Henry Fitz

Henry Fitz Jr. (December 31, 1808 – November 7, 1863) was an American engineer, scientist, locksmith, optician, inventor and a pioneer of photography in the United States.

Personal life Fitz was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts on December 31, 1808. He married Julia Ann Wells of Southold, Long Island in June 1844.

Career and death After returning from a trip in Europe in December 1839, he entered partnership with Alexander Wolcott and John Johnson to solve the problem of making daguerreotype portraits. Johnson fell ill, however, and work only resumed in January 1840. These experiments led Wolcott to patent a special mirror camera.

Wolcott and Johnson opened the first photo studio in the world in March 1840. Fitz opened his own daguerreotype studio in Baltimore in June 1840. A group of daguerreotypes, from the early experimentation with Wolcott and Johnson as well as later studio portraits, were discovered and sold at auction in 2021.

Fitz’s telescope business was highly profitable, so in 1863, he started construction of a new house. However, he died suddenly on November 7, 1863. Obituaries report that his demise was from tuberculosis. Before his final illness, he was about to sail for Europe to select a glass for a telescope and to procure patents for a camera involving a new form of lens.