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A Jefferson
Photograph Album
This photograph album
documents Jefferson College faculty and the Class of 1862, Canonsburg,
Pennsylvania. Jefferson College was the parent institution of Jefferson
Medical College, although the two institutions had very few administrative
connections and officially when their separate ways in 1838.
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A
Jefferson photograph album.
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First introduced
in 1860, photo albums such as this one had recessed pockets to hold
card photographs or tintypes. The portraits within this album are
cartes de visite photographs - a phrase taken from the French for
calling cards. While approximately the same size (4 ¼" by 2 ½")
the photographs were rarely used as a calling card. Card photographs
such as these consisted of a contact print mounted on board and
then decorated. Often the mount contained information about the
studio or photographer while the card owners would add captions
to identify the individual. Cartes de visite and other sizes such
as cabinet (4 ½" by 6 ¼"), promenade (4" by 7") or boudoir (5 1/4"
by 8 ½") became the most popular form of portraiture in the nineteenth
century.
This album is an
example of the kind of photographic collections available in the
Art/Photo Collection of the University Archives and Special Collections.
Many of the images in the Art/Photo Collection have been digitized
and placed online as part of the Philadelphia
Historical Digital Image Library (PHDIL).
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