Edward Vicenzi is a research scientist at the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum Conservation Institute. His work involves using microscopy and microanalysis to study museum specimens and related materials to understand their origin and history.  Before taking up his position at MCI he served as the Director of the Analytical Laboratories in the National Museum of Natural History’s Department of Mineral Sciences, and prior to that was the co-manager of the Imaging and Analysis Center at Princeton University. He has served as President of both the Microanalysis Society and the International Union of Microbeam Analysis Societies. He is currently an editor for the journal Microscopy and Microanalysis, on the editorial board of npj Heritage Science, and is a Fellow of the Microanalysis Society.

Abstract

Milli- to Nano-scale Examination of Early Metal-based Photographs

Following the invention of photography in 1839 in France, the daguerreotype technique caught on with a handful of experimentalists in the United States. Like the initial phases after many new discoveries, methodologies were in flux during those first years, and the materials used were not yet standardized. A small, dedicated team of Smithsonian and Library of Congress researchers formed recently to examine some of the earliest American photographic collections and reference plates. We have used a range of microscopies, including digital light microscopy, portable imaging X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (imaging pXRF), scanning electron microscopy and X-ray microanalysis (SEM-EDS), and SEM-based micro-XRF to better understand these early technological changes.