Alexander Gardner owned one of the few galleries which rivaled Mathew Brady's in illustrious clientele and prestige. He was Scottish-born and emigrated to New York in 1856 when he was 35 years old.

Kunhardt, Jr. wrote in their book, Mathew Brady and His World. “Nevertheless, he was by far the most famous.” Scotsman Alexander Gardner, a skilled craftsman in the wet-plate tradition who’d been on ...