The Acquisitions Table: Photograph Album

Photograph Album. [1863-1866].

This album of over 150 cartes-de-visite images of American prints illustrates the methods used to distribute images in the nineteenth century.  Many of the photographs were made by John B. Soule.  Soule worked with lithographers, such as J. H. Bufford, to reproduce popular lithographed images of children, attractive women, kittens, and comical genre scenes using photography.  The photographs were then mounted to cards and hand colored before being sold to customers eager to add them to their photo albums. Many of the prints depicted here can be found in the Society’s print collection.  

Published by

Lauren Hewes

Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Graphic Arts, American Antiquarian Society

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