In 1837 or 1838, Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre, a Frenchman best known at the time as the proprietor of the Diorama, a popular Parisian spectacle featuring theatrical painting and lighting effects, made an astonishing image of a Parisian street. The image, "Boulevard du Temple," is now widely considered to be the first photograph to include an image of a human. However, the earliest known photographs date back even further. The new book "This Is Photography: The First 200 Years," released to coincide with the 200th anniversary of the medium, tells the story of photography in an enlightening way.

When the utopian ideals of the American Arts and Crafts movement began to splinter against the hard realities of a growing post-war industrial society, a fascinating cultural initiative was initiated by first lady Eleanor Roosevelt. Disheartened by the machine age but still yearning for a lasting connection to the handmade, she brought together a group of makers who redirected their focus toward a pastoral view of America’s colonial past. By 1926, Val-Kill Industries—a bold p...