The Filson Historical Society Digital Projects

The Portrait Studio and Cabinet Cards

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By the late 1860s, studio portraiture was on the rise as advancements in photographic technologies made it possible to produce more affordable photographs. The expensive and time-consuming daguerreotypes (1840-1864) and ambrotypes (1855-1865) were superseded by cheaper and more widely available mounted photographs such as the carte-de-visite and the cabinet card.