Arch at Twelfth St., Chicago, President Abraham Lincoln's hearse and young ladies

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Here the funeral route itself is the subject: a decorated memorial arch spanning Twelfth Street in Chicago, with the hearse of President Abraham Lincoln passing beneath it and young women gathered nearby, as the title notes. Lincoln's body was brought through Chicago in the spring of 1865 on its slow journey home to Springfield, and cities along the way raised arches, bunting, and draped buildings to mark the passage. Albumen prints like this one, made in the 1860s, were among the earliest ways ordinary people could see such public mourning up close.

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