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The U.S. declared war on Mexico on this day in 1847 after Mexico refused to recognize Texas’s independence and subsequent annexation into the United States. Not only did this war finally win US control of Texas, it also resulted in the US purchase of most of the southwest (comprising five present-day states and parts of 4 others) for a mere $18 million.

The Mexican-American War was the first to be documented by the new medium of photography, as the process was perfected in France only a few years before and introduced in the US in the early 1840s. In the early 1980s, the Carter acquired a group of Mexican War daguerreotypes, which were subsequently the subject of a major exhibition called Eyewitness to War: Prints and Daguerreotypes of the Mexican War, 1846-1848.

According to the exhibition catalogue, these rare works are made more special because “daguerreotypes were made on the spot,…each image was exposed in the camera and developed as a unique positive. Thus every daguerreotype plate, while in the camera, was in close proximity to the subject recorded on its surface. When we hold a daguerreotype of Mexican War troops in our hand, we hold a piece of silver-plated copper that was actually on the same street as those soldiers 140 [sic] years ago.” Even though I see and handle 19th century photographs all the time, that idea gives me chills.

For photo of the week, here are some of my favorite Mexican War daguerreotypes.

Artist unknown, Col. Hamtramck, Virginia Volunteers, daguerreotype, ca. 1847

Artist unknown, Mexican Family, daguerreotype, ca. 1847

Artist unknown, [Street scene in Durango, Mexico], daguerreotype, ca. 1847

Artist unknown, [Parroquia de Santiago, Saltillo, Mexico], daguerreotype, ca. 1847

Artist unknown, Burial Place of Son of Henry Clay in Mexico, daguerreotype, 1847

This is cool. PBS’s contemporary art series, Art:21, is now available online on Hulu. You can watch every episode in its entirety online now, which is great because I never could seem to catch it on our local PBS station. Note that the Ecology episode in season 4 features the photographer Robert Adams, who has over 100 works in the Carter’s collection. (Thanks, MAN)

This time our photo of the week comes from the Carter’s vast Eliot Porter collection. Because we have Porter’s entire archive and he so diligently organized his work, we can pinpoint exactly what day he shot most of his photographs. I think we probably have at least one - and probably many more - photograph for every day of the year.

The following photo was taken on this day during Porter’s 1966 expedition to the Galapagos Islands.

Eliot Porter, Fur Seal, Alcedo Camp on Isabela Island, Galápagos Islands, May 6, 1966, dye imbibition print, bequest of the artist, ©1990 Amon Carter Museum

Just a reminder that our current special exhibition, Barbara Crane: Challenging Vision, closes this coming Sunday, May 10, to make room for our next special exhibition of works on paper from the Harmon and Harriet Kelley Collection of African-American Art.

Today’s Photo of the Week post is inspired by my upcoming trip to see friends in Galveston this weekend. The following images of Galveston from the Carter’s collection are all by Stuart Klipper, a Minneapolis-based photographer known for panoramic landscapes.

Stuart Klipper, VFW Post, 24th Street, Galveston, dye coupler print

Stuart Klipper, Box Car, off Port Industrial Boulevard, Port of Galveston, dye coupler print

Stuart Klipper, Beth Jacob Synagogue, Galveston, dye coupler print

All works are a Gift of the Texas Historical Foundation with support from a major grant from the DuPont Company and Conoco, its energy subsidiary, and assistance from the Texas Commission on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts, © 1984 Stuart Klipper

New tips in the case of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist, the largest unsolved art theft in history, claim some of the stolen works have been spotted here in Texas! Keep your eye out for any Vermeers, Rembrandts, Degas, or Manets just lying about…

This second installment of Photo of the Week celebrates Earth Day with photographs by two major American landscape photographers, Frank Gohlke and Robert Glenn Ketchum. Both have recently had exhibitions at the Carter featuring works that deal with environmental issues.

Frank Gohlke, Tire, the Sudbury River, Framingham, Massachusetts, September 1991, dye coupler print, © Frank Gohlke

Robert Glenn Ketchum, “I Like the Look of a Clearcut…” Attributed to a Forest Supervisor at a Public Meeting, dye destruction print, Gift of Advocacy Arts Foundation, © 1986 Robert Glenn Ketchum

There are some good ideas for reducing your environmental footprint over at EarthDay.Gov and a timeline of environmental progress since the first Earth Day in 1970 on the EPA website. If you don’t like the look of a clearcut, do something nice for the environment today.

Because I manage the database where all the cataloging information and digital images of the collection are stored, I get to see thousands of photographs every week that are not currently on view. I’m starting a new series of weekly, thematic blog posts to highlight some of the interesting images I come across in my day-to-day work. So without further ado, here are my first selections…

Charles Weidner, Fleeing from the Burning City, April 18, 1906, San Francisco, California, halftone postcard, ca. 1907

Arnold Genthe, San Francisco, April 18th, 1906, 10am, gelatin silver print, 1906

This Saturday happens to mark the anniversary of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. These are two photographs of the San Francisco earthquake aftermath taken 103 years ago this week. The earthquake not only made Arnold Genthe famous, but had a lasting impact on another photographer: it broke the nose of four-year-old Ansel Adams.

Come back next Wednesday for the second installment of Photos of the Week!

An article appropriate for such an unseasonably chilly day: if you’ve ever wondered why museums are always SO cold inside, read Keeping Art, and Climate, Controlled in the NYT.

“Perhaps more than any other artifact, the photograph has engaged our thoughts about time and eternity. I say “perhaps,” because the history of photography spans less than 200 years. How many of us have been “immortalized” in a newspaper, a book or a painting vs. how many of us have appeared in a photograph?” – Errol Morris, Whose Father Was He?

You have to read Whose Father Was He?, a fascinating five-part series about the fate of a civil war soldier and a photograph of his children over at the New York Times. One of about 8000 casualties of the Battle of Gettysburg, a soldier was found without any identification. He did, however, have an ambrotype photograph of his three young children in his pocket. The series chronicles the efforts to locate the soldier’s family, and what has become of them in the ensuing 140 years.

I am by no means a civil war buff, but the story was so moving that I found myself looking forward to each installment of the story this week. The Carter has a good number of 19th-century portrait photographs, many of which depict long-dead people that no has been able to identify, and probably never will. When I work with these images, I always wonder about these people’s stories and it makes me a little sad to know that they are essentially lost. I loved reading in this NYT series about the historian who went to great lengths to study the life of this soldier (and also some interesting tangents into whaling, orphanages, and Mayan astroastronomy).

Some of my favorite portraits of anonymous sitters from our collection. What are their stories? We’ll probably never know.

[Unidentified infantry colonel], daguerreotype, ca. 1847

[Woman and child], daguerreotype, ca. 1850s

[Young woman in dark dress], tintype, ca. 1863-1869