Browse Items (83 total)

The daguerreotype was invented by Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre and was used primarily for portraits and almost all were put into small cases for protection. Unfortunately, this image of a young girl is missing the cover. The girl is sitting in a…

This photograph shows an older woman seated and resting her arm on a table with four books.  She is wearing a dark-colored day dress with bishop sleeves, which are gathered into narrow cuffs at each wrist. Bodices at this time were V-shaped and…

The woman posing in the photograph is fashionably dressed for a daytime outing. She wears a bonnet and a pair of fingerless lace gloves. Her bonnet ties under the chin with a long, draping bow. The bonnet has a bavolet which functioned to keep the…

This young woman decided to have her portrait taken while in her street attire of bonnet, fur-trimmed pelisse, and leather gloves. Her bonnet rests on the back of the head, the brim widening out to frame her face with flowers of different sizes…

This young couple is truly “dressed for the photographer.” He wears a frock coat, black waistcoat, and silk top hat set at a slant. His white neck tie is either a skillfully tied white cravat, or a pre-formed necktie known as a “stock” that fastened…

The faded subject of this photograph is a young girl. At the time, girls generally wore the same styles as adult women, with the differences being in skirt length and one or two clothing items marking their youth. This girl’s outfit consists of a…

This woman wears a dark-colored dress with long, closely-fitted sleeves with ruffles above the elbow. These sleeves are a transition from the uncommonly large balloon-like ones of the 1830s, which began deflating in 1837. By 1840, the transition was…

This image depicts a seated woman wearing a simple, solid colored dress. The dress has full length, set in sleeves with epaulets and a white collar. Tied around the collar is a neck ribbon. An everyday dress for an elderly woman was a simple…

The daguerreotype is set in a leather case with a red velvet embossed interior, framed with a gold matte embossed with the word ‘Stratford’ in the upper left and lower right corners. These likely refer to the photographer Henry K. Stratford, who…

The photo seen here, called a daguerreotype, features an elderly woman sitting in a chair. Daguerreotype portraits, popular from the 1840s-1860s were made using a sheet of silver-plated copper that had been treated with light sensitive chemicals.…