The Sullivan Family
There is a unique magic in holding an old carte de visite, a popular style of small photograph from the 19th century. Often, these faces remain nameless, lost to the passage of time. But every once in a while, a piece of the puzzle survives on the back of the card, scribbled in ink by a descendant who refused to let their ancestors be forgotten. That is exactly how we met Mary Y. Sullivan and her two young boys, George and Frank. Around the year 1860, right on the eve of the American Civil War, Mary stepped into a photography studio in Upstate New York. She was in her mid-20s, living in the industrial canal town of Watervliet (Albany County). Imagine the scene: the camera technology of the era required subjects to sit perfectly still for seconds at a time. To capture her family, the photographer had to get creative: Mary sits patiently in a dark plaid dress with her hair braided and pinned up. George, her eldest son (born around 1855), stands beside her. To g...