This profile bust view CDV is attributed to be of Laura Keene by the old pencil inscription on the reverse.

The view shows Miss Keene in an off the shoulder dress with a ribbon in her hair. The image is clear and the contrast is good. There is some odd staining to the surface of the paper but it really does not affect the subject.

Reverse has the above mentioned pencil inscription with a more modern inscription of “FORD’S THEATER.” There is also a photographer’s imprint for J. GURNEY & SON, 707 BROADWAY, NEW YORK.

Mary Frances Moss was born July 20, 1836 in Winchester, England. After a failed marriage she changed her name to Laura Keene and took up acting in London. In 1852 she came to the United States and became the star of a New York City stock company. She quickly rose to be a theater manager as well as director and performer.

On the night of April 14, 1865 Miss Keene was playing a leading role in “OUR AMERICAN COUSIN” at Ford’s Theater when John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Abraham Lincoln. Miss Keene was one of the people who entered the Presidential box and held the dying Presidents head in her lap till he was moved from the scene to the Peterson House across the street from Ford’s where he died the next morning.

Miss Keene died of tuberculosis at the age of 47 in Montclair, New Jersey and is buried in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.

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