The First “Selfie” In History Taken by Robert Cornelius, a Philadelphia Chemist, in 1839

In 2013, the Oxford Dic­tio­nar­ies announced that “self­ie” had been deemed their Word of The Year. The term, whose first record­ed use as an Insta­gram hash­tag occurred on Jan­u­ary 27, 2011, was actu­al­ly invent­ed in 2002, when an Aus­tralian chap post­ed a pic­ture of him­self on an inter­net forum and called it a “self­ie”. While devices for tak­ing pho­tos of one­self have been avail­able for many years pri­or to the pro­lif­er­a­tion of the smart­phones respon­si­ble for this phe­nom­e­non, the his­to­ry of the self­ie dates back to the ori­gins of pho­tog­ra­phy itself.

As the Pub­lic Domain Review notes, the first record­ed instance of the self­ie harkens back to what may have been the first pho­to­graph­ic por­trait. In 1839, a young Philadel­phia chemist named Robert Cor­nelius stepped out of his family’s store and took a pho­to­graph of him­self:

He took the image by remov­ing the lens cap and then run­ning [into the] frame where he sat for a minute before cov­er­ing up the lens again. On the back he wrote “The first light Pic­ture ever tak­en. 1839.”

Cor­nelius’ strik­ing self-por­trait was, appar­ent­ly, indica­tive of his knack for pho­tog­ra­phy; an entry in Godey’s Lady’s Book from 1840 reads:

… As a Daguerreo­typ­ist his spec­i­mens are the best that have yet been seen in this coun­try, and we speak this with a full knowl­edge of the spec­i­mens shown here by Mr. Gouraud, pur­port­ing to be, and no doubt tru­ly, by Daguerre him­self. We have seen many spec­i­mens by young Cor­nelius, and we pro­nounce them unsurpassable—they must be seen to be appre­ci­at­ed.

As a final con­so­la­to­ry note to those lin­guis­tic stal­warts whose blood boils at this bit of Aus­tralian slang enter­ing the lex­i­con, have no fear—the Oxford Dic­tio­nar­ies Online is very, very dif­fer­ent than the Oxford Eng­lish Dic­tio­nary.

via The Pub­lic Domain Review

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The First Pho­to­graph Ever Tak­en (1826)

Behold the Very First Col­or Pho­to­graph (1861): Tak­en by Scot­tish Physi­cist (and Poet!) James Clerk Maxwell

See the First Pho­to­graph of a Human Being: A Pho­to Tak­en by Louis Daguerre (1838)

Ilia Blin­d­er­man is a Mon­tre­al-based cul­ture and sci­ence writer. Fol­low him at @iliablinderman.