>> is a great honor to did viet this bookstore this is

one of the great ones. it is so wonderful to see if thriving under bradley end -- and i hope will continue to thrive for many years to come. one per cent in the audience my friend pat ferguson who wrote a wonderful book called freedom rising and a book that i really relied on writing this book if you don't know the book, you should. i hope it is for sale here somewhere. [laughter] it occurred to me to write about matthew brady eight years ago after the civil war he led one of the great scientific surveys of the west where the people he has

to who was becoming the airport -- and important american photographer the first time photography had been used this way as part of a scientific expedition. zero sullivan was a protege of brady there probably met on staten island where brady had a home in the 1850's. well he was running his duty -- studio where timothy o'sullivan grew up, i realized there was not a first-rate book about mathew brady that astonished me and all of us know about the name of mathew brady.

and increasingly in the last couple years have become aware of his photographs of rigo through the winter 50th anniversary of the civil war. when i started to think about doing this it was a lesson of how little i really knew then how little i knew that was accurate even after spend one year reading about him and doing research to write the proposal. wishes has struck me given the industry of scholars that if there was not a good book about mathew brady there may be a reason. [laughter] the truth is that there are two good reasons. line is for the man that was in the public eye for half a

century a brand for portrait photography and civil war photography who ran around with a journalist of his day who was dedicated to make photography the media for recording of history he left a very lightly marked trail and did not keep a journal or write a memoir and wrote perfunctory letters and read about his career in detail of the late in life after the natural tendency is to embroider the past. this is reason why such a central figure had no good biography the reason number two is this has also led some writers to go beyond his own embroidery to fabrications so the

challenge with both to dig deeper of what had already been written. what did i know about him that are wrong? >> the first was what everybody thinks they know about him that he was not just a civil war photographer but he was the photographer and that he himself took all the photographs that we have become familiar with. it is to receive a number of the same photographs again and again. this one for instance call three confederate prisoners has just become a u.s. postage stamp. there are people from roanoke that actually convince the postal service would of these guys was a relative of theirs because

the pitcher had hung in their parlor 80 years they don't take i am quite is gullible as the postal service. [laughter] that they were invited to the ceremony. is theoretically possible one man could have made the photographs that we do know that are familiar because there were no photographs and all of this signal events from the first bull run to after. really there no photographs and all of the battles. brady did go to bull run ready may have been the first man in history to attempt to take photographs under fire but none of those survived that day. they were probably destroyed in the chaotic retreat of the union army on the afternoon of july 21st.

he did have this heroic image of himself made the next day. [laughter] one of the things i say in my book that reviewers like to pick up on i said something like did he know where he was doing when he went to war? why did he dressed like a french landscape painter? [laughter] he has the telesco that actually a journalist would wear but he has the crosstie a comet that --, that. that was meant to say he was there is diminished to convince a number of publications one week after the battle of bull run that he had made photographs but

they were wrong to say that. none exist. after a bull run ready may have been spooked by the proximity of live ammunition he stayed away from many battlefields and tell about 150 years one months ago when he traveled to gettysburg about one week to 10 days after the fighting had stopped then there was another lapse of almost one year until soon after cold harbor when he went back in the field he went out toward antietam but never got within miles of it. then that is it as far is his physical appearance

anywhere near the civil war battlefield. he was in richmond the day that robber e. lee came back. it took four or five days to get back. and this is a photograph he took. but to get places late he has a knack his rival had gone to richmond as many had right after the south abandoned it in the pictures were so stunning everybody was focused so consequently fell led to take the pictures of the burned out buildings so there are no pictures at all.

but we had known him from the mexican war there had been a tradition at west point in he photographed at brady's studio in an end new york. he had a connection to put him in touch and lee whose son said there was nothing he liked was then having his picture taken you can imagine how weary he must've been or how does hour and and he photographed the next day bright and early on easter sunday. it was a day that lincoln died and there must have been some connection he is ben telling soldiers saying

go back to the farm, rebuild your lives. anything he felt this was an opportunity to show with his great personal dignity a man who i think is not really in full uniform. if you see the pictures of him, he has the red sash. here he had a street shoes on the mckee as a guide for whom the war is over. still as many as 10,000

photographs contribute to brady or his studio. how could that be? here is where things get complicated. he began his career as a photographer opening a portrait studio in 1844 only five years after the process was introduced. a busy portrait gallery as was required a number of people to make the customer happy if they wanted to walk away after it was exposed to had to be fixed and then framed in the leather case. and hater brady's studio had

as many as 25 employees. of the person who took the photograph was not brady himself but the operator. brady owned and ran the business and hire the workers in made the technical choices often we did those especially the famous was a and escorted them to a position in front of the camera to set up the cameron -- camera. he was a lot like bradley. [laughter] then he decided to specialize in images of well-known people so spent a lot of time in pursuit of them. he called it a gallery because it is a display of all these pictures of famous people in a reception room known as pre-the images. the became his brand and his

product was known by his name. and a business context this is easy to understand. henry ford denied assemble cars them3 henry ford denied assemble cars themselves but they are all called a ford and a photography context when we think of them as the person behind the camera is less easy and has led to charges he took credit in a deceptive way for work to his employees performed. by the time the civil war began he was operating galleries 17 years. his goal within the first years to take a photograph of every important american. he kept up with the changes of technology and was now taking studio portraits printed on paper in march

sizes but also a mass produced on what we would call 3d photos. probably the most important photograph he ever took and what is the it day of the famous cooper union speech of lincoln in the york that made him a viable presidential candidate. if you would recall it was beardless, three-quarters pitcher it was remarkably bring gold and his collar deposit in later he said he pulled it up to hide his long neck. but the image was widely reproduced it was used on

but in this and illustrated papers and when brady solving and again after the election before e inauguration lincoln supposedly said brady and the cooper institute made me president. brady seems to be the only source for this quotation. [laughter] but it is clear that that image was helpful. volunteer militia units came flooding into washington to protect the capital from what was expected as an imminent attack by the rebels as the camps around the city they went to the brady studio to have a portrait made to mail back home if he began to send his operators into the field to take what amounted to studio portraits outdoors part of

it had to do that the civil war was a big subject that history would want to know about and the continuation of taking pictures of americans but they also had commercial value so brady had several teams out taking pictures before the war began. after bull run the practice continued in some men who became famous in the washington gallery operator at the time that sullivan also begin to work for the u.s. army helping the engineers to find the appropriate spots for what we have as infrastructure. sending more photographs for the war collection but if i could just take the opportunity there is a

review of the "wall street journal" that there is the incredible conflict of interest for these people or working for the army while working for him. but as the businessman had to see that as a conflict of interest. so please don't read that. [laughter] so in the spring of 1862 brady said his men out to take photographs of the first battle and one of those men soon accompanied mcclellan's army treaty took a number of the several photographs he also copied those of others had taken that he appropriated with permission and some of which is that he did not copying photos to that he had no

legitimate plan is not a practice i don't defend but it was commonly done. by any means available he accumulated images from the civil war and the providence of many is not known and probably never will be no doubt his competitors were less happy than we are today. with squabbles over who owned or had taken what but because brady kept the collection together and sell a large part to the government we have him to think without it absence of the record that has come down to us. i mentioned i had other misconceptions even after read a fair amount one did not come from writers desperate to make a good story but from scholars and curators of photography that

knew about as much as you do not inherit the operated the camera himself and got credit from others in the accumulated photographs that were not his then there was a story about his eyesight being too bad for him to operate a camera. m. brady suspicious much prefer real feel that was too close for comfort from his first studio was p.t. barnum. so they grew up in the 20th century that really he was not a photographer at all. this is pretty silly but the effects winker to this day that they are reluctant to attribute photographs letter clearly his to him and sometimes study been attributed to his studio.

web with like to do just briefly not only the he was a photographer but a conscious artist but did not just take pictures but had a real idea about what he was doing. in the first decades of photography it seemed like a completely we can nicole art form. often referred to as sun paintings the images appeared not by the hand of an artist but by the work of light passing to the mechanism of the camera. the world increasingly under the sway of science photography was the first objective medium and the person operating the camera was not an artist but the operator. brady's first connection was upstate new york where he spent his childhood with a charismatic man named william page at was the protege of samuel morse that

we think the inventor of the telegraph but in fact, a well-known portrait painter himself. morse's met him in paris and began the experiment with the camera and the process as soon after it was announced. later as he sometimes claimed he was on the fringe of artistic circles soon after photography arrived in america. in the search of portraits he began to take undoubtedly noted that two portrait painting fed opposes the backdrops, the lighting in by the late 1850's he was specializing in brady imperials large size prints on paper.

they are quite beautiful and he also had photographs blown up and painted by oil painters in the images said brady had painted them in his studio for many years and ended up selling them to congress where they hang today i believe at least in the collection of the senate. it turned out he did not own them but sold them to the senate but more power to him for that. [laughter] three photographs he took 150 years ago at gettysburg speak explicitly to the question if photography is a mechanical process or shows

the presence of a conscious artist between antietam where alexander gardner was still working for brady had taken images of the dead, the famous dead of antietam that brady exhibited in his broadway gallery, between then july 1863 gardner had left brady to open his own studio and took most of the best photographers with him including those sullivan. he got to gettysburg first two days after the battle ended when he arrived the afternoon of july 5th. and he took gibson when taken as great and they approached from the south as they passed the rose farm where the dead had not been buried the three began

taking photographs of the confederates. they spent only 48 hours on the battlefield taking about 60 images three force were dead bodies our other aspects. brady did not come for one week after that and him and his men did not take pictures until july 15 but then almost all bodies are buried the most visible signs of battle were cleaned up. the battlefield was going back into the rule seen only two weeks before. because they had crossed paths grady new the gardener had beat him to the story. so perhaps not even a question. the two men had different sensibility. partners as more journalistic although he was a successful businessman with a keen sense of

commercial brady himself had other sorts of images of the war. if you go back see this as a pitcher brady chuck at gettysburg. he defeated confederate soldiers sent off to prison camp but look how heroic they seem. brady saw their pride and this quality. i am sorry it is so small. i feel like they must be spies or scouts they don't look like defeated soldiers.

that was more brady's sensibility. the most remarkable thing he did was take a series of photographs that he himself appears images that the viewers literally looking over his shoulder as he contemplates a scene with the battle had raged. brady is small in this also. mrs. brady -- this is pretty. they took 36 photographs and he appears now least six of

them. they are far less dramatic thing gardeners but they are more interesting as photographs and a clear preference today for the drama does not match by the people at the time they were taken. there are three images that are very similar that have to do with the death of general john f. reynolds that was thought to be finessed general the north had from pennsylvania. according to the great new book he really helped to precipitate the battle because he did not want this seveners to run around pennsylvania countryside. reynolds was killed in the woods on the first day of the battle and the caption

accurately says that. there is another famous picture steve before a split rail fence and it is called the wheat field february general mills fell in the woods but not the we feel but he similarly positioned in that photograph as you look in that scene it is very beautiful. another similarly composed with a look in through a field at a barn where reynolds was taken to die but he died instantly and was taken somewhere else but to me these three photos introduced in the explicit way human consciousness of

the violence that played out greasy water to people contemplating the placid landscapes and we know what must be of their minds of what phil their scenes days before all photos imply the presence of human viewer the person to points for the camera but more directly brady offered first-person photography the statement it is not just the objective rendering but a few created by the individual consciousness. for me those qualify as works of art that they have a clear idea behind them and executed in the way that enhances that idea. you have to buy the book to seize the others either through the national archives library of congress

that one year later he was in the field systematically taking photographs of grant's army seized after the disgrace will slaughter of pearl harbor the only battle he expressed brett -- regret for the wasteful use of life but he kept one of my favorites on june 21st ed general commander in his staff that is him in the middle. right in the middle of the photograph the staff is right around him.

very much when the brady's studio photographs taken outdoors. potter's men are arranged roughly by height each wearing a hat while plotters had was in the direct middle of the composition if he stopped there in would be a satisfying photograph but though he started to put himself he could not stop. this time we see his face. you can see him off to the right up against a tree.

he posed as what he was not the subject but as presiding intelligence by dissecting the line between the camera one of his operators likely stood behind the camera to draw out a panel to permit the exposure. but to an intriguing possibility that he operates the camera himself in his right hand he holds something. if you can see there is a little something running down from his hand then there seems to be something running back to the camera. could that be a device zero wire running down his white -- right leg moving a

primitive shatter? probably not according to experts at the time but even if he holds only a switch from a tree who could not guess and the author is not his son put a whale -- well tailored artist? the last image of want to show you all so taken after 1864 similar to the potter photograph that the union general is the subject. in the middle of the photograph is burnside who has is lake crossed he is the guy that potter was under. what is interesting about this image is that the ghostly presence of brady

himself in a hat although out of focus receives clear he was arranging the man for the composition in returning to the camera when his operator exposed at some of the people in the imager not quite ready is seems it is funny but it does speak to his role in the photograph when he was president and for me this image of brady there and not there he remains a goes the presence and important figure of his time of someone that we will never know or hold. thank you. [applause]

>> if you have questions come to the microphone to. >> what does the b stand for? >> there's also question is how matthew is spelled. he was generally known as baby but there were many of his injuries were reproduced "harper's weekly" and they did credit to matthew b brady but they only use one butter tea but i think if he would have gotten it wrong he would have corrected that. the most people did not. >> how long do they have to stand still for? >> it depended on the light available the atmosphere early on and it could be

many, many seconds up to one minute there is a beautiful photograph very touching the father is sitting in a chair in the young henry is touching him and also similar in a way to the great photograph of lincoln for the most personal with his son tad for he sits in the shareholding a bookie and tad is just like his father that was done partly because the exposure time was so long they had to be very still and henry james writes about having been photographed that day in the brady studio to say it was excruciating he had a vice behind his back the famous

picture of grant leading up with a pine tree they always found ways to steady themselves. >> did you mention the photograph that was fake like dead people that were not dead or sharpshooters that were not read those who turned out to be his assistants? >> according to the great expert on civil war photography there was only one photograph where the body was moved that is the famous death of four rebel sharpshooter. the bifocal in that photograph was not a sharpshooter rifle so that is one problem then to notice that there were photographs of the dead

soldier further down the hillside and he realized his body was carried in a blanket and there are two photographs of him and it may well have spent ben a sharpshooter's there were small box piled up by the big boulders. but that is the one example of a body being moved now he did have one of his men lie down in the field but his legs were drawn up with his arms out. the caption was something about a dead soldier at gettysburg which was shameful. says it did not seem so on persuasive but a lot of photographers who went to gettysburg in the weeks after the battle stayed

pitchers of living people is dead soldiers. but there are very few times when the dead were photographed you feel it was every battle but i think maybe seven times there are many images like petersburg you see the dead confederate soldiers don't have shoes it is the end of the war. they have nothing. but it was more rare than you think. >> you mentioned he was in business 17 years before the civil war. could you mention where he photographed from other than your city? >> he had several businesses in new york city and kept moving up broadway as he became more successful and

says broadway moved uptown he had several studios in new york and he tried to open a studio in washington in 1848 or 49 of the pennsylvania avenue and it did not last very long he was in a dispute with the landlord in there was so much competition but interestingly right where the museum is now was photographers row even than. said brady came back to open a studio in 1858 between six and 71 of the few buildings on pennsylvania avenue that is still around. he had the upper three floors of the building in interestingly enough in 1881 when he left those floors

were empty for 100 years it shows you how vibrant that time was at that time. >> could you talk about colonial negatives? >> this is a question i was really hoping not to be asked one of the things that is interesting is the reading about them taking pictures at antietam and how hard it was to do. a gummy substance put on class but one quality as it was very attractive to flies. so when gibson was developing these images with

the intent of the back of the wagon natalie was alcott had to worry about sweating butterflies reverie where. -- flies were everywhere. i am not a great expert on the technical aspect. thank you. >> i am just wondering what it says about brady that reynolds could take away with his operators? i'm sorry not reynolds, a gardener. >> it is very interesting. gardner ran the washington studio people who were covering the civil war were working at a fair he is the

guy they were working with and he was a photographer himself in or the sense we think of one today dan brady m. brady would drop in and out of new york but gardner was a socialist from scotland in the feeling that he was more willing to give more credit to the other photographers there didn't seem to be any real animosity after this happened there was not a love lost but the story always goes credit was not given to his photographers but he is many photographs that were brady's by the fact he owned the studio he gave no credit whatsoever to

brady and his very careful to give credit to give sending gardner and all these people but i feel it is significant he went out of his way not to do that because that did not seem characteristic so there is probably some bad feeling the some of that is not true but they did go. >> the being in opportunist you're here is a question of clarence cain and historically a vaguely familiar with the secret life and his secret life in brooklyn and i think it is a booker recently in yours. is it true? day you have comments? >> it is funny because when i was working on clarence king i get a message from

the great library and southern california, of huntington saying somebody else is working on clarence king would like to be introduced? i said sure so it was the pretty famous scholar of photography in to we did a little dance but it turned out i was interested the first part of his life when he was doing things but she was focused that he had a black wife and was a friend of henry adams and he fell in love with a black woman and set her up in a house in brooklyn in did not tell any friends about her in and did not behave very well to her. i was not as interested in that part of her life so they fit together and away with the two books.

no doubt he had a wife and did not treat her well and did not provide for her and their children. john hay and his heirs gave them money for some years after king died. she later sued to say there is a big chunk of many said they never gave her. but to be a black woman in new york she did not make headway with that. >> somebody asked how long does it take to take pictures? if you hold up seven robert e. lee picture you'll notice there is a stand in order to be in place. if you put that up again you can see between his legs it doesn't look like it is part

of it. the studio and on seventh street it has the 45-degree angle in the women's lack association of negro women said the rooms were abandoned fed we took over then jesse of the year be found all though wooden drying racks where matthew brady had tried his plates. >> when was that? >> tanner 15 years ago. he is also buried at a congressional cemetery but when he went on the field use said he had 25 people in the studio how many did he bring with him? >> receives eddie had a couple of people at 1.he

does say he had two or three wagons because later this seems to imply he was there and said we would have taken pictures but michelle hid our equipment but in one would do the developing. and we went up to see the rooms where brady's studio had been in there is no evidence whatsoever but the window in the back compared to george washington where they replace the handle and somebody replace the head but it is still washington's. [laughter] and you can see at the you

can definitely see it there but the woman who took me around said they found all this stuff and i said where is it? we don't know. i am not sure i believe that but it is a nice story. >> i was wondering about the popularity of the photography at the time? >> one aspect that interests me a lot is a question of what kind of impact the photographs of the dead had. when they had the show in new york there was a story about if grady has not put the dead on the doorstep there doesn't seem to be a

lot of evidence and they sold very well. apparently there is not a lot of those images around. there were never any other famous shows even the antietam photographs i just assume they must have been shown in the washington end gallery. in they did that make the impact. in that picture of robert and isn't -- anderson, the war came just as the craze

happened where people we're keep being cards or images of members of the family but then sova of these big books with all these empty spaces so they wanted to collect images of general's and people like that so those sold very well also. the business of taking photographs of soldiers was robust was they were cheap to make a and very durable. one report there was up at 300 photographers following the army of the potomac at various times taking these pictures and there would be these mail bags full of tintypes that these young men would have their

pictures taken and sent home then two weeks later they would spend another dollar to show how their beard had grown and there was a good business in that. think you. >> you mentioned how little information was available for brady can you talk about your reporting and research process how you look at those issues? >> this is still you about my life for the last seven years basically. [laughter] it is interesting to me i am not a trained historian but i feel what is interesting to get a point that i knew

the material well enough i could make decisions as a matter is -- magazine editor we have to teach -- pieces back checked so we have to decide what will be the fact. i feel that history is full of those sorts of decisions so it is a process to compare accounts to get the hard fact but then oftentimes when my friends to read the book said the lois win for the simplest explanation which is a good way to go. but that was the challenge.

so read it to and see how my dad. [laughter] [applause] >> the week after september 11 congress passed a bill call on -- called the authorization for military force that gave the blank check to the bush and administration to wage a global war it authorized the u.s. to send forces to any country that it deemed had a connection to al qaeda of the 9/11 attacks to hunt down any individuals even tangentially connected to

the 9/11 attacks that is still the law but obama said in his obama administration site when they bombed the people they have been targeting individuals who were toddlers online 11. the law was written to target those responsible but how was a toddler responsible? it is a blank check still used to this day now there is a discussion of rewriting it to make it permanent and obama said his second inaugural address he did not want u.s. to live in the state of perpetual war vegas policies indicate he was the exact opposite in once the u.s. to be impetuous did before. only one member of congress voted against it imagine what that what of the unlike with the fear and hysteria gripping the country there was one member of congress barbara lee of california.

[applause] hill and people should watch that speech online because she was trembling when she gave that speech. imagine the courage and what she said was we cannot use these attacks to engage in retaliation across the globe in actions that will undermine our democratic principles. we cannot wage a war that does not have an end game. she was so prophetic just like the lone senator against the patriot act going against their colleagues that were to blind to notice or willfully chose to embrace a massive fall back of our civil liberties. to have the temerity or the courage to ask tough questions at a time there were calls for mob violence takes real backbone or courage.

where are they today where we have this popular democratic president who won the nobel peace prize? it is easy and to oppose felons with a cartoon like dick cheney added to imagine him plotting the destruction of the world i am only slightly kidding. [laughter] but when you have the actual courage to stand up to say the same principles that apply when they were in power applied to obama that is where the principals are tested. we have an expansion of the drones, the use of secret prisons run by other governments in we are shipping prisoners off to be tortured and secret prisons like somalia in the basement of their national security service and i documented the

us. we close this site but then restart to use the somalia gulag was military intelligence interrogating prisoners some who have been snatched off the streets of third countries to documented a guy from kenya snatched out of his home, take into the airport shackled and food to somalia to put an a bet bug infested underground prison bill access to light, and no lawyers say could not tell this to me where he was taken that happened under president obama when i called the u.s. government for comment they said that sounds right. why would we do that it is natural to cooperate with the fight against terrorism. most americans were under the impression when obama issued the three executive orders a couple of days in

to the produced ration he would dismantle not to be brief and/or recast as a more legitimate form of running the same program that is what has happened. renditions continue under president obama. to the nation has been normalized as a central component not the we have not had that before but normalise by this president of what is called america's national security policy. . .