The Image Maker

<p>In 1860 just a year after Drake's historic first oil well photographer John Mather arrived in Titusville Pennsylvania determined to capture the burgeoning oilfields one glass negative at a time. From his makeshift darkrooms - one on a creek barge another strapped to his wagon - he risked life and limb to preserve the history of the nascent petroleum industry.</p><p>General Charles Miller alongside his wife Adelaide tirelessly cultivated relationships with the titans of this new era becoming a major player himself. Even Andrew Carnegie took notice only to withdraw when Miller's personal indiscretions threatened his reputation.</p><p>Former cavalryman Patrick Boyle a natural storyteller chronicled the region's explosive growth as editor of the Oil City Derrick. His experience as a roustabout in the oil fields and later as a daring oil scout after the Civil War made him uniquely suited to report on this worldwide source of oil production statistics and news.</p><p>Through the eyes of John Patrick and Charles - their families and their stories - a vivid portrait emerges of the oil boom and life in late 19th-century America. This is the story of how a rough-and-tumble stretch of Oil Creek in rural Pennsylvania fueled the world's oil lamps machinery trains and eventually automobiles.</p>