Early Photography and Portraiture at Wylie House

Capturing the likeness of yourself or your loved one was not always as simple as pressing a button. The Indiana frontier had few professional artists, and faithful oil portraits were expensive and hard to come by. Itinerant silhouette cutters filled the gap, and later, daguerreotypes and other forms of early photography brought lifelike portraiture to Indiana. Theophilus Wylie was a pioneer of photography in the state, and soon other photographers followed in his footsteps.