"These 120 photographs give entr?e into life in Louisiana's capital city from the 1860s through the early 1900s. They compose the largest extant collection of photos created in a professional studio in nineteenth-century Baton Rouge. Together they capture the day-to-day existence of the community, fleeting moments of great importance, and long-term changes over time, revealing not only the perceptions of the photographer but also the self-perceptions of his subjects" -- inside cover.