Hipolita Orendain de Medina and the Carte de Visite Trading Tradition

Francisca Tejada de Orendain and daugthers, Hipolita and Virginia; Portraits from the Hipolita Orendain de Medina correspondence and miscellany; California Historical Society 

One of the photograph collections I am most excited to share for San Francisco Archives Crawl consists of carte de visite and cabinet card portraits collected by the Mexican American woman Hipolita Orendain de Medina between 1860 and 1906. Orendain de Medina was born in Mexico around 1847, and immigrated with her mother and sister to San Francisco in the late 1850s, where both sisters worked as dressmakers. Her collection reflects the Victorian carte de visite trading tradition (of which former California Historical Society intern Louisa Brandt eloquently writes here) as well as the cultural and linguistic diversity of late-nineteenth-century San Francisco. 

Marie Silva

Archivist & Manuscripts Librarian

California Historical Society