First Photograph to Illustrate a Newspaper Story

Source: Musée d’Orsay

June 25, 1848

Part of the larger French revolution of 1848, the four-day rebellion known as the "June Days Uprising" is on its third day. The insurgency is staged in protest of financial conditions caused by the implementation and subsequent closure of the National Workshops, an unemployment program created by the French Second Republic.

From an elevated vantage point overlooking Rue Saint-Maur-Popincourt, a daguerreotype is taken by M. Thibault showing barricades blocking the narrow Parisian street. The cobblestone lane is nearly devoid of people and activity; a calm before the approaching storm of General Lamoricière's troops. Barricades avant l’attaque, Rue Saint-Maur would become the first photograph to be used to illustrate a news story, published in the August edition of Journées illustrées de la révolution de 1848.

Sidenote: The June uprising would ultimately be a failure, with over 10,000 killed or wounded and almost 4,000 insurgents deported to Algeria.