Today’s image is identified as Amy Coffin on the back of the CDV. She was a young woman when the image was made around the 1880s-1890s. I can’t really tell from her dress more than a general sense of time. She does have some lovely, matching jewelry – earrings and a brooch. Someone once tried to convince me that Victorian women would never have pierced their ears, but the number of photographs I have seen showing earrings belies that assertion.
Amy sat for her photo at Richardson’s studio in Brooklyn, E. D. This is likely Brooklyn, Eastern District, New York. While it might be tempting to try to make the numerical notation into a date, I really can’t make it resolve into anything, and I suspect it was an inventory number or similar, either by the photographer or a later reseller.
Who Were They? 