In the Johnston Family Album was a card that had been cut to fit the back of one of the photographs. I don't know which one as it was loose. The card reads: O. A. Everden. Agent for ELECTROGRAPHIC PORTRAITS Small Pictures enlarged in a most artistic manner.. All work warranted. P.O. Address, Box (part missing), Mt. Pleasant, Mich." This, the comment made by a viewer about the dating of the dress of the girl, and the poor quality of this image lead me to beleive that this cdv is an albumin photograph of an older tintype image. I need to consider the others in this "series" too as all 5 have the same composition.

This little sweetie has such a beautiful ringlet hairdo, but it's almost impossible to restore completely. I did what I could with the vignette and left the rest so that you could get some idea of the degree of deterioration.

The person here has the same prominant eyes and shape to the left ear as does the person in image #27. I believe that the photos are the same person with image #26 being younger.

The dating of this albumen photograph, called a cdv or "cartes-de-visite", is based on 2 clues: the oval vignette style was used from 1876 to the late 1880's, and the card stock, a heavy yellow-orange color was used in the 1880's. Cdv's were 2-1/4"x4", but these were evidently trimmed to fit better in the album - a common practice. As it turns out, this appears to be a photograph of an earlier tintype.