Portrait of an Affluent Man, Fargo, Dakota Territory, 1879

Fargo, Dakota Territory, 1879. Cabinet card photograph measuring appx, 4 x 5 ½ inches, on larger mount. Very good plus.. An early studio portrait by Frank Jay Haynes, taken during his initial establishment in Fargo, Dakota Territory, shortly after his 1879 move from Moorhead. The mount—“Art Studio, cor. 8th Ave. & Main St.”—appears to represent Haynes’s first, likely short-lived location in the city, set just off the main commercial corridor before he relocated his business to the more prominent Front Street (Main Avenue). The sitter, an affluent-looking man in a fur overcoat, holds a cane. In 1879, the affluent class of Fargo consisted primarily of railroad officials tied to the Northern Pacific Railway (for which Haynes would later become the official photographer), land agents and speculators capitalizing on townsite expansion, grain merchants and elevator operators profiting from the wheat boom, and a small professional class. Haynes was the first major photographer in the area and would have a prolific output; this image represents an example of his early work before he was established in the city.