Alexander Gardner (photographer)
Alexander Gardner was a Scottish photographer who emigrated to the United States in 1856, where he began to work fulltime in that profession. He is best known for his photographs of the American Civil War, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, and the execution of the conspirators to Lincolns assassination.
Alexander was born in Paisley, Renfrewshire, onOctober 1821. He became an apprentice jeweller at the age of fourteen, lasting seven years. Gardner had a Church of Scotland upbringing and was influenced by the work of Robert Owen, Welsh socialist and father of the cooperative movement. By adulthood he desired to create a cooperative in the United States that would incorporate socialist values. In 1850, Gardner and others purchased land near Monona, Iowa, for this purpose, but Gardner never lived there, choosing to return to Scotland to raise more money. He stayed there until 1856, becoming owner and editor of the Glasgow Sentinel in 1851. Visiting The Great Exhibition in 1851 in Hyde Park, London, he saw the photography of American Mathew Brady, and thus began his interest in the subject.
Source: Wikipedia