This is Side Door, a podcast from the Smithsonian with support from PRX.

I'm Helima Shaw.

Edward Mybridge lived a big life. His accomplishments put him in a class of names that have become synonymous with innovation.

Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, Nikolai Tesla.

But Mybridge's name hasn't survived in the same way.

He was an artist, he was a salesman, He was an adventurer.

That's Shannon Parich. She's the curator of the history of photography at the National Museum of American History.

He wasn't afraid of the world. I mean my goodness he killed his wife's

lover and came out of that unscathed essentially. Yeah there's a crime of passion in this

story but we'll get to that later.

First, we have to tell you about what made Mybridge famous.

His photography.

Inside the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History,

Parich manages a collection of over 200,000 photos.

That collection includes photos by and of Edward Mybridge.

So we'll unlock, we'll open this up.

Okay, so whoa, is he naked here?

So yes, Mybridge is nude.

I think every photographer at some point photographs themselves nude as part of the experimentation

of what do I look like.

Nudes in photography, nudes in art are not a new topic.

In some of these nudes, Mybridge is doing mundane things.

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