“Awful Conflagration of the Steam Boat ‘Lexington’ in Long Island Sound on Monday Eveg Jany 13th 1840, by Which Melancholy Occurrence Over 100 Persons Perished,” by N. Currier, Lithographer, was published in The Extra Sun. Metropolitan Museum of Art/CC0Very often, it’s the cover photo on a newspaper or magazine’s front page that catches the eye and makes a browser want to keep reading after the headline.Today, it’s hard to imagine a newspaper without flashy color photographs. Before the 1840s, there were no pictures of any kind used to illustrate news stories: no color photos, black-and-white photos, paintings, cartoons, drawings, or even rough sketches.
Nathaniel Currier: Illustrating American News
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