James Ambrose Cutting facts for kids
James Ambrose Cutting (1814–1867) was a clever American inventor and photographer. Some people even say he invented a special type of photograph called the Ambrotype.
James grew up on a farm in Haverhill, New Hampshire, and his family didn't have much money. When he was 28, in 1842, he invented a new kind of beehive. He sold the rights to his invention (called patents) and used that money to move to Boston, Massachusetts.
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What are Ambrotypes?
An ambrotype is a unique type of photograph made on a piece of glass. It was popular in the 1850s. To make one, a photographer would prepare a smooth glass plate with special chemicals. This was part of a method called the wet plate collodion process. The plate was then put into a camera and exposed to light, which created a negative image on the glass.
Once the glass plate was dry, the photographer would put a dark backing behind it. This backing could be black paint, metal, cloth, or even paper. This dark background made the negative image look like a positive picture! Some ambrotypes were made with dark-colored glass, like ruby or dark green, to get the same effect without needing a separate backing.
Often, ambrotypes were colored by hand, especially with a touch of red paint on people's cheeks to make them look rosy. These glass photos were usually kept safe in fancy cases made of wood or a type of plastic. People sometimes confuse ambrotypes with another old photo type called daguerreotypes. But it's easy to tell them apart: an ambrotype isn't shiny like a mirror, but a daguerreotype is! Ambrotypes were most popular in the mid-to-late 1850s, but you could still find them being made even in the 1890s.
Who Invented the Ambrotype?
In 1854, James Cutting received three patents for his improvements to the process of making pictures on glass. While he is often linked to the ambrotype, his patents were for making the process better, not for inventing the idea of a glass positive itself. It seems that similar glass photos were made as early as 1852 by another inventor named Frederick Scott Archer.
Even though Cutting held the patents and the process was sometimes named after him, the word "ambrotype" might have first been used in the photo studio of Marcus Aurelius Root. This was mentioned in a book from 1864 called The Camera and the Pencil.
Cutting's Inventions and Patents
James Cutting was a busy inventor! He received several patents for his ideas.
- Photography Patents (1854): James Ambrose Cutting received three patents (numbers 11,213, 11,266, and 11,267) in 1854. These patents were for creating those special collodion positive photographs on glass. The first two patents were about the chemicals and methods used in the collodion process. The third patent described a way to seal the finished glass pictures under another layer of glass using a substance called balsam. This specific method was known as Cutting's Patent Ambrotype.
- Printing Improvements (1858): In 1858, James Ambrose Cutting and Lodowick H. Bradford also received a patent (number 19,626) for making Photolithography better. This was a way to create very strong photographic pictures on a special printing plate made of lithographic limestone.
Later Life and the Aquarial Gardens
In 1859, James Cutting and his partner Henry D Butler opened a public aquarium in Boston called the Boston Aquarial Gardens. It was first on Bromfield Street, then moved to 240 Washington Street. Henry Butler even wrote one of the first books in the United States about keeping an aquarium at home!
The Aquarial Gardens quickly became a popular place. Advertisements in the Boston Post newspaper in April 1859 called it a "magnificent display" of nature. They said it was filled with "rare marine animals" and showed "Life Beneath The Waters."
Later, a famous showman named P.T. Barnum bought the Aquarial Gardens. Under Barnum's management, it became less of a scientific display and more of a show hall. For example, one attraction was "Madame Lanista," who wrestled with snakes! The building eventually became a theater.
James Cutting was very upset that his scientific aquarium had turned into an amusement hall. He became very ill and never fully recovered. He passed away in August 1867.
