Mathew B. Brady

Matthew Brady, who extensively documented the American Civil War, is considered America’s first photojournalist. Brady believed the U.S. government would purchase his photographs and invested his entire fortune in the project of documenting the conflict. Unfortunately for Brady, the American public had grown weary of seeing war images and Congress declined to purchase his plates. Today, Brady’s documentation of the war is critical to historians’ understanding of this conflict. In addition to his war documentation, Brady also made over 30 portraits of Abraham Lincoln. His Lincoln photographs have been used as the source for images on the five-dollar bill and the Lincoln penny.