Root, Samuel
Samuel Root and his older brother Marcus Aurelius were early pioneers in American photography. Samuel Root lived over 30 years in Dubuque. Root is known for taking famous photographs of P.T. Barnum with General Tom Thumb, Senator Henry Clay, Vice President George Dallas, Presidential-candidate Millard Fillmore, actor Edwin Forrest, poet Bayard Taylor, Swedish opera singer Jenny Lind, orator Frederick Douglass, and Bishop Matthew Simpson. Douglass and Simpson were photographed by Root in his Dubuque studios.
Root was also an early landscape/cityscape photographer, helping mature the art through his stereoview images.
The foundation for the John T. Pregler collection of Samuel Root images comes from The Cliff & Michele Krainik Collection, including over 100 stereoviews of Dubuque and surrounding area.
Daguerreotype
Carte de Visite (cdv)
Stereoview
Samuel Root produced several collectable series including Views of Dubuque and Vicinity (VDV), Scenery on the Mississippi & Tributaries (SMT), Scenery in and Around Dubuque (SAD), Iowa Falls Scenery (IFS), and Panoramic View of Dubuque (PAN). Each stereoview from one of the series includes a label on the back identifying the series. Each stereoview that includes a VDV, SMT, SAD, IFS, or PAN after S. Root indicates that stereoview is from that corresponding series. Please click on each image to enlarge the image. Click on the image a second time to go back to this page.