Marcus Aurelius Root

Louis, Mobile, New Orleans and Washington, D.C. His studio photographed some of the biggest celebrities of his time, including Edgar Allan Poe, Jenny Lind, P.T. Barnum, General Tom Thumb, presidential candidate Winfield Scott, and Vice President of the United States George M. Portraits on U.S. dollar bills were also taken from daguerreotypes made by Root, including portraits of Henry Clay on the $50 bill and Daniel Webster on the $10 bill. Root is also speculated to have made the portrait of Ulysses Grant on the $50 bill. He authored an important book on photography entitled The Camera and the Pencil.

Subjects and genres recorded for the work are portrait. Places of work recorded in the authority are Mobile, New Orleans and St. Work by Marcus Aurelius Root is recorded in the collections of The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, National Gallery of Canada, Smithsonian American Art Museum and J. Paul Getty Museum.

In 1835, Root moved to Philadelphia to take lessons in portrait painting from Thomas Sully, whose subjects included Thomas Jefferson, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson and Queen Victoria. The first daguerreotype Root ever made was in 1839 on solid silver. It was a view from one of the windows of the Philadelphia Mint. It was later featured at the Centennial Exposition. Lacking success in painting, Root turned to photography in 1843 and opened a daguerreotype studio. On June 20, 1846, he bought John Jabez Edwin Mayall's Chestnut Street photography studio that was in the same building as Root's residence in Philadelphia. Root had success as a daguerreotypist working with his brother, Samuel Root. The Root Brothers had a gallery in New York City from 1849 to 1857. Marcus Aurelius Root was awarded first prize at the Great Exhibition in London in 1851. He was also awarded first prize at annual exhibitions of the Franklin Institute.