It's difficult to imagine a world without photography today – capturing snaps of iconic landmarks and landscapes is one of the great joys of travelling. But photography was only invented in the 1830s, gaining in popularity and accessibility through the 19th century.

Click through this gallery to see our special collection of early photos that offer a glimpse into the America of yesteryear...

This brooding image of American photography pioneer and amateur chemist Robert Cornelius might be the world’s first ever selfie. Cornelius posed for the self-portrait at the back of his family’s silver-plating shop in Philadelphia. To get the shot, he removed the lens cap from his camera and had to run into the frame, waiting in place for a minute before covering the lens again. He wrote on the back of the image: "The first light picture ever taken. 1839."

Entitled ‘Boston, as the Eagle and the Wild Goose See It’, this image is one of the oldest surviving examples of aerial photography – and likely the earliest such photo ever taken in America. Captured from a hot air balloon by Boston-based photographer James Wallace Black, the scene includes landmarks many residents might recognise today, including the Old South Meeting House, where the Boston Tea Party was planned almost a century before this photo was made.

Another haunting photo from the Civil War, this one shows the Ponder House in Georgia's capital, not long after the Battle of Atlanta (22 July 1864). Confederate troops had occupied the house and it was shelled by Union forces. In this 1860s shot, you can see the facade riddled with bullet holes and entirely destroyed in one area.

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This photo is one of many taken by George N Barnard, official photographer of the Chief Engineer’s Office, during the Union occupation of Georgia during the American Civil War. It shows an African-American Union soldier, rifle at his side, posted at a slave auction house on Whitehall Street in Atlanta. When in use, the building hosted prospective buyers as they bid for enslaved peoples, who would have to stand on a platform to be judged and inspected before the auction began.

After the war, many veterans poured into New York City in the hope of finding work. However, a recession in 1866 meant that employment was difficult to come by. This photo from the 1860s shows a very different Wall Street to the one we're familiar with today. There are horse-pulled carts in place of tourists and taxi cabs, and soaring buildings like 40 Wall Street are yet to pierce the skies. 

New York isn't the only city that's almost unrecognisable in 19th-century photos. Today Nashville is associated with winking neon lights, lively honky tonks and lofty skyscrapers like the 'Batman Building' (officially the AT&T Building). However, this 1860s view from the Capitol shows low-rise homes interspersed by trees and backed by wilderness.

From budding metropolises to the wilds of the Frontier State: this image dates back to 1868 and shows a group of Indigenous peoples sitting on Alaska's Rock Cod. In the background, you can make out Fort Wrangle and Wrangell Island. This area of southeast Alaska has long been inhabited by the Eyak, Haida, Tsimshian and Tlingit tribes.

America's cities shifted and swelled during the 19th century – but there's something remarkably comforting about Mother Nature's constancy when she's left to her own devices. This breathtaking shot from 1869 shows Yellowstone's Mammoth Hot Springs (prior to the park's founding), their travertine terraces not so different from today. 

Today Yellowstone National Park is a recreational hotbed, with travellers coming from far and wide to hike and bike, and to boat on Yellowstone Lake. But in the park's early days, folks were only just getting used to Yellowstone's potential for adventures. The Annie (pictured here in 1871) is purportedly one of the first-ever boats to be launched on Yellowstone Lake. 

The most beautiful and remote piece of wilderness in your state

Touted by some sources as the oldest known photo of a tornado, this foreboding image was taken about 22 miles (35km) southwest of Howard in South Dakota on 28 August 1884. Though they are most common in the Central Plains and southeastern regions of the US, tornadoes have been recorded in all 50 states, and are responsible for the deaths of around 60 people each year.

The 1890s would change Alaska forever, as the Klondike Gold Rush saw prospectors pour into the Frontier State and Canada's Yukon. But gold was mined here before the famous gold rush and the Treadwell Gold Mine operated on Douglas Island from 1881. The busy mine, pictured here in 1889, was a hive of activity at the end of the 19th century, shifting some $70 million of gold during its operation.

There were similar scenes out west in San Francisco too. This shot shows a horse-pulled California mail cart back in 1895 – rather different to the hulking white vans that pound the city's roads today. The cobbled street and vintage signs ooze nostalgia too.

No American industrialist is better known than Henry Flagler and he is especially lauded for his development of the Florida East Coast Railway. The railroad is pictured here in 1896, after it was extended into Miami. The arrival of the train service would turn Miami from a laidback town to a buzzing city, and it was incorporated in the same year.

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The fun continued into the 1900s and Coney Island is captured here at the turn of the century. Sun-seekers revel on the sandy beach and in the waters of Lower Bay, as the striking tower of Dreamland theme park rises in the background.

The Grand Canyon was millions of years in the making. And it looks barely changed from this circa 1900 photo. Here two Victorian-era women gaze over the mighty landscape, silhouetted in their finery.

Atlantic City in New Jersey was also a hit with holidaymakers. The beach-hugging boardwalk, captured here in 1905, drew the most foot traffic, with its hotels, restaurants and souvenir shops. Here a little girl and her lucky doll enjoy a ride on one of Atlantic City's famous 'rolling chairs'.

Some American cities are almost unrecognisable in their earliest photographs. Las Vegas was established in 1905 and this image pictures Fremont Street in its infancy: no soaring hotels, no neon-drenched casinos, no colourful cocktail bars. Instead, you can see old western-style building fronts, and no-frills venues including a bakery, a grocery shop and a furniture store.

17 September 1908 made headlines around the world as the day of the very first passenger plane crash death. During a trial to win a contract with the US Army, pilot Orville Wright and his passenger Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge took off in a Wright Flyer (the first type of powered plane) from Fort Myer in Virginia. Unfortunately the aircraft (pictured) malfunctioned and pitched nose-first into the ground, injuring both men. Wright recovered but Selfridge died in hospital a few hours later.

This poignant photo shows New York City from another perspective. Here, circa 1915, suffragist Elizabeth Selden White Rogers is seen promoting women's right to vote at a mobile platform in the Big Apple. A crowd of men look on.

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