My Life in 1839 - an Imaginary View

Were I alive in 1839, I might be Ross Mitchell, living in Springfield OH. At age 15, I am already helping support my father's family. And within some 50 years I will be a masterful manufacturer of agricultural imprelements, a producer of harvesting and reaping machines, and wheeler and dealer of real estate. I may start life as a sapling, but I will end as an oak. I may start penniless, without education, yet I will mold an empire. In my second marriage, I will even marry an educator's daughter! I will have class and status, wealth and wisdom. And I will be the progenitor of family that lives on, far into the future. One day Martha's father will be born and raised in Kansas, on farmlands bought by me. All this is hidden from view in 1839, yet like a photographic plate, my life will develop, and circumstances will "fix", what's already here.

And what is this new thing, photography? A miracle event, it seems, whose news spreads like wildfire. Imagine - an image, that stays on metal - forever! It's not like looking in the Mad river near Springfield's Lagonda bend (indeed, that town is not yet incorporated)! NO -- that image washes away. This new metallic view lasts, they say, and can be passed on! Imagine that - an image to carry with me. And what if it were made on paper? I could carry it in my pocket!

Well, all this is hidden from us in 1839. In America we have only a few who know what to do - a Robert Cornelius in Philadelphia, a Henry Fitz Jr. of Baltimore, a D. W. Seager in New York. Yet we will catch up! We will master this new world of images, just as I will master my own life. Today, we have no NEED for photography. In Springfield, we just got the first National road!! And we have railroads - in fact, two! What need we of photography? Yet my life will show - what is hidden now will soon come to view. A lad of 15 will become a tycoon, and an experimental art will become an industry. Yes, this new "tool" may be as powerful one day as the agricultural machinery I will make. Who knows - the reaper I make may disappear, and an IMAGE of a reaper provide far more wealth! And wouldn't it be funny if an image were one day used to advertise and sell agricultural implements? Surely we live in an age of wonderment - and where it will lead is only latent! But just wait a year or two...