John Quincy Adams, the First President to be Photographed



The earliest known photos of an American president are daguerreotypes of John Quincy Adams taken in 1843, after Adams’ failed re-election bid in 1828 to Andrew Jackson, during his subsequent 17-year-career as a Massachusetts Congressman.



According to The White House Historical Association (PDF):



This likeness of the former President Adams was taken at the gallery of Bishop and Gray in early August 1843 in Utica, New York. President Adams, then 76 years old, was returning from a visit to Niagara Falls and stopped at Utica to see an old friend, Judge Ezeikiel Bacon. In his diary for August 1, 1843, Adams remarked, “Four daguerreotype likenesses of my head were taken, two of them jointly with the head of Mr. Bacon. All hideous.” Adams continued his diary entry the following day, “At seven this morning Mr. Bacon came and I went with him to the Shadow Shop, where three more Daguerreotype likeness were taken of me, no better than those of yesterday. They are all too true to the original.”