Death of young children was a tragically common occurrence in the mid-19th century. Post-mortem photography also became popular at the time, as a way to capture an image of a deceased loved one.

Cherstin Mattson, the wife of Swedish immigrant and Civil War soldier Hans Mattson, holds her dead baby in this photograph. The Mattsons lost more than one child in infancy, including this baby, Everett Lincoln Mattson, who died in 1866 at the age of five months.