A man costumed as Uncle Sam stands before a clapboard house in this gelatin silver circular snapshot print produced with a Kodak No. 2 camera, circa 1889 to 1897, mounted on the camera's distinctive decorated board printed on the reverse by Eastman Kodak Co. with addresses in Rochester, New York, and London. The informal outdoor setting and candid framing are characteristic of the amateur snapshot aesthetic the Kodak camera made possible.

The man wears the hallmark bold vertical-striped trousers of the Uncle Sam character, a dark jacket, and smokes a long-stemmed pipe while holding a metal pail at his side; his dark hair falls to his collar and he sports a full goatee consistent with the traditional depiction. A wooden back porch with a sawhorse and assorted vessels is visible behind him beneath a low-pitched roof, with a stone foundation at right and leafy trees visible at upper left.

Uncle Sam costume portraits made outdoors for Fourth of July celebrations were a popular subject for early amateur photographers, and this example is an unusually lively instance of the genre captured in the Kodak No. 2's distinctive circular format during the camera's earliest years of production.

The reverse mount bears the printed Eastman Kodak Co. imprint reading "Manufacturers of the Kodak Camera," with the company's bird-and-eye logo and dual addresses in Rochester, N.Y. and 115 Oxford St., London.