Daguerreotype of a Streak of Lightning

Several whispers of white electrical bolts hover in the upper part of the otherwise dark frame of this daguerreotype. Were it not for Thomas Easterly’s handwritten annotation, we may be left wondering if those were mere anomalies on a blank photographic plate. Easterly had indeed captured the seemingly impossible—a nearly instantaneous image of lightning during a summer storm.

Object Title and Accession Number

Daguerreotype of a Streak of Lightning taken June 18th 1847 at 9 o’clock P.M. By T. M. Easterly St. Louis Mo. Photograph of an Easterly daguerreotype by Cramer, Gross and Co., 1874–1878. N17691.