John Alexander McDougall

The son of a cabinetmaker, John Alexander McDougall maintained studios in New York City and Newark, New Jersey, where he made photographs and painted miniatures. Among his famous sitters were Edgar Allan Poe, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and Henry Clay. All four of his sons were active in the arts, and his youngest son, Walter, reminisced about his father in an autobiography published in 1926 called This is The Life. He recounted his father's experiments using celluloid instead of ivory for miniatures, and his attempt to sustain his career through photography as late as 1880.