Prof. Martin Hans Boye [picture]

Cornelius was the son of Christian Cornelius, a Dutch immigrant to Philadelphia in 1783. A well-to-do manufacturer of lamps and chandeliers, the elder Cornelius sent his son to private school where he took a special interest in chemistry. In 1831, he began to work for his father and specialized in s...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Cornelius, Robert, 1809-1893.
Contributors: Photographs
Language:English
Published: Philadelphia, Pa. : Cornelius Studio, 1843.
Edition:Photographs
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Summary: Cornelius was the son of Christian Cornelius, a Dutch immigrant to Philadelphia in 1783. A well-to-do manufacturer of lamps and chandeliers, the elder Cornelius sent his son to private school where he took a special interest in chemistry. In 1831, he began to work for his father and specialized in silver-plating and metal polishing, a skill for which he was so sufficiently well-renowned, that in 1844, the newly-created Smithsonian Institute entrusted some of its early experiments to him. It was natural, then, for Joseph Saxton to approach Cornelius for the silver plate required for his daguerreotype of Central High School, and equally natural for Cornelius himself to become interested in the procedure. {excerpted from the ExplorePaHistory website, 4-10-2014}
Item Description: Martin Hans Boye, December 6, 1812, Copenhagen, Denmark - March 6, 1907, Coopersburg, Pennsylvania. Boye emigrated to the US from Denmark in 1836. He worked as a geologist and chemist on a geological survey of the anthracite coal regions in Pennsylvania and as a chemist at the State Laboratories in Philadelphia (208 Chestnut St.) before receiving his MD degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1844. In 1847 he invented a process of refining cottonseed oil which he later manufactured on a large scale. Other researches included an analysis of concretion from a horse's stomach and analysis of Chinese artifically colored tea. In 1851 he was Chair of Chemistry in Central High, Philadelphia, but resigned in 1859 because of poor health. [Smith, Edgar F., --Martin Hans Boye, Chemist.-- Philadelphia, 1924] {excerpted from the George Eastman House website, 4-10-2014}
daguerreotype
Physical Description: 1 daguerreotype : port. ; 8.0 x 6.5 cm.
Access: Locked Case (Right)