A photograph of a Victorian home interior in Kenosha, Wisconsin, ca. 1890.

This late nineteenth-century photograph, taken by Louis Milton Thiers, displays a midwestern American home furnished in elegant Victorian style. It shows a large wallpapered sitting room with an arched doorway leading to another sitting area and a porch beyond. The floor is covered with a floral carpet. A gilt and glass chandelier hangs from the ceiling. The rooms contain drapery, heavily upholstered furniture with carved wood accents, a profusion of pillows, an elaborate lamp with fringed shade, and potted palms, in addition to numerous framed photographs or paintings, statues, and small decorative items on display, known as “bric-a-brac.”