Naiche (ca 1856-1919) was the second son of Cochise and Dos-Teh-Seh, and thus hereditary chief of the Chiricahua Apaches when his elder brother Taza died in 1876. This public domain photograph was copyrighted in 1898 though it may have been taken a few years earlier — not before 1890. It shows Naiche dressed in a military uniform, with ‘USS’ on the cap above crossed arrows, a symbol worn by civilian scouts for the US Army 1890-1926.

This image was taken by Adolph F Muhr (ca 1858-1913) who was born in New York City, the son of Herman Muhr, a physician. His family moved from New York to Hoboken New Jersey in the 1870s, and Adolph took up photography there, probably working for a local studio while still living with his parents. About 1883 he moved to Denver and opened a studio on the corner of Larimer and 16th Streets in partnership with William L Bates. About 1889 Muhr married Cora E, and in 1890 he was listed as manager of the ‘International Art Gallery’ in Denver. In 1893 he had a photographic studio at 48 King Block in Denver. Muhr later moved to Seattle Washington, where he died at the age of 55.

The photograph was not copyrighted by Adolph Muhr, the photographer, but by F A Rinehart. Frank A Rinehart was in Denver 1879-81, just before Muhr went there, but was probably related to Alfred Evans Rinehart, another photographer who was in Denver from 1875 until after 1910. Frank Rinehart was in Omaha Nebraska from about 1882 until after 1898. Rinehart presumably bought the negative from Muhr in 1898 and scratched his copyright notice onto the glass plate negative.

This is a picture of Seattle Washington’s first street car — a horse drawn closed coach that looks like it might seat about ten people, but could accommodate few more standing on the platforms front and back. The side of car has signs reading ‘Second and Front Streets’ at top, the number 4 in the middle, and ‘Seattle Street Railway’ at the bottom. Two horses are hitched to the front to provide power, and the wagon has steel wheels that run in a rail track set in the roadway.

This public domain photo was taken in 1884 by Theodore E Peiser. Peiser was born 1853 in California, and we find him living with his widowed mother in the 1870 census for San Francisco when he was 17 and still a student. By 1880 he is still living in San Francisco, but by that time he was a photographer, probably working for one of the established San Francisco studios. In 1883 he moved to Seattle Washington and opened a photographic studio there on Second Avenue, but it was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1889. After that he moved from one studio location to another, but never recovered his former prosperity. In 1907 he returned to California, and in the 1910 census we find him in Modesto, listed as ‘manufacturer of Hair Tonic’. We were unable to locate him in the 1920 census, so he may have been dead by then.

John Philip Sousa (1854–1932) was the best known and most widely appreciated band leader and composer of marching music in turn of the century America (19th-20th century turn that is). He was conductor of the U.S. Marine Band from 1880 to 1892, then formed his own band. In 1900 his band was chosen to represent the United States at the Paris Exposition, and that is where this public domain photograph was taken, during the band’s performance of Sousa’s composition ‘Stars and Stripes Forever.’ Sousa was always reluctant to play for the radio, but when finally persuaded in 1929, he was an instant hit. Several of his marches were also recorded on record disks, including ‘Stars and Stripes Forever’ in 1909.

This public domain image was taken by William Herman Rau (1855-1920) while photographing the Paris Exposition of 1900. A native of Philadelphia Pennsylvania, Rau learned photography as a teen, while courting the daughter of photographer William Bell (1830-1910) who was a daguerreian in Philadelphia before 1850, and had studio there into the 1880s. Rau began photographing for the government in 1874, his first expedition to the south Pacific to observe a transit of Venus across the sun. William H Rau married Louise Bell about 1877. Later he went on expeditions in the West, then opened his own studio in Philadelphia with his brother George. He seems to have loved traveling since he also took photos in Egypt and all over the United States. In the 1890s he was also a photographer for the Pennsylvania Railroad and later the Lehigh Valley Railroad, which enhanced his reputation as a landscape photographer.

OK, so which one is the doll, and which one is a doll? Such a sweet portrait! A well dressed little girl, wearing a fur-fringed coat and fur bonnet that doesn’t hide her golden curls, clutches a porcelain headed doll with hair askew and stares straight into the camera as if to say: “This is my dolly and you can’t have it!”. The expensive coat and porcelain doll suggest this is a little rich girl, and both the girl’s coat and the doll’s dress have sleeve puffs indicative of an 1890s date.

The Library of Congress identifying information states that this image was copyrighted in 1898 by M. B. Parkinson of N.Y. I think the image is a bit earlier, perhaps he waited a few years before submitting it to the copyright office. The photographer was Morris Burke Parkinson, who spent the early part of his photographic career in New York city, before moving to Boston. But in 1880 he was in Oshkosh Wisconsin, and his occupation was ‘Music Teacher’. By 1890 he is listed in the New York City Directory under ‘photographs’ at 29 W 26th Street, partnered with Oscar F Smith. He remained in New York until right around 1900, then moved to Boston where he had a studio for at least ten more years.

This is one of the first Kodak Moments — when taking a photograph involved a simple point and shoot with the new Kodak box camera, but developing the film meant sending the entire camera back to Kodak, for them to remove and develop the roll, and reload your camera before returning it. Because the simple cameras tended to distort the image near the edges, Kodak decided they could provide better results by trimming the picture to a circle. As with most 19th century photos, they were printed on very thin paper, so the image was mounted on a cardboard backing. This picture is from either the original Kodak camera of 1888, or the Kodak #1 of 1889-95, so the picture is 2.5 inches in diameter, mounted on cardstock 4 x 5 inches. This public domain photo is identified as “Boy and girl outside of 900 14th St., N.W., Washington, D.C.” by the Library of Congress. The girl may be one of the photographer’s daughters, who was born late in 1879 or early 1880, according to the 1880 census. Another photo in the collection by the same photographer is dated April 9, 1889. The camera held film rolls that could take 100 photographs, so this image may have been from within a few months of that date — the children wear heavy coats, and the trees are bare of leaves, but the April 9th image recorded a heavy snow-fall, and we see no snow here.

Notice that you can see the shadow of the photographer’s head — a characteristic that would become very common in snapshot photos made by amateurs with Kodak cameras. The photographer is identified as Uriah Hunt Painter (1837-1900) who was not a professional photographer, but a newspaper reporter. He and his wife and two children were in West Chester PA at the time of the 1880 census, but those children were born in Washington DC, and the family returned there some time in the 1880s. Other photographs in the collection are from the Kodak #2 camera, which had a slightly larger image, though still round and mounted on the same size card; it was 3.5 inches in diameter. So Uriah updated his camera in the 1889-97 period when the #2 was produced. Being a reporter, it is not far-fetched to guess he had an original Kodak in 1888 and upgraded around 1890 when he learned of the advantages offered by the new improved model.