Daguerreotype Hats

Here is another sort of novelty from the New York Clipper of 1853 - hatters with an extra incentive for their customers: a free daguerreotype!

The daguerreotype, named for its inventor Louis Daguerre, was an early form of photograph in which an image was developed onto a silver-coated plate. It is a negative image but the mirrored surface reflects a positive image to the viewer. The daguerreotype was patented in 1839 and remained popular through the1850s, when it was supplanted by newer photographic techniques.

At the Daguerreian Society website they have transcribed this ad and another Rafferty and Leask ad from 1854, see here.

John S. Craig of Craig's Daguerreian Registry notes that Rafferty and Leask employed a photographer named Parsons to take the daguerreotypes for them. He also says that the hats themselves had an "insert" in the lining where the photograph was placed -
presumably for transporting hat and likeness home - it was truly a "daguerreotype hat"!

The Daguerreian Society has an 1853 advertisement from Scientific American which describes the hats as having places in the crown (top) of the hat for displaying the photos. It mentions that Rafferty and Leask had patented this amazing invention, but I could not find it in Google Patents.

Daguerreotype of an unidentified laboring man in a hat (but not a daguerreotype hat!), circa 1840-1860, from the Library of Congress, American Memory Collection.