Who is this lady?

[RJNorton]

Yes, indeed, Laurie! And, Steve, you are a winner, too, as the lady was thought to be Clara Harris until about 20 years ago. Many books carry the photo and incorrectly identify the lady as Clara Harris. As far as I know the lady's real name is unknown. Laurie, you are correct --> I was quoting Michael Maione who said "We've been bamboozled all these years" when the error was discovered.

Dave Taylor explains as follows:

“This photo is a part of the Mathew Brady collection at the National Archives. The oldest label on the image is written in pen and states that it is of ‘Mrs. Harris.’ At some point around the 1960s, an unknown archivist or researcher added a pencil notation to this image stating that it was of Clara Harris, who was present at Lincoln’s assassination. In the decades that followed, this misidentified photograph appeared in history books, and a framed version of it was on display at Ford’s Theatre for many years.

“It wasn’t until the 1990s that an antique collector who owned a few legitimate images of Clara Harris noticed the discrepancy in appearance between this woman and the real Clara. He also pointed out details such as the original photograph being labeled as ‘Mrs. Harris’ instead of the correct Miss Harris or Mrs. Rathbone. The incident made the newspapers with one commenting, ‘experts interviewed for this article said they could think of no other instance when a photo so long and widely presented as genuine turned out to be spurious.’ In 2000, the Ford’s Theatre National Park Service site historian, Michael Maione, removed the framed photograph, and the National Archives agreed that the identification was incorrect.”

For the correct photo of Clara please see Dave's page here:

https://boothiebarn.com/2014/08/14/photo...-identity/