Barnett M. Clinedinst

Obituary in the Shenandoah Herald on December 28, 1900

Barnett M. Clinedinst, Sr. (December 1835 – December 21, 1900) was an American photographer and inventor.^{[1][note 1]} He invented the viewfinder and the mirror-and-prism "reflex" arrangement for which the single-lens reflex camera is named.^[2]

Biography

He was born around December of 1835 or 1837 in Woodstock, Virginia.^{[note 2][3]} He was a bugler during the American Civil War for Stonewall Jackson.^[1]

He died on December 28, 1900 in Washington, DC.

Children

• Barnett McFee Clinedinst, who served as official White House portrait photographer for the Presidential administrations of Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and Woodrow Wilson.^[1][2]
• Benjamin West Clinedinst, a painter.^[4]

References

1. "B. M'F. Clinedinst, Photographer, 90. He Took Camera Portraits of Roosevelt, McKinley and Taft. Succumbs in Florida Home". New York Times. March 18, 1953. Retrieved 2015-01-09. He was the son of the late Barnett Clinedinst, and early photographer who was a bugler with the Confederate Army of General Thomas (Stonewall) Jackson, and the late Mrs. Caroline South Clinedinst. ...
2. Barnett M. Clinedinst at the Camera Heritage Museum; published no later than April 15, 2011 (date of the earliest version on archive.org); retrieved December 3, 2014
3. Clinedinst's invention changed photography, by Charles Culbertson, at the News Leader (archived at GlobalPhotographyNews); published November 2, 2013; retrieved December 3, 2014
4. Paintings and Sculpture in the Collection of the National Academy of Design: 1826-1925, edited by David Bernard Dearinger; published 2004 by Hudson Hills Press (via Google Books)

Notes

1. His name appears as "Barnett M. Clinedinst, Sr." in some sources. He appears as "Barnett Michael Clinedinst" in a Library of Congress index. No definitive document has been found.
2. He used "December 1835" in the 1900 United States Census. Sources vary as to the exact year: the News-Leader Archived January 9, 2015, at the Wayback Machine. says 1836, the New York Public Library says "ca. 1837", and the Camera Heritage Museum says "1838 abt".