John R. Schorb (1818-1908) was an early photographer in South Carolina, practicing first as a daguerreotypist, and later using wet and dry plate photographic techniques, in Winnsboro and Yorkville. Born in Germany, he studied photography in its earliest years in Rochester, and took his cameras with him when he came to Winnsboro to teach at the Mount Zion Institute in 1848. He then moved to Yorkville in 1853 to teach at the Yorkville Female Academy. When that school closed in 1869, Schorb earned his living as a professional photographer from a studio on West Liberty Street. He is photographed here in a self-portrait with his granddaughter, about 1881.
Courtesy of the Winthrop University Archives.
