William Langenheim came to the United States from Germany in 1834, the year Ebenezer Strong Snell, a professor at Amherst College, introduced in America the Plateau-Stampfer magic disks. Successively, he served in Texas during its war for independence from Mexico; was present at the recapture of the Alamo by American forces; was captured himself and sentenced to be shot; escaped, and served in the United States Army in the Second Florida Seminole War. After three years of adventure, William decided in 1840 to settle in Philadelphia and enter business. He had his brother, Frederic, come to America to be his partner. Frederic Langenheim brought to his brother news of the latest developments in photography and they decided to embark upon that pursuit. The year before, 1839, Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre (1789–1851), in France, and William Henry Fox Talbot (1800–1877), in England, had announced successful still pictures made with a modified portable form of our old friend, the _camera obscura_, fitted with a chemically coated plate which after development made the picture permanent. Frederic Langenheim was familiar with all these advances when he came to Philadelphia in 1840 and he either brought with him a good camera or one was ordered from Vienna shortly afterwards. In the winter of 1840–41 the Langenheim brothers opened a studio at the Merchant’s Exchange, 3rd and Walnut Streets, Philadelphia. They were not the first photographers in the United States but were among the pioneers. Pictures from the size of a pea to very large ones were advertised. President Tyler and Henry Clay were among those who sat for Langenheim. In an early adventure in the use of photography for advertising, the Langenheims had something less than a complete success, from the client’s point of view. A picture was made showing a number of prominent persons drinking at a local establishment. It was not good for business--a rigorous public objected to the “drinking scene.” Frederic, who was the “outside man” of the business and the principal photographer of natural subjects--William handled the business end and the portraits--went to Niagara Falls in 1845 and made scene pictures that brought fame and renown to the firm of Langenheim Bros. Copies were sent to Queen Victoria, the Kings of Prussia, Saxony and Wurtenberg and the Duke of Brunswick, the province in Germany whence the brothers originally came; and to Daguerre himself. The latter praised the successful photography in a letter transmitted to the Langenheims.