In the Lodge Room
A new lodge room or the election of a new group of officers at a Masonic or fraternal lodge sometimes prompted the creation of a photograph to celebrate and document the event.
In 1861, for example, members of Altemont Lodge No. 26, in Peterborough, New Hampshire, agreed to use lodge funds to pay for a “Miniature Frame” to be made and hung in their lodge room. This frame of miniature portraits would include “every Master Mason in regular standing in town”—be they a member of Altemont Lodge or not. Masons in the area were “...invited to deposit their ambrotypes with those of the Brothers of the Lodge.”