[Unidentified Civil War veteran with Grand Army of the Republic medals]

Archive record

1 photograph : albumen print on card mount ; mount 17 x 11 cm (cabinet card format)

About this photograph

The archive catalogues this as an unidentified Civil War veteran photographed by Johann Olsen in 1890, wearing Grand Army of the Republic medals. The photograph is a cabinet card, a popular studio format of the period.

The Grand Army of the Republic was the fraternal organisation of Union veterans, founded in 1866. Members wore distinctive badges and regalia to reunions and parades, which accounts for many later portraits showing elderly veterans in ceremonial dress rather than wartime uniform. The organisation ran memorial events through local posts and became a significant political force advocating for veterans' pensions.

By 1890, twenty-five years had passed since the war's end. Studio portraits of veterans in Grand Army regalia became common documentary subjects during these decades, though this particular veteran's identity was not preserved with the photograph.

The cabinet card format, measuring seventeen by eleven centimetres for the mount, was the standard size for studio portraits in this era. An albumen print forms the photographic image.

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

About the format

Rights & Attribution

Explore

More from the 1890s

[Woman with glasses and hair bow]

1890

[Susan B. Anthony, head-and-shoulders portrait, facing left]

1890

[Emmeline B. Wells, head-and-shoulders portrait, facing left]

1890

[Norman Hapgood, head-and-shoulders portrait, facing front]

1890

[Civil War veteran First Lieutenant Charles P. Lord of Co. C, 6th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment and Co. F, 8th Maine Infantry Regiment with G.A.R. hat and badge]

1890

[Eadweard Muybridge portrait]

1890