This illustration was published in Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, a successful weekly publication that combined pictures and news. All magazine illustrations originated in artists' sketches, and Leslie's system employed a team of engravers to convert the sketches, enabling him to publish pictures only a week after an event took place. This speed was unheard of in journalism in the mid 19th-century. The "superb costumes of distinguished ladies present" at President Abraham Lincoln's inauguration ball were illustrated in Leslie's on March 23, 1861.

Inauguration ball at Washington, March 4, 1861 - superb costumes of distinguished ladies present on that brilliant occasion / from sketches by our special artists.