North America
In 1842 Jabez decided to travel to North America. It was there in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania he became known as John Jabez Edwin Mayall. According to Canon Hulbert of Almondbury in Yorkshire, the 28 year old was an intelligent young man who had ambitions beyond the linen trade: "Slaithwaite was scarcely a sufficient sphere for his genius and he emigrated to the United States, where he took up the then infant Art of Photography; which he much improved by his experiments and discoveries."
In an interview with the editor of the Photographic News, Mayall stated that his "first handling a Daguerreotype was on 6th January 1840", two years before he embarked for America.
From 1843, Mayall produced a large number of daguerreotypes, including a set of ten pictures illustrating the Lord's Prayer.
In 1844, Mayall entered into partnership with Samuel Van Loan, who had previously worked as a daguerreotypist in the English town of Manchester, only 30 miles from where Mayall was living in 1841. Richard Beard had established a daguerreotype portrait gallery at Ducie Place, Manchester on November 18, 1841. Beard had passed on the Manchester studio to the American daguerreotypist John Johnson in November 1842 and it is possible that Van Loan travelled with Johnson when he returned to America in 1844.
Mayall and Van Loan established a studio at 140 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia. They were known for the high quality of their daguerreotypes. In October 1844, the partnership of Van Loan & Mayall received a silver medal for work exhibited at the Franklin Institute. At the 1845 Exhibition at the Franklin Institute, daguerreotypes by Van Loan & Mayall were judged "superior and entitled to Third Premium."
In 1846 the partnership between Van Loan and Mayall came to an end. John Mayall then established his own Daguerreotype studio at Fifth and Chestnut Street.
During his time in America Mayall gave lectures on the art of photography. In May 1846, he delivered a "Memoir on the Daguerreotype" to the Philosophical Society of the United States, which was meeting in Philadelphia. Mayall also had links with Philadelphia's Central High School, where his mentor, Professor Martin Boye held the Chair of Chemistry.
On June 20, 1846, Mayall sold his Chestnut Street studio to Marcus Aurelius Root, a teacher of writing residing in the same building. Marcus A Root (1808–1888) was later to become an internationally successful daguerreotypist and the author of an important book on photography entitled "The Camera and the Pencil". After selling his daguerreotype portrait studio in Philadelphia, he returned to England.
Read more about this topic: John Jabez Edwin Mayall
Famous quotes related to north america:
“The English were very backward to explore and settle the continent which they had stumbled upon. The French preceded them both in their attempts to colonize the continent of North America ... and in their first permanent settlement ... And the right of possession, naturally enough, was the one which England mainly respected and recognized in the case of Spain, of Portugal, and also of France, from the time of Henry VII.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)