Almanac: Remembering the very first selfie
And now a page from our "Sunday Morning" Almanac, March 1, 1809, 206 years ago today ... the day the photographer Robert Cornelius was born in Philadelphia.
This picture he took of himself in the fall of 1839 is believed to be the very first photographic self-portrait ever taken in America.
The first ... but hardly the last.
Many a famous photographer ... and any number of famous people, including a 23-year-old Frank Sinatra ... have played with self-portraiture in times since.
But it was with the invention of the cellphone camera that self-photography really took off.
Just about everywhere you go these days, somebody is taking a selfie, a term we are willing to wager Robert Cornelius himself NEVER used.
The selfie Ellen DeGeneres took of herself and friends at last year's Oscars (below) may well be the most-viewed ever.
Further enabling the practice has been the invention of the selfie stick -- "the stick of narcissism," some call it.
In fact, so ubiquitous has the selfie-stick become that many leading museums are now banning it from their galleries.
All of which somehow brings to mind those words from the ancient Book of Ecclesiastes ... "Behold, All is Vanity."
- Selfies lie deep in the history of photography ("CBS This Morning, 08/21/14)
- Gallery: Out-of-this-world astronaut selfies
- Just what we need: A camera for better selfies (CBS Moneywatch, 03/20/14)
- Joe Biden dives into Instagram with Obama selfie (CBS News, 04/17/14)
- White House steamed about Samsung's Red Sox selfie stunt (CBS News, 04/03/14)
- Rep. Sean Duffy takes on the "Selfie" song (CBS News, 04/25/14)
- "Selfie" declared 2013 word of the year by Oxford Dictionaries (11/19/13)