About This Image

Printed on verso " From Ball & Thomas' Photographic Art Gallery, 120 West Fourth Street, Near Race, Cincinnati, O."

James Presley Ball was born in Frederick County, Virginia in 1825 and he was a "freeman of color." Ball learned daguerreotype photography in Boston and opened a small daguerreotype studio in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1845. Ball did not have much success and ended up as a traveling daguerreotypist. He settled in Cincinnati again in 1849 and opened another photo studio, soon partnering with his brother-in-law, Alexander Thomas. They called the business, Ball's Daguerrean Gallery of the West and it became one of the most successful photo galleries/studios in the Midwest. During the 1870s Ball ended his partnership with Thomas and moved to various other cities, continuing to work as a photographer. He moved his family to Honolulu in 1902 and Ball died there in 1904.