CdVs - Cartes de Viste - Visiting Cards

The carte de visite (CdV or carte-de-visite) was a type of photograph made popular from the mid-1850s in Europe and from 1860 and on in America. Usually an albumen print, the carte de visite is a photograph measuring 2.125 x 3.5 inches mounted on a card sized 2.5 x 4 inches. Each photograph was the size of a visiting card, which became enormously popular and were traded among friends and visitors. The immense popularity of these photos-as-calling-cards led to the publication and collection of photographs of prominent persons. Card mania spread throughout Europe and then quickly to America. Albums for the collection and display of cards became a common fixture in Victorian parlors.

By the late 1860s, cartes de visite were supplanted by "cabinet cards," which were also usually albumen prints, but larger, mounted on cardboard backs measuring 4.5 by 6.5 inches. These remained popular into the early twentieth century, when Kodak introduced the Brownie camera and home snapshot photography became a mass phenomenon.

Do you have CDVs to submit?
If so please send as attachment to the County Coordinator to add to these pages.

Samuel Smith

"Saml Smith

First Sheriff of Henry Co Iowa [16 years]

From 1839 to 1855

Compliments George W.

From Mrs. A. M. Van Allen"

Submitted by Pat Ryan White

This CDV was found in the archives of the Mt. Pleasant News.

Rev. Wesley Spaulding

"To my highly esteemed friends Mr. and Mrs. John Palm, the remembrance of whose College life & of their later editorial labors, brings up many pleasing associations in this writers thoughts.

Fraternally & Aff. W. J. Spaulding

Mt. P. Ia. Jan 1st 1893."

See also Spaulding Bio

Submitted by Pat Ryan White

This CDV was found in the archives of the Mt. Pleasant News.

J.R. Leisenring

This CdV is thought to be of Joseph R. Leisenring, though "J. [ames] R. Leisenring" is written on the back. The CdV is currently in the files of the Mt. Pleasant Public Library.

"There were six Leisenring sons that lived in Mt. Pleasant. They all helped in the Mt. Pleasant Leisenring Studio during the 1850s. Five of the boys went off to the Civil War. All returned, but three died shortly after the war. The other three made their living as professional photographers for most of their lives. They were James B. Leisenring, W. Kase Leisenring, and Joseph R. Leisenring. The latter two were the ones who had the 'fashionable' studio in Mt. Pleasant."

--Paul Juhl, Photo Historian

Iowa City, IA