During the 1860 presidential campaign, Abraham Lincoln understood the importance of making his image available, and Springfield photographer Preston Butler captured several likenesses of him. A portrait painter who commissioned one 1860 image later wrote that there were so many hard lines in Lincoln's face that it became a mask to the inner man, and that his true character shone out only in animated conversation or while telling an amusing tale. An Illinois State Journal notice of May 24, 1860, announced that P. Butler of Springfield had a number of photograph likenesses of Abraham Lincoln and would sell them for one dollar each, with distant buyers asked to send a one cent stamp in addition to the price for every photograph ordered. In an 1860 view of the Lincoln home by John Adams Whipple, young Issac Diller later recalled posing with Lincoln, Willie, and Tad, but turning his head at the wrong moment to look at a farm wagon so that only the stripes on his socks and his boots showed up clearly. In William Shaw's 1860 image of a Republican rally, Lincoln offered the use of his own basement as a darkroom for developing the photograph, and Diller later remembered witnessing the parade and said they all wore a blue ribbon with a picture of Abraham Lincoln pasted on it.
