Daguerreotype
It is said that Daguerre has found the means to collect, on a plate prepared by him, the image produced by the camera obscura, in such a way that a portrait, a landscape, or any view, projected upon this plate by the ordinary camera obscura, leaves an imprint in light and shade there, and thus presents the most perfect of all drawings ... a preparation put over this image preserves it for an indefinite time ... the physical sciences have perhaps never presented a marvel comparable to this one.
A further clue to fixing the date of invention of the process is that when the Paris correspondent of the London periodical "The Athenaeum" reported the public announcement of the daguerreotype in 1839, he mentioned that the daguerreotypes now being produced were of considerably better quality than the ones he had seen "four years earlier".
Daguerreotype
Morse's account of the brand-new invention interested the American public, and through further publishings the technique of the daguerreotype integrated into the United States. Magazines and newspapers included essays applauding the daguerreotype for advancing democratic American values because it could create an image without painting, which was less efficient and more expensive. The introduction of the daguerreotype to America also promoted progress of ideals and technology. For example, an article published in the Boston Daily Advertiser on February 23, 1839 described the daguerreotype as having similar properties of the camera obscura, but introduced its remarkable capability of "fixing the image permanently on the paper, or making a permanent drawing, by the agency of light alone," which combined old and new concepts for readers to understand.