This 7" x 4" (18.8 x 10 cm) stereoscope card was produced around the time of the opening of the James A. Garfield Monument at Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland. Stereoviews, also called stereographs, contain side-by-side images captured simultaneously from two slightly different perspectives. Looking at the card through a stereoscope, a viewer sees a single three-dimensional image. This one was probably sold as a remembrance of the President, who was assassinated in 1881.

The image was taken in 1875 in front of the Rudolph home in Hiram, Ohio. It shows James A. Garfield (second from left), his mother Eliza Ballou Garfield (far left), and his wife Lucretia Rudolph Garfield (seated at left in doorway). Zeb Rudolph, Lucretia's father and a founder of the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute, is standing in the center of the photograph wearing a top hat. Others in the photograph are: Mrs. Joseph Rudolph, Irwin Garfield, Joseph Rudolph (brother of Lucretia), Carry Will (a neighbor, in doorway), Arabella Mason Rudolph (Lucretia's mother), and Mary McGrath (nurse) with Abram Garfield (seated at right), Harry Garfield, James R. Garfield, and Mollie Garfield (seated on lawn).

James A. Garfield (1831-1881) was president of the United States from March 4, 1881 to September 19, 1881. Born on November 19, 1831 in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Garfield was the youngest of five children. Garfield's father died when he was two, and his family was left poverty-stricken. As a teenager, Garfield worked on a canal boat. He enrolled in the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute (now Hiram College), then went to Williams College to complete his education. Garfield married Lucretia Rudolph (1832-1918) in 1858. Lucretia was the daughter of Zeb Rudolph, a devoted member of the Disciples of Christ and one of the founders of the institute.

Garfield served as a lieutenant colonel in the 42nd Ohio Volunteer Infantry (O.V.I.) during the Civil War, and in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1863 to 1880. He supported the Radical Republican plan for African American suffrage, as well as the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson. In 1880, Garfield was elected to the U.S. Senate. His plans changed, however, when he was nominated for president at the Republican National Convention later that year. The election was close, but Garfield emerged the winner. Less than six months into his administration, Garfield was shot by Charles J. Guiteau, a Washington attorney who was upset that he did not receive a federal appointment. The president died three months later on September 19, 1881 at Elberon, New Jersey.

The James A. Garfield Collection at Hiram College focuses on Garfield's connection to Hiram and includes a broad range of personal and professional material, much of it in Garfield's own hand. The collection also includes a virtually complete set of Garfield's speeches in pamphlet form and works about Garfield written after his death and up to the present.