate. These are the final pieces to the puzzle Nicéphore never found.

Over the next few days, Louis repeats his experiment, capturing images of statues, window views, and buildings. He calls these images Daguerreotypes.

And with proof that this new method works reliably, Louis turns his attention to making some money out of it. But patent laws in France are weak, and imitators can easily copy new inventions without paying a penny. The only way Louis can see profit from his invention is by selling the entire Daguerreotype method to a wealthy benefactor.

Fortunately, Louis is a showman—and he puts his skills to good use. In the summer of 1838, he loads up a wagon and takes to the streets of Paris. He stops on corners and in squares to make impromptu Daguerreotypes of bridges and buildings, inviting passers-by to inspect the results. At first, Parisians are skeptical. They know Louis as a famous stage illusionist, and they think he’s conjuring up another trick.

But one man isn’t fooled. Francois Arago immediately grasps the invention’s potential. He’s the Secretary of the Academy of Sciences, and after inspecting the Daguerreotypes, he tells Louis that he thinks he knows the perfect buyer for the invention: France itself.

On January 7th, 1839, Francois presents Louis’ invention to other members of the academy. The audience is wonderstruck. Scientists, artists, and intellectuals flock to meet Louis, and his remarkable images are soon the talk of Paris.

But not everyone is impressed. Some artists despair, declaring mournfully that painting is now dead. And religious leaders warn that no man should attempt to preserve God’s creation.

But as these debates rage, Francois lobbies the French government to purchase what he calls one of humanity’s finest achievements to date. He warns the government that other nations are eager to snatch up the invention. But just when it seems like a deal might close, a moment of misfortune jeopardizes everything.

In March 1839, a fire breaks out at the Diorama Theater in Paris. Flames race toward Louis's studio. His life’s work hangs in the balance—until firefighters arrive just in time. They can’t save the theater, but they do rescue the precious Daguerreotype equipment.

This disaster compels Francois to redouble his efforts with the government. He argues that the now-penniless Louis deserves proper recognition for his achievement. Eventually, Francois's persistence pays off. The French government offers Louis a lifetime pension in return for the rights to the Daguerreotype process. And Louis accepts.

On August 1st, 1839, the French King, Louis-Philippe, signs a bill that transfers ownership of the Daguerreotype method to the French government, but they won’t keep it. Instead, the invention will soon be released freely to the world, for the betterment of humanity and the glory of France.

Act Three: The Art of Alchemy

It’s early afternoon on August 19th, 1839, at the Institute of France in Paris, 18 days after the French government officially acquired the rights to the Daguerreotype method.

Inside a grand chamber, 51-year-old Louis Daguerre takes his seat onstage at a joint meeting of the Academy of Science and the Academy of Arts. Louis scans the room. France’s most renowned scientists, artists, and literary figures are all here. Outside in the courtyard, hundreds of Parisians peer in through the windows, desperate to catch a glimpse of this historic announcement.

But Louis is not the man speaking. He has no formal scientific training, and the thought of fielding questions from the country’s greatest minds terrifies him. So, instead, he’s asked a trusted friend to speak at his place: Francois Arago, the esteemed scientist who’s championed his invention from the beginning.

Francois steps forward and begins to explain the Daguerreotype process. As he speaks, Louis stares at the floor, nodding along to each step. The audience hangs on every word, fascinated by this miraculous-seeming technology. Then, Francois delivers the climax of his speech: the Daguerreotype process will not be patented or sold. It is a gift to the world, to be used freely by anyone. The room explodes in applause. Taken aback by the reaction, Louis lifts his head and smiles.

By the day’s end, Parisians are flooding every apothecary and optics dealer in the capital, clamoring for chemicals and lenses to capture their own images. Amateurs line the capital’s boulevards and public squares, trying their hand at a brand new art form: photography.

After all his hard work, Louis basks in the sudden glow of recognition. He’s showered with honors and gifts from scientific societies and foreign dignitaries. And at the end of the year, he receives the first installment of his pension and settles down into a comfortable retirement. But while Louis’ story is coming to an end, his invention is just beginning its journey.

After the French government releases the Daguerreotype method freely to the world, others will quickly improve upon it. Within a few years, Louis's early images will look crude next to the crisp, detailed photographs of the next generation.

And today, smartphones and digital cameras have taken the place of iodine-coated silver plates. But every snapshot and selfie still traces its lineage back to Louis Daguerre’s groundbreaking process, one that was presented to the world by the French government on August 19th, 1839.

Outro

Next on History Daily. August 20th, 1989. Lyle and Erik Menendez shoot and kill their parents in their Beverly Hills mansion.

From Noiser and Airship, this is History Daily, hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsay Graham.

Audio editing by Muhammad Shahzaib.

Sound design by Mollie Baack.

Supervising Sound Designer Matthew Filler.

Music by Thrumm.

This episode is written and researched by Angus Gavan McHarg.

Edited by Scott Reeves.

Managing producer Emily Burke.

Executive Producers are William Simpson for Airship and Pascal Hughes for Noiser.