Following their invention in France, millions of cartes
de visite—inexpensive photographs on mounts the size of visiting
cards—were produced, bringing photography to the middle class and celebrity to
those who understood the power of photography to cultivate a public image. Special
albums made for cartes de visite allowed people to curate their own
collections, mixing portraits of loved ones with images of public personalities
such as President Lincoln, British nobility, or Tom Thumb. This carte de visite
by the Frank French studio in Pecatonica, Illinois, is a striking illustration
of the “cartomania” that swept American and European markets beginning in the
1850s.