"Renowned Photographer of the Civil War" are the words on Mathew Brady's tombstone, and it is as a Civil War photographer that Brady is usually remembered. But Mathew Brady was much more than that.In photography's very early days, Brady realized that photographs could provide a visual record of people and events. He and his studio assistants photographed most of the celebrated figures of the time - American presidents, cabinet members, actors and writers, prominent women, military leaders. Well before the Civil War, Mathew Brady had achieved widespread fame.In 1862, an exhibition at Brady's elegant New York studio titled "The Dead at Antietam" shocked viewers. They saw for the first time the terrible reality of war. It was not Brady who took those photographs; they were the work of Alexander Gardner and James Gibson, who worked for him. But it was Brady who understood their drama and power.Today, thanks to Mathew Brady, museums and other cultural institutions offer a remarkably complete collection of the likenesses of virtually every notable American of the nineteenth century, plus a full and rich pictorial history of the Civil War. This is the story of his life and vision. Read Less