[Civil War veteran Benoni Briggs of G.A.R. Reno Post no. 9 with a World War I soldier]

Archive record

1 photograph : gelatin silver print ; sheet 13 x 8 cm (postcard format)

About this photograph

The photograph shows Benoni Briggs, identified as a veteran of the Civil War and member of Reno Post no. 9 of the Grand Army of the Republic, pictured alongside a soldier in World War I uniform. The record dates the photograph to 1917.

The United States entered the First World War in April 1917. Local studios photographed enlistees in uniform before they departed, often producing the only formal portrait a young man would ever sit for. Many of these photographs were made so a copy could remain at home.

The Grand Army of the Republic was the fraternal organisation of Union veterans, founded in 1866. Its local posts held reunions and memorial observances for decades following the war. Members wore distinctive uniform and badge to encampments and parades, which accounts for elderly men in later portraits appearing in regalia rather than their original wartime dress.

The pairing of a Civil War veteran with a soldier preparing for the new conflict reflects a moment when both wars occupied living memory, one ending a half-century earlier and the other just beginning. The postcard format was standard for studio portraits of the period and designed for mailing or keeping in family collections.

Compiled from the catalogue record and reference notes on the formats and events involved. The archive record above is the primary source.

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