The day Abraham Lincoln delivered his electrifying speech at New York City’s Cooper Union in 1860, he sat for a now famous photograph by Mathew Brady. Lincoln’s stem-winding perorations that night won him high praise from political elites, but the picture – widely used and reproduced in the campaign that year — contributed as much, or more, to his presidential victory.

Reprinted in newspapers in the days and weeks that followed, the photograph created many Americans’ first impression of the next president.  Instead of an awkward, gangly, thin-faced man with dark eyes, Brady’s photograph made the future president look learned, proportional, and statesman-like.