Old Photo

Old Photo, originally uploaded by www.DaveWard.net.

"This is a fine example of a Cabinet Card, a Victorian-era phenomenon that carried well into the 20th century. A medium-sized photograph, approximately twice the size of a modern business card, is mounted on a heavy piece of cardboard. Usually a bit of extra space is left exposed below the photo. Often that space would have the photographer's name and location printed (as you see on this example), but sometimes the space is left entirely blank.

Whenever you visited somebody you would give them your cabinet card. Although people seldom hand out photographs of themselves today, it was a firm tradition at the time -- and a wonderful one, I think.

Many Victorian households would proudly display their collection of cabinet cards, sometimes in a special album. Their collection showed who had paid them a visit in that era when travel was strenuous and rare, and visits by people from far away was such a big deal that it would frequently be reported in newspapers."