Gardner, Alexander

Gardner, Alexander

(born Oct. 17, 1821, Paisley, Scot.—died 1882, Washington, D.C., U.S.) Scottish-born U.S. photographer. In 1856, the year he emigrated from Scotland, he was hired by Mathew B. Brady as a portrait photographer, and within two years he opened a studio for Brady in Washington, D.C. In 1861 he began to assist Brady in making a photographic record of the American Civil War. Brady refused to give him public credit, so in 1863 he opened his own portrait studio and continued photographing the war on his own. He published a collection of 100 original prints in 1866. From 1867, as photographer for the Union Pacific Railroad in Kansas, he chronicled the building of the railroad and the new settlements built around it.

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Gardner, Alexander (1821–82) photographer; born in Paisley, Scotland. Technical innovator and skilled manager of Mathew Brady's Washington studio (1856–63), he left to take documentary photographs and run his own studio (1863–82) when Brady refused to give photo credits to his war photographers.