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Thanks to photography we know so much more about the American family than ever before. We begin to see that in the 1840s when photography first burst upon the scene, but there are far more images from the 50s as photography had declined in price and had spread far beyond the big cities. (Although compared to what was to come were still relatively small in number. There are issues, however, with photographing families with the popular formats in the 1840s (Dags). The same was true in the 1850s when we begin toisee Anbris and tin-types as well. Dags were far more expensive than portraits were to become. This was especially true with full plates. Thg deaer tells us that tese portraits were tin-types. That would help date the portrits to the late-1850s. This is why most Dags and Ambros are partial plate. Sixth plate Dags and Ambros were especially popular as most were cased portraits that could be carried on a person. But if the whole family is photographed, the size of any individual was tiny with most cased portraits. So the great majority of cased Dags, Ambros, and tin-types were single person portraits or two-person portraits. There was a solution to the size issue. That was multiple image portraits. This usually meant dual image cases. But we also see cases with four images. We know nothing about this family, other than it loks like a prosperous urban family, but it is a great example of a multiple image case.
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