This cabinet card photograph features a young man formally dressed with a top hat on his head. “Toppers” became very popular at the end of the 18th century and remained in fashion to various degrees during the next two centuries. Viewing the fashionable man in this photograph brings up the question, “in what settings does he wear the top hat?”. The photographer is E. P. Baker of Detroit, Michigan. A Detroit business directory, published in 1873, lists Baker as owning a photographic studio at a different address than the address listed on this cabinet card.
TOP HAT: FASHION STATEMENT IN DETROIT, MICHIGAN
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THE CABINET CARD GALLERY 
An interesting little bit of trivia about top-hats: the best, by this point in time, were made of “silk beaver.” I suppose real beaver was used once-upon-a-time, but by the second half of the 19th c. silk beaver was most common. Less fine, I believe, was black silk stretched over a wire and buckram frame.