At Congressional Cemetery.
The Camera is the Eye of History
For a short biography of Mathew B. Brady see The Biographical Dictionary of America. Rossiter Johnson points out that Brady set out to be a painter but Samuel F. B. Morse influenced him to study the daguerreotype which led him to open a photo studio in New York in1846, and rest is history...
Be sure to look up Douglass and Lincoln in the Portrait Gallery:
Frederick Douglass
Abraham Lincoln
Brady's Camera is similar to the one Nast drew him using:
And Brady's photo shows him in straw hat and duster on his return from the first battle of Bull Run on July 22nd 1861.
Brady The Photographer
returned from
Bull Run
Photo taken July 22nd 1861
(LOC)
On close examination, we might notice that, under his duster, Brady is wearing a sword claimed to have been given to him by a New York Fire Zouave.
This is not the first memorial to Mathew Brady in Congressional Cemetery. When Brady died in 1896 he was buried in his wife's family plot. He had married Julia (or Juliet) Handy in 1849.
Mathew and Julia Brady
Clipped from an 1851 photo.
Julia died in 1887 and was buried in the Handy plot in Congressional Cemetery sharing a headstone with her brother Robert.
When Mathew died in 1896 he was buried next to her in the Handy plot.
This simple headstone bears the wrong date for Brady's death. Brady died in 1896 and the stone says 1895. Military Images explains the discrepancy “As it turns out, a streetcar had struck Brady in New York City, and he gained admission to a hospital in December 1895. He died on Jan. 15, 1896.”
In 1988 a group of Civil War Enthusiasts noting the incorrect date on Brady's headstone erected a new marker in honor of Mathew Brady, facing the original headstone across the Handy plot, and getting the dates right. They noted that Brady is the “Renowned Photographer of the Civil War.”
Donated Aug. 4, 1988 By
Fred & Frances Gillespie
Theo. Thelma & Sarah Hirt
John Nadine
Barbara & Marilyn King
James & Leslie McFarland
of Warren Ohio
Atop the monument, Grip the Raven perches on a skull.
Grip
The memorial tells the tale this way:
Edgar Allan Poe: Used Dickens Raven for his PoemThe Imp of the Perverse
Grip: Dickens' Actual Raven, Preserved
Charles Dickens: A Christmas Carol. Raven owner
Poe wrote a review of Barnaby Rudge, Dickens' novel in which a talking raven based on Grip made an appearance. Poe subsequently wrote the poems “The Raven” and “The Imp of Perverse” under the influence of Grip. When asked whether Barnaby Rudge influenced “The Raven”, Edward Pettit replied “Poe knew about it. He wrote about it. And there’s a talking raven in it. So the link seems fairly obvious to me.” (See “Poe’s Raven Stuffed at Free Library” by Johnny Goodtimes in Philadelphia Magazine, Oct. 31, 2011.) Don't miss “Raven that Belonged to Dickens and Inspired Poe” by the Carpetbagger and hear “A Raven Named Grip” read by Edgar Allan Poe (Matthew
Lavoie) on YouTube.
When Grip died of lead poisoning from eating paint scraped from Dickens' walls, Dickens took him to the taxidermist. After Dickens's death the stuffed bird had several owners and has ended up in the Philadelphia Free Library. Here's a more recent photo of Grip at the library and the accompanying plaque.
Friends of Libraries USA
Literary Landmarks Register
Designates
GRIP
The Pet Raven of Charles Dickens
A Character in his Novel
Barnaby Rudge. GRIP is said to have
been the inspiration for
Edgar Allan Poe's Poem, The Raven.
Friends of the Free Library of Philadelphia January 29, 1999.
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