Cabinet card 1896-1898 Give of Steven Porterfield 2009.897.27
Whoa! What happened to this cabinet card?!? Browsing through our collections management database, I was struck by the unusual orientation of this image, not to mention the sitter's striking hat and cape. I checked with our resident photography expert and she informed me that novelty photo presentations were quite common by the late 1890s. Then, as now, savvy businesspeople used novelty to beguile their customers. A photo with this orientation would have been displayed in a photo album or in a diamond shaped frame. The relatively large size of a cabinet card, usually 4 ½” by 7”, meant that facial features and other details were easily distinguishable from a distance. This made them popular for table-top or wall display, though they were also stored in family albums.
A careful reading of Victorian fashion periodicals and etiquette manuals reveals that each moment and every activity required a specific outfit. Though many woman surely overlapped their morning and afternoon dresses due to economic circumstances or other factors, the ideal wardrobe contained a dizzying array of dress types. Throughout the Victorian era, displaying an understanding of appropriate dress (including accessories) for any given occasion was a way of demonstrating good taste, thus ensuring social standing. The Ladies' Book of Etiquette (1872), describes appropriate dress for the following activities or events: receiving visitors, visiting others, travel, walking, going to market, shopping, visiting new brides, mourning, and going out in stormy weather. Each category of dress is distinguished by type of fabric, presence or absence of trim and physical suitability for the named activity, i.e. an evening gown would prohibit walking. Not comprehending and adhering to these sartorial rules was the epitome of bad taste.
