Many researchers have drawn on the rich graphic and photographic resources preserved in the Archives. This image is the earliest portrait in the Archives collection. It portrays T. Meredith Jenkins, who died of yellow fever in Rio de Janeiro on April 11, 1850. Jenkins entered the Jesuit Order in 1834 after attending Georgetown College. An aspiring astronomer, he offered $8000 inherited from his mother to James Curley, S.J. in 1841, so Fr. Curley could begin building the Observatory he had planned for campus.
The daguerreotype photographic process was invented by Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre in 1839. It was primarily used for portraits. The daguerreotype was a polished copperplate onto which an image was directly exposed. With no negative created, each daguerreotype is unique.