Let’s take a selfie! Ever since the invention of the smartphone, our society has been obsessed with taking what is colloquially known as selfies. However, have you ever wondered who was the first person to take a selfie? Was it following the invention of the smartphone or was it before? Exploring the history of photography, let us discover who was the first person to take a selfie.
The first recorded selfie actually was captured in the 19th century, captured in the year 1839. The photograph was captured and developed by American chemist and photographer Robert Cornelius, hailing from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At age 30, Cornelius revolutionized the art of photography with the invention of what we now know as the selfie. But how did he do it, exactly? What was the process? According to the Public Domain Review (2013), Cornelius had set his camera up at the back of the family store in Philadelphia. He took the image by removing the lens cap and then running into the frame where he sat for a minute before covering up the lens again. On the back of the photograph, he wrote “The first light Picture ever taken. 1839.”
As I have covered in previous articles, the history behind photography reportedly begins between 1826-1827, with the creation of the photographic art form by way of Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, according to Wilfred Baatz’s Photography: An Illustrated Historical Overview (1997). With that in mind, that means the first selfie took place 12-13 years after the invention of photography as a viable creation. Although nowadays, selfies have gained the reputation of being a symbol of vanity, at the beginning, it was far from it. In that time, revolutionizing an art form was likely the furthest thing from his mind. According to Brandon Specktor (2017), he implies that Cornelius’ motivation was simply a scientific experiment.
One prescient piece of information was the method he used to make this happen. Cornelius acquired the formula developed by Louis J.M. Daguerre, known as the Daguerreotype method. Cornelius, working alongside a collaborator, Paul Beck Goddard, manipulated the method ever so slightly, by treating camera plates by combining bromine with iodine, while Daguerre only used iodine (Maloney, 2022). By utilizing a homemade camera, Cornelius managed to make history in 1839 (Specktor, 2017).
While not as recent as most people would imagine, the process was potentially more intricate than even the initial development of smartphones. Because of Cornelius’ discovery, he created an entirely new form of photography, which is arguably, the most popularized process of photography. Selfies have come a long way since 1839. It does make me curious how much further photography will advance in the future. I hope that you have learned something today, as I have, and that you have an excellent week.
All the best,
Logan Clark
Works Cited
Baatz, Willfried. Photography: An Illustrated Historical Overview. Laurence King, 1999.
Maloney, Wendi. “Robert Cornelius and the First Selfie | Timeless.” Library of Congress Blogs, 25 July 2022, https://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2022/07/robert-cornelius-and-the-first-selfie/. Accessed 9 July 2024.
“ROBERT CORNELIUS’ SELF-PORTRAIT: THE FIRST EVER “SELFIE” (1839).” The Public Domain Review, 19 November 2013, https://web.archive.org/web/20140211070741/http://publicdomainreview.org/2013/11/19/robert-cornelius-self-portrait-the-first-ever-selfie-1839/. Accessed 9 July 2024.
Specktor, Brandon. “The World's First Selfie Was Taken in 1839.” Reader's Digest, 30 May 2017, https://www.rd.com/article/worlds-first-selfie/. Accessed 9 July 2024.