Photograph: Caroline Barnum Thompson as an older woman

Photograph of Caroline Barnum Thompson taken around 1905 when she was in her seventies. Caroline was the eldest of P. T. Barnum's daughters. In this studio portrait she is seated in a light color chair with a caned back, next to a table with a vase of flowers. She is wearing a fashionable, Edwardian era dress of dark color velvet with embroidered floral motifs decorating the sleeves and neckline. The gown is designed to appear as a jacket worn over a lace blouse, but it is probably constructed as a single, fitted and boned bodice combining an ivory-color lace "shirt waist" with the "jacket" elements. The skirt is a separate garment but is almost certainly hooked to the inside of the bodice to keep the bodice and skirt firmly together and make the gown look smooth. The "shirt waist" features a high collar, which would be lightly boned to keep its shape, a slightly puffed or pouched front, and slim lower sleeves. The "jacket" portion features wide 3/4-length sleeves. The full shaping of the sleeves helps date the photograph, since close-fitting sleeves were popular in the early years of the 1900s, gave way to full sleeves by about 1904, and were back "in" again by 1908. Caroline's jewelry includes two rings, a large brooch at her neck which may include a locket of hair in the center, and a reading spectacle (magnifier) attached to a long necklace. Her hair is loosely pulled to the crown, forming a puff or bouffant effect around the face. Atop her coiffure she wears a small hat covered with loosely gathered velvet and ornamented with delicate white feathers and a looped ribbon. No photographer is named on the back, 1905. P. T. Barnum and his first wife Charity had a family of four daughters, with three surviving to adulthood: Caroline (b. 1833), Helen (b. 1840), and Pauline (b. 1846). Caroline died in 1911, about six years after this photograph was taken.