Samuel Tobias Blessing

American, 1830–1897

Blessing was born in Frederick, Maryland. He appears to have worked as a photographer in Alabama and Texas before settling in New Orleans in 1854. Blessing formed a partnership with Samuel Anderson (fl. 1855–1885) in the mid-1850s in New Orleans. The studio, in the heart of the commercial district, at 134 Canal Street, provided daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, tintypes, cartes-de-visite, and paper prints made using the wet plate collodion process. The gallery also supplied pastels and oil paintings. In 1859, the studio moved to 61 Camp Street.

The partnership with Anderson ended in 1863, and Blessing established his own studio at 24 Chartres Street. He married Mary Elizabeth Shaw (1842–1919) in 1864; the couple had three children. Blessing maintained close ties to Galveston and Dallas, where his brothers John P. and Solomon T. Blessing operated photographic studios. He also collaborated with Austin A. Turner in New York. After the Civil War, Blessing increasingly concentrated on selling copies of cartes-de-visite and stereocards, photographic equipment, frames, and art supplies. His four-story establishment on Canal Street was one of the largest photographic studios and supply houses in the south. Blessing died while on a trip to St. Louis.