Editing Eadweard Muybridge (section)

==1850–1860: bookselling in America==
At the age of 20, Muybridge decided to seek his fortune. He turned down an offer of money from his grandmother, saying "No, thank you Grandma, I'm going to make a name for myself. If I fail, you will never hear of me again."<ref name="Solnit2010">{{cite journal |last1=Solnit |first1=Rebecca |title=Eadweard Muybridge: Feet off the ground |journal=The Guardian |date=3 September 2010 |url=https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2010/sep/04/eadweard-muybridge-exhibition-rebecca-solnit |access-date=17 March 2022 |language=en}}</ref> Muybridge immigrated to the United States, arriving in New York City in 1852.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Eadweard J. Muybridge {{!}} MoMA |url=https://www.moma.org/artists/4192-eadweard-j-muybridge |access-date=2025-03-11 |website=The Museum of Modern Art |language=en}}</ref> Here, he was possibly a partner in the book business enterprise Muygridge & Bartlett together with a medical student, which existed for about a year.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Hunter|first=Edwin G. (Edwin Gustavus)|url=https://archive.org/details/descendantsofdrj00hunt|title=The descendants of Dr. James Hunter, who came to Canada from Yorkshire, England, in the year 1822|date=1925|publisher=New York, F.H. Hitchcock|others=Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center}}</ref><!-- Although this fits perfectly in Muybridge's biography, this could be another Muybridge and the source is from a very late date. --> He spent his first years importing and selling books from the UK, and became familiar with early photography through his acquaintance with New York [[daguerreotypist]] Silas T. Selleck.<ref name="SMGC"/>

Muybridge arrived in [[New Orleans]] in January 1855,<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://newspapers.com/clip/43678472/muybridge-in-new-orleans/|title=Muybridge in New Orleans|newspaper=The Times-Picayune|date=19 January 1855|page=3|language=en|access-date=1 April 2020}}</ref> and was registered there as a book agent by April.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://newspapers.com/clip/43680195/muybridge-book-agent-in-new-orleans/|title=Muybridge book agent in New Orleans|newspaper=The Times-Picayune|date=10 April 1855|page=4|language=en|access-date=1 April 2020}}</ref>

Muybridge probably arrived in California around the autumn of 1855,<ref name=75hearing>{{Cite web|url=https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=SDU18750205.2.26.2&srpos=70&e=-------en--20--61-byDA-txt-txIN-muybridge-------|title=Sacramento Daily Union 5 February 1875 – California Digital Newspaper Collection|website=cdnc.ucr.edu|access-date=8 April 2020}}</ref> when it had [[An Act for the Admission of the State of California|not yet been a state for more than five years]]. He visited the new state capital, [[Sacramento]], as an agent selling illustrated Shakespeare books in April 1856,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=SDU18560417.2.8&srpos=1&e=-------en--20--1-byDA-txt-txIN-muygridge-------|title=Sacramento Daily Union 17 April 1856 – California Digital Newspaper Collection|website=cdnc.ucr.edu|access-date=1 April 2020}}</ref> and soon after settled at 113 Montgomery Street in San Francisco.<ref name="Compleat">{{cite web |title=The Compleat Muybridge Home |url=http://www.stephenherbert.co.uk/muybCOMPLEAT.htm |website=www.stephenherbert.co.uk |access-date=16 March 2022 |archive-date=23 August 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110823054257/http://www.stephenherbert.co.uk/muybCOMPLEAT.htm |url-status=usurped }}</ref> From this address he sold books and art (mostly prints), in a city that was still the booming "capital of the [[Gold Rush]]" in the "[[American frontier|Wild West]]". There were already 40 bookstores and a dozen photography studios in town,{{sfn|Solnit|2003|p=29+30|ps=}} and he even shared his address with a photo gallery, right next to another bookstore.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=DAC18561011.2.27.3&srpos=49&e=-------en--20-DAC-41-byDA-txt-txIN-%22113+montgomery+street%22-------1|title=Daily Alta California 11 October 1856 – California Digital Newspaper Collection|website=cdnc.ucr.edu|access-date=4 April 2020}}</ref> He partnered with W.H. Oakes as an engraver and publisher of lithograph prints,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=SRP18560904.2.8.2&srpos=2&e=-------en--20--1-byDA-txt-txIN-muygridge-------|title=San Joaquin Republican 4 September 1856 – California Digital Newspaper Collection|website=cdnc.ucr.edu|access-date=1 April 2020}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=SDU18560908.2.8.2&srpos=3&e=-------en--20--1-byDA-txt-txIN-muygridge-------|title=Sacramento Daily Union 8 September 1856 – California Digital Newspaper Collection|website=cdnc.ucr.edu|access-date=1 April 2020}}</ref> and still functioned as a book agent for the London Printing and Publishing Company.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=MDH18571220.2.11.1&srpos=35&e=-------en--20--21-byDA-txt-txIN-muygridge-------|title=Marysville Daily Herald 20 December 1857 – California Digital Newspaper Collection|website=cdnc.ucr.edu|access-date=1 April 2020}}</ref>

In April 1858, Muybridge moved his store to 163 Clay Street, where his friend Silas Selleck now had a photo gallery.<ref name= Braun/> Muygridge was a member of the Mechanic's Institute of the City of San Francisco.<ref>{{Cite book|last=San Francisco (Calif.). Mechanics' Institute|url=https://archive.org/details/reportindustria00instgoog|title=Report of the industrial exhibition of the Mechanic's Institute of the City ...|others=Harvard University|language=en}}</ref> In 1859, he was elected as one of the directors for the San Francisco Mercantile Library Association.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=DAC18590118.2.18&srpos=44&e=-------en--20--41-byDA-txt-txIN-muygridge-------|title=Daily Alta California 18 January 1859 – California Digital Newspaper Collection|website=cdnc.ucr.edu|access-date=1 April 2020}}</ref>

Muybridge sold original landscape photography by [[Carleton Watkins]],<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=DAC18581213.2.7&srpos=43&e=-------en--20--41-byDA-txt-txIN-muygridge-------|title=Daily Alta California 13 December 1858 – California Digital Newspaper Collection|website=cdnc.ucr.edu|access-date=3 April 2020}}</ref> as well as photographic copies of paintings. It remains uncertain whether or not Muygridge personally made such copies,<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Hood|first1=Mary V. Jessup|last2=Haas|first2=Robert Bartlett|date=1963|title=Eadweard Muybridge's Yosemite Valley Photographs, 1867–1872|journal=California Historical Society Quarterly|volume=42|issue=1|pages=5–26|doi=10.2307/25155515|jstor=25155515|issn=0008-1175}}</ref> or familiarized himself with photographic techniques in any fashion before 1860, although Muybridge claimed in 1881 that he "came to California in 1855, and most of the time since and all of the time since 1860 (...) had been diligently, and at the same time studiously, been engaged in photography".<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/34191389/muybridgestorysfexaminerfeb1881/|title=MuybridgeStory_SFExaminer_Feb1881|date=6 February 1881|work=The San Francisco Examiner|access-date=4 April 2020|pages=3}}</ref><!-- Marta Braun and other experts credit the anonymous article to Muybridge himself.-->

Edward's brother George Muybridge came to San Francisco in 1858 but died of tuberculosis soon after. Their youngest brother Thomas S. Muygridge arrived in 1859, and it soon became clear that Edward planned to stop operating his bookstore business.<ref name= Braun/> On 15 May 1860, Edward published a special announcement in the ''Bulletin'' newspaper: "I have this day sold to my brother, Thomas S. Muygridge, my entire stock of Books, Engravings, etc. (...) I shall on 5th June leave for New York, London, Berlin, Paris, Rome, and Vienna, etc." Although he altered his plans, he eventually took a cross-country stagecoach on 2 July to catch a ship in New York.<ref name= Braun/>