American Historical Ephemera & Photography

2 x 2 3/4 in. miniature ivory painted portrait of Marcy. Signed "Whitehurst" along left shoulder (as viewed) of subject. Housed in a sealed wooden miniature frame with hanging fob (not examined out of the frame). 

William Learned Marcy (1786-1857) served as US Senator, Governor of New York, US Secretary of War, and US Secretary of State. He served as an officer during the War of 1812, and served as Secretary of War during the Mexican-American War of the 1840s. Notably, he negotiated the Gadsden Purchase, which brought a region covering parts of present-day Arizona and New Mexico under United States ownership. 

Jesse H. Whitehurst (1820-1875) was one of the first photographers active in the American South, opening his first gallery in Charleston, SC, in 1843.  He quickly developed the business into a chain of studios with outlets in Wilmington, North Carolina, Lynchburg, Norfolk, Richmond, and Petersburg in his home state of Virginia, and even Washington, Baltimore, and New York. Whitehurst said his businesses served over 20,000 customers a year in the 1850s, including nearly all members of Congress, but the empire did not withstand the transition to newer forms of photography, and he spent the rest of his professional life in the guano exploration business.