The owner of this photo knows the woman is Susan Morton Sexton (1808-1892) but wants to know when it was taken. This would seem a simple question—right? Not so fast: Dating a photo of an elderly person isn't always as easy as it appears. You need to consider several factors:
Appearance
Sexton died at 84. Based on the appearance of her face, she's a lot older than 50 in this photo, but that still leaves a gap of many years. Estimating age based on appearance is often difficult because it depends on genetics, lifestyle and experiences such as war, famine and illness.
Image Format
Knowing when the type of image was introduced helps determine when it was taken. In the 19th century, different-size and -style paper prints mounted on cardboard can be difficult to distinguish. Round-cornered cards such as this one first became available in the 1870s, but according to William C. Darrah's Cartes de Visite in Nineteenth-Century Photography (out of print), a card's thickness and color narrow the time frame. For instance, white, .020-inch-thick cards with rounded edges date from 1871 to 1874, while thicker cardstock (.040 inch or more) dates from 1890 to 1910. Measuring cardstock thickness is best done with a micrometer, a mechanical engineering tool. The dimensions of this image are unknown at this time.
Clothing
Clothing doesn't always date from the era a photo was taken. My great-grandmother wore a turn-of-the-century dress for a family snapshot taken in the 1920s. She didn't have the means or inclination to follow the latest fashions. But this woman stands proudly attired in current styles—a lace scarf tied around her high-necked snug fitting dress. The bodice of the dress extends over her hips. The clues are in the shape of the dress bodice: vertical darts and slightly off-the-shoulder seams. It dates from the mid-to-late 1870s. In 1878, Sexton was 70 years old, a likely age for this woman.
Headgear
Even women of limited economic resources often sought to update their appearances with hats. Conservative older women often chose older-style bonnets from their youths. I've searched costume encyclopedias for bonnets similar to the one Sexton wears, but haven't found a perfect match. Her headwear bears a slight resemblance to hats from the 1870s (high trim on the crown) with some features of 1860s bonnets (ruffled front with wide satin tie left undone).
The facts add up to suggest a time frame of mid-to-late 1870s, making this a lovely portrait of Susan Sexton in her later years. The photographer added black pupils to her light eyes, an enhancement that intensifies the impression of her as a vibrant, fashionable family matriarch.
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