Given how most people take selfies, you’d probably think it was some 1990s teenage girl armed with an early Kodak digicam, or maybe a group of late-1960s flower children armed with a Polaroid camera. But no, 21st-century-style selfies are actually an early 20th-century affair. In fact, this photograph taken in December in 1920 might be the first modern selfie…
Snapped in New York on the roof of the Marceau Studio on Fifth Avenue, across the street from St. Patrick’s Cathedral, this picture features five mustached photographers holding an antediluvian analog camera at arm’s length. Because this camera would have been too heavy to hold with one hand, Joseph Byron is propping it up on the left, with his colleague Ben Falk holding it on the right. In the middle, you have Pirie MacDonald, Colonel Marceau, and Pop Core…
What’s interesting here is that these five gentlemen were the photographers of the Byron Company, a photography studio founded in Manhattan in 1892, which was described by the New York Times as “one of New York’s pre-eminent commercial photography studios.” Joseph Byron is the founder, and the studio actually still operates in the hands of his descendants, seventh-generation photographer Thomas Byron and his son, Mark Byron. The possible creators of the first selfie are still in business!
These incredible photographs are just two of 23,000 Byron Company prints that have been digitized as part of the Museum of the New York City’s digital collection. You can check out more of their incredible photographic library online here.
Read more at “This Might Be The First Selfie In Photographic History.”
Your correspondent’s Facebook followers will recall that there’s an earlier candidate for “first selfie”:
According to the Library of Congress, this photo of chemist and metallurgist Robert Cornelius is believed to be the first photographic portrait; and as he shot the daguerreotype himself in 1839, the first self-portrait. But as for we we typically mean these days by “selfie”– a shot taken with camera held at arms length– it appears the Byron boys have it.
* Genesis 1:27
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As we turn to catch the light, we might recall that it was on this date in 2012 that a Nebraska woman sold a three-year-old McDonalds Chicken McNugget on eBay. Rebekah Speight of Dakota City explained in her offer:
Approximately 3 years ago, I treated my children to “99 cent McNugget Tuesday” and play time at our local McDonald’s. As I was cleaning up, I noticed one particular nugget and began to laugh. I picked it up for a closer look, and sure enough it was in the likeness of President George Washington. I decided to take it home and show my husband this hysterical find.
When he arrived home, I pulled it out of the freezer and he could not believe his eyes. We shared a moment of laughter as we joked about putting it on eBay. Then back in the freezer it went.
The students of Family Worship Center in Sioux City, Iowa are in the process of trying to raise $15,000 for Church Camp this summer. My husband and I felt led to auction this “President George Washington Chicken McNugget” as part of our fund-raising effort. 100% of the money raised will go to Family Worship Center in Sioux City, Iowa.
By bidding on this rare “President George Washington Chicken McNugget” … not only will you have an opportunity to be the new owner of this rare find, but you will be investing in the lives of children.
In view of the cause, eBay waived its prohibition on the offer of “expired food.” The McNugget fetched $8,100.
