A broad wraparound porch stretches the full width of the Irving House in this stately pre-linen view, white balustrades gleaming against dark clapboard siding, mature elms shading a quiet street — the very image of a prosperous Berkshire Country inn at the turn of the century. The Irving House served Dalton, Massachusetts as both hotel and social hub during the paper-mill boom era, catering to businessmen connected to the Crane & Co. trade; its gambrel-roofed second story and wide colonial revival porch speak to the comfortable gentility that the town's paper fortunes could afford. Publisher George M. Daly operated the establishment himself, making this card a rare piece of owner-published inn ephemera — a proprietor so proud of his house he commissioned the Albertype Company of Brooklyn, the gold standard of American collotype postcard printers, to render it for the nation's mail. The card has never been posted, surviving in crisp, unwritten condition.