Occasionally we know the occasion in remembrance of which a photograph was taken. This one is pretty clearly a graduation, in 1887:

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This one is by the same St. John NB photographer, but there's no date. I guess that it might be a sister:
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Ethel (graduating in Taunton MA) became Mrs. Steadman Young in later life:
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Here's another, from a different era (perhaps 50 years later) but the same elements and iconography:
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Another rite of passage is confirmation, and the photographs are sometimes excruciating:

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