Here is an image of the majestic Governor Ames, a five masted schooner that was the world’s largest cargo vessel at the time. Named for Adelbert Ames (1835-1933), Civil War hero and governor of Mississippi, who by 1888 was living in Lowell Massachusetts. Constructed in 1888 in Waldoboro, Maine, the ship was 265 feet long. The Governor Ames was lost off Chicamacomico, North Carolina in December 1909, just a few years before the great schooners ceased to be commercially viable, and were replaced by more modern steel-hulled, steam powered ships.

This photo was taken by Charles E Bolles (1847-1914), a photographer in Boston Massachusetts in the 1870s, and later Brooklyn New York. Although best known for his images of ships, mostly taken in New York harbor, Bolles also had a studio where he took portraits, at 242-244 Fulton in Brooklyn.

At first, the composition of this image appears too modern for its age, until we see it is by Edward S Curtis, who helped define modern photography. This image shows a reclining Zuni Indian (or Native American to be pc), his back toward the camera, propped up on one elbow and facing forward so his face is in profile. He is mixing pigments in a small bowl. He wears nothing but a loin-cloth and a rag wrapped around his forehead — and, we see, an earring. He is lying on a plain dark blanket, and in the background it looks like a plain tarp has been draped to block out the distracting clutter — though a corner is too short, so part of some unidentifiable object is visible behind it. The photo was copyrighted in 1925, though the original image may have been earlier.

Edward Sheriff Curtis was born in 1868 in Wisconsin, though the family soon moved to Minnesota, and when Edward was 19 they moved to Washington Territory. He began his photographic career in 1891 when he bought an interest in the studio of Rasmus Rothi in Seattle. Less than a year later he left Rothi to join Thomas Guptill as a partner in another studio.

About 1895 Curtis began photographing Native Americans, and did so with such sensitivity and artistry that by 1901 J P Morgan offered him $75,000 to produce a series of 1,500 photographs of traditional Native American life, to be published in 20 volumes. Curtis took over 40,000 photographs and also recorded folklore and history, providing a wealth of anthropological data — although at the same time he staged some of his photographs in a manner that made them historically inaccurate. After that brush with success, Curtis fell into financial difficulties, and died in 1952, if not quite in abject poverty still far from the wealth his talents deserved.

Music hath the power to soothe the savage beast. So we have here a pair of drummers and flautist providing the rhythm for a fourth man who holds a serpent. On drummer looks askance toward the camera, as if questioning if its presence might break the charm. The other drummer, seated opposite, is totally lost in his music, facing skyward, his mouth open in chant. The flute player seems to look without seeing, while the music flows of its own accord from his enchanted, snake-like, instrument. Only the man holding the snake is standing, and his attention is clearly — face-to-face — fixed on the snake.

It is only when we look at the background, and see it is a typical romanticist painting, that we realize this is a studio setting, and the spell breaks. The musicians are posed, immobile — they really are stiff, not just captured in the moment. The snake is undoubtedly real, but it is no cobra or unquestionably venomous species, and may be harmless.

The photo is attributed to Tancréde R Dumas (1830-1905), but very likely was taken by another photographer. Dumas was born in Italy of French parents. He opened a studio in Constantinople in the mid-1860s, but it was brief-lived. By 1866 he was in Beirut, where he remained for the bulk of his photographic career. An advertisement states Vente, achat et échange des plaques negatives de tous les pays, which, roughly translated means “Sale, purchase and exchange of negative plates of all countries.” Since this image is identified as being from Tangiers, Morroco — but we have no evidence indicating Dumas had a studio in Tangiers, it seems likely it is from a negative purchased from — or exchanged with — another photographer, and probably dates from the 1870s or 1880s.

The ‘New Age’ didn’t dawn with the turn of this past century, but began a century earlier when Spiritualists brought out their ouiji boards and Crystal Balls and communed with those on the ‘other side’. Here we have an image purported to have been taken at just such a seance. Of course most of the work took place in the photographic darkroom, where the faces of the ’spirits’ were added. This uses one of the most basic ‘trick photograph’ techniques, multiple exposure.

The subject is John K Hallowell, a geologist who published a book titled Gunnison, Colorado’s Bonanza County in 1883. There is no indication of whether or not he believed this tripe.

The photographer was S W Fallis, and the image taken about 1901. Born around 1841 in Indiana, Fallis is listed in both the 1880 and 1900 Chicago censuses as an engraver. The 1900 census gives his first name as Sylvanus. He moved from Miami Indiana to Illinois ca 1862 according to the voter registration records in Chicago, but I have found no earlier or later evidence of his photographic activity.

This image shows Brother Ricardo Belden (1870-1958), the last male Shaker from a Massachusetts Shaker colony, working on a round wooden box in his workshop at the Hancock Shaker village near Pittsfield Massachusetts. He is totally absorbed in his efforts — a Zen-like meditation/prayer state achieved by doing a job well.

We can see some of his tools on the work bench behind him, and typical Shaker style shelf, a peg in a support post, and woven basket on the floor holding wood for other projects. His plain work-smock pretty well obscures the stool he is seated on.

The photo was taken in 1935 by Samuel Kravitt (1913-2000), photographer and film maker from New Haven Connecticut. His widow contributed the original of this image to the Library of Congress and “Mrs. Kravitt has stipulated that Samuel Kravitt’s photographs are in the public domain.” - http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/500_krav.html