New photography by Shannon Ruff captured with a digital camera-2007.

Mrs. Washington's Room Where She Died

Artist Luke C. Dillon (American, active 1870s - 1890s)

Publisher Luke C. Dillon (American, active 1870s - 1890s)

CultureAmerican

Dateca. 1884-1894

MediumAlbumen cabinet card

DimensionsOverall, Image: 3 7/8 × 5 13/16 in. (9.8 × 14.8 cm)
Overall: 4 1/4 × 6 1/2 in. (10.8 × 16.5 cm)

InscribedOn reverse: "MRS.WASHINGTON'S ROOM WHERE SHE DIED." / Copyrighted by LUKE C. DILLON, Photographer to Mount Vernon," / "Office at Pullman's Gallery, 935 Penn. Avenue, Washington, D. C."

Credit LineAnonymous gift

Object number0.3236.2

Not on view

DescriptionThis is an albumen print cabinet card depicting the bedroom at Mount Vernon in which Martha Washington died.

Label TextLuke C. Dillon American, active 1870s–1890s top Mrs. Washington’s Room Where She Died, ca. 1884–1894 Albumen print (photograph) cabinet card bottom Washington’s Room and the Bed on Which He Died, ca. 1884–1894 Albumen print (photograph) cabinet card The Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association set out to preserve George Washington’s neglected estate in 1853. In their founding documents, the Ladies promised to “Let no irreverent hand change it; no vandal hands desecrate it with the fingers of progress.” Strict preservationists, they claimed Mount Vernon would be the “one spot in this grand country of ours…saved from change.” The Ladies hired Luke Dillon as their official photographer from 1884 to 1894, and his dreamy photographs evoked the sense of agelessness they admired. A clever salesman, Dillon also began taking pictures of modern tourists visiting the house and convinced them to visit his Washington, DC, shop to purchase prints. The Ladies put a stop to Dillon’s moneymaking scheme, claiming he was disrupting the site’s sacred past, but they continued to sell souvenir photographs like these to fund upkeep projects. Anonymous gift 0.3236.2, 0.3236.3 Exhibition History"First in the Hearts of His Countrymen: America Remembers George Washington 1732-1799," Chrysler Museum of Art, Nov. 23, 1999 - Summer 2001. "Photographs Take Time: Pictures from the Chrysler Collection," Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA, April 6 - August 26, 2018.