A Well-Traveled Image
Apencil inscription on the back of this carte de visite tells the tale of a journey that crisscrossed the country. The individual who made the notation, identified only by the
Category: The Citizenry
Symbol of Remembrance: The Vacant Chair
By Elizabeth A. Topping, with images from the author’s collection These images memorialize someone no longer there; someone whom these women loved. Their downcast gazes at the physical absence represented
The Gift of a Portrait From a Teenaged Daughter to a Soldier-Father
Less than a week before Christmas 1863, Martha Naomi Wilcox inscribed a photograph to her father away at war. The careful, halting cursive script belied her 14 years. Martha’s father,
America’s First Sex Symbol
By Elizabeth A. Topping, with images from the author’s collection Actress and poet Adah Isaacs Menken’s extraordinary beauty provided Americans with a pleasant distraction during the Civil War years. Her
A Forgotten “Veteran” Remembered
By Ross J. Kelbaugh In the pre-internet era, dealers in early photography often sold images through fixed-price print catalogs or by mail, fax or phone auctions. In one such auction
La Fille du Régiment
The outbreak of war in 1861 brought an unprecedented mobilization of volunteers for military service. In population centers across the divided nation, civic leaders organized regiments composed of able-bodied patriotic
Heroines of the Hearth
By Elizabeth A. Topping The versatility and resourcefulness of women were never more challenged than during the American Civil War. Nearly all women were affected in some way. Some leapt
In Plain Sight
By Alison Renner Sarah Humphrey Bustill’s name is not in the annals of the Underground Railroad. Yet, she had a direct link to it through her husband, Joseph Cassey Bustill,
Sue Tarleton’s Joy and Sorrow
History chiefly remembers Patrick Ronayne Cleburne for his generalship—the Stonewall of the West—and his call to free enslaved people and arm them to fight for the Confederacy. Few recall the
Free at Last
By Ross J. Kelbaugh In the 1860 U.S. Census, Louisiana enumerated 331,726 Black and mulatto enslaved persons and 18,647 free colored individuals. With the occupation of the state by the