>From the Writer's Almanac (NPR) for 02/27/06: It was on this day in 1860 that the photographer Mathew Brady took thefirst of several portraits of Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln had come to NewYork City to give an anti-slavery speech at the Cooper Union and hethought a portrait might help his presidential campaign. Brady was one of the first Americans to get into photography, andwithin a few years he was known as one of the best portraitphotographers in the country. Brady was the first person to take aphotograph of an American president when he photographed PresidentZachary Taylor in 1849. The portrait was difficult to take, in part because Lincoln was sotall. Brady usually used a head clamp to immobilize his subjects, butthe clamp didn't reach Lincoln's head. So Lincoln had to standabsolutely still for several minutes of his own free will. Thephotograph worked out, though, and it was published on the cover ofHarper's Weekly. Lincoln later claimed the photograph and the Cooper'sUnion speech had made him president. http://www.npg.si.edu/exh/brady/art/artlinc.htm
