Varina Howell Davis

Designed to preserve and display the phenomenally popular card-mounted photographs known as cartes de visite, the first American photograph albums were introduced in 1861, at the beginning of the Civil War. Although many Americans filled their albums with portraits of family members and friends, others compiled albums featuring images of people in the news. Civil War–era albums containing photographic portraits of Union generals and northern statesmen survive today in substantial numbers. But Confederate-themed albums such as this one, containing portraits of Varina Howell Davis (left), the wife of Jefferson Davis, and General P.G.T. Beauregard (right), are far less common.