Mrs. Abner Doubleday

Unknown: Unknown, c1870. Presumed to be one of multiple copies made. Photograph. The format is approximately 2.25 inches by 3.375 in mounted on a card sized 2.375 inches by 4 inches). The front image has some fading but is of the head and shoulders of a lady. There is an ink notation on the back at the top identifying the lady as Mrs. Doubleday, wife of Maj. Gen. Doubleday. There is a notation at the bottom reading "our cousin". This was acquired along with the signed Abner Doubleday carte de visite. This images appears to be of Mrs. Doubleday at about the same age as the Edouart and Cobb image. Mary Hewitt, of Baltimore, had married Abner Doubleday in 1852, when she was about 28 and he was a 32-year-old first lieutenant. (“I was fascinated by the bright eyes of a Washington belle,” he later wrote.) As was the custom of some military wives in those days, she followed her husband from post to post, even on his most dangerous deployments. Belle she may have been, but she became an epitome of the sterner type known as a “lady of the Army.” She had been at her husband’s side when Apaches attacked their Army post in Texas, when he fought against the Seminoles in the Everglades, and when their steamship nearly sank in shark-infested waters. She would later join him at the Battle of Antietam. Abner Doubleday (June 26, 1819 – January 26, 1893) was a career United States Army officer and Union major general in the American Civil War. He fired the first shot in defense of Fort Sumter, the opening battle of the war, and had a pivotal role at the Battle of Gettysburg. Gettysburg was his finest hour. In San Francisco, after the war, he patented the cable car railway. The carte de visite, abbreviated CdV, was a type of small photograph which was patented in Paris by photographer André Adolphe Eugène Disdéri in 1854, although first used by Louis Dodero. Each photograph was the size of a visiting card, and such photograph cards were commonly traded among friends and visitors in the 1860s. Albums for the collection and display of cards became a common fixture in Victorian parlors. The immense popularity of these card photographs led to the publication and collection of photographs of prominent persons. The carte de visite was usually made of an albumen print, which was a thin paper photograph mounted on a thicker paper card. The size of a carte de visite is 54.0 mm (2.125 in) × 89 mm (3.5 in) mounted on a card sized 64 mm (2.5 in) × 100 mm (4 in). In 1854, Disdéri had also patented a method of taking eight separate negatives on a single plate, which reduced production costs. The carte de visite was slow to gain widespread use until 1859, when Disdéri published Emperor Napoleon III's photos in this format. This made the format an overnight success. The new invention was so popular that its usage became known as "cardomania" and spread quickly throughout Europe and then to America and the rest of the world. By the early 1870s, cartes de visite were supplanted by "cabinet cards", which were also usually albumen prints, but larger, mounted on cardboard backs measuring 110 mm (4.5 in) by 170 mm (6.5 in). The carte de visite photograph proved to be a very popular item during the American Civil War. Soldiers, friends and family members would have a means of inexpensively obtaining photographs and sending them to loved ones in small envelopes. Photos of Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, and other celebrities of the era became instant hits in the North. People were not only buying photographs of themselves, but also collecting photographs of celebrities. Condition: Good.

Keywords: Mary Hewett Doubleday, Abner Doubleday, Carte de Visit, Army Wife, Fort Sumter, Gettysburg, Portrait, Photograph

[Book #83164]

Price: $125.00