Portraits from the first 100 years of photography
This cabinet card portrait was taken at the studio of F.B. Walcott in the town of Berlin, Wisconsin. The back of the card has a logo with F.B. Walcott, successors to S.M. Taylor printed under it. I've cropped and enlarged the logo, below, to make it legible. The green background is unusual: (You can see... Continue Reading →
When I bought this postcard, I assumed the Juneau Restaurant was in Juneau, Alaska. Naturally, I was wrong. The restaurant was attached to the Hotel Juneau in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The hotel was named for city founder Solomon Juneau, a French-Canadian fortune-seeker who arrived in the area in 1818. (The state capital of Alaska is named... Continue Reading →
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was a magnet for immigrants throughout the 19th century. The largest group came from Germany, beginning in the 1840s. The next-largest group came from Poland in the decades after the American Civil War. Other large groups included British, Irish, Scandinavians, Serbians, and Russian Jews. The bride in the portrait above looks Southern or... Continue Reading →
Tokens of Companionship 
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