Matthew Brady’s Antietam photographs on display in New York 150 years ago today (1862)


Video: Oct. 1862 (at 1:01:15)

(Monday, October 6, 1862, during the American Civil War) — A notice in the New York Times today announced that an exhibition of photographs of the Battle of Antietam taken by Mathew Brady (titled “The Dead Of Antietam”) were being displayed at the National Gallery, corner of Broadway and Tenth-street.

This was the first time that many Americans saw the realities of war in photographs as distinct from previous “artists’ impressions.”