Julia Catherine Seymour Conkling

Born into a politically prominent family in Utica, New York, Julia Catherine Seymour sat for this daguerreotype in July 1848, seven years before her marriage to rising politician Roscoe Conkling. She was embraced by Washington society when her husband won election to the U.S. Congress (1858), but their marriage was severely strained by Conkling’s indiscrete affair with D.C. hostess Kate Chase Sprague. Thereafter, Julia Conkling remained principally in Utica, where she later founded the Oneida Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution (1893).