This cute photograph shows four children at work, filling a wagon with gravel, while a fifth child sits on the ground nearby and plays with his horse and cart pull-toy. The children seem very engrossed in their work, and ignore the photographer entirely.

This image was taken by well-known photographer Jessie Tarbox, or as she was known by her married name, Jessie Tarbox Beals. Jessie was born in Hamilton Ontario in 1870, and in 1902 took a job as photojournalist with The Buffalo Inquirer. She left the newspaper in 1904 and went to Saint Louis Missouri where she photographed the World’s Fair then in progress. In 1905 she moved to New York City, where she opened her own gallery. In 1917 she separated from her husband and moved to the artsy Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York, where she opened an art gallery. This photograph was taken during that period, probably in Greenwich Village. In 1928 Jessie moved to California, and began photographing homes of the stars for postcards. In 1933 she moved to Chicago, and later returned to Greenwich Village where she died in 1942.

This very interesting public domain image shows the children of Captain (at that time, later Brigadier General) Montgomery C. Meigs. Meigs was with the Corps of Engineers, and in 1850 when this image was taken, was assigned to oversee the construction of Fort Wayne in Detroit, Michigan. In fact, it was Meigs who selected the site and arranged for the government to purchase the land where the fort stands, on the Detroit River. From the looks of the buildings in this photo, and the fact that there is water visible in the background, this was probably taken on the grounds of Fort Wayne, where their father was working. (Curiously enough, I was on those grounds a bit over 120 years later as an archaeology student, participating in test excavations at the site.)

A note in the case of this daguerreotype identifies the children as (left to right) Mary Montgomery Meigs (later Mrs. Taylor), Charles Meigs, Vincent Meigs, and John Rodgers Meigs. It was General Meigs who recommended that property in Arlington Virginia owned by Mary Custis Lee, the wife of the confederate General, Robert E. Lee, should be used as a burial ground for U.S. Military casualties of the then raging Civil War. Arlington National Cemetery was established there in 1864. One of those buried there during the first year of use was First Lieutenant John Rodgers Meigs, the little boy leading the donkey, killed in October 1864.

The photographer for this image is unknown.

In this image we have the typical American cowboys on the plains of Texas, their horses grazing in the back-ground. The photographer labeled this ‘A mumble-peg game’ — though mumble peg is usually played standing. It is a knife-throwing game, and there are many variants. A former owner of this photograph, Amon Carter, wrote a helpful inscription on the back giving details: Some Turkey Track cowboys taking a few moments rest: Jess Bomar lying, Charley Thompson sitting far left, and Fred “Kid” Bomar sitting far right, Turkey Track Ranch, Texas, 1906.

The photographer for this image was Erwin Evans Smith (1886–1947), who was living in Bonham Texas when not attending art school in Chicago or Boston. During the summers he worked on ranches as a cow-hand, and documented the cowboy way of life. Since he was ‘one of the gang’ his images have an un-staged honesty and informality that is lacking in more formal portraits of cowboys made self-conscious by the intruding photographer.

This little schoolhouse provided education (of a sort) to all those Native American students, all the youngsters from the Havasupai tribe. Today the tribe numbers around 600 persons, but there were fewer in 1901 when this picture was taken, the only figures I’ve found suggest about 200 in 1882, and say that only 106 survived the epidemics of the early 1900s. The Havasupai are the only people living inside the Grand Canyon. They still all speak their native language, also called Havasupai. The reservation is the Havasupai Reservation. But the single town, though sometimes mistakenly called Havasupai, is actually Supai, or in the Havasupai language Havasuuw.

This public domain image was taken by Henry Greenwood Peabody, born in Saint Louis Missouri 27 Apr 1855, he married Dora Crocker Phelps 23 Dec 1880 in Evanston Illinois and had one daughter. Peabody took up photography in the late 1870s, and though he lived in Evanston, probably worked in Chicago. By 1890 he was working in Boston Massachusetts for Allen & Rowell Co., a photographic supply company. During this time he became known as a marine photographer, and published photo books on The Coast of Maine (1889) and Representative American Yachts (1891). Later Peabody went to work for the Detroit Publishing Company and began to travel widely, taking photographs like this one in Arizona, and others as far flung as California, New York, and British Columbia in Canada. In 1905 he quit working for Detroit Publishing, and began touring the country with his ‘magic lantern’ slide-shows on National Parks, Monuments and Native American subjects. Although one biographical sketch claims he continued in photography until shortly before his death, he is listed as a salesman in the 1930 census in Pasadena California, and we have found no photos attributed to him late than about 1920. He died in Los Angeles on March 25th 1951.

This photo, taken in northern Virginia during the Civil War, shows workmen replacing rails twisted by Rebel raiders. The northern victory was due in large part to the industrial prowess of the northern states. One aspect of that capability was evident in the use of the railways to move troops, weapons and supplies wherever they were needed at high speeds. The Rebels recognized this, of course, and did all they could to destroy the railroad infrastructure where it was most useful to the Union. Here we see in the foreground the twisted rail, that so often resulted, and the men working to replace it.

This public domain image was taken in 1862 or 1863 by Andrew J Russell. We profiled Russell earlier under his photograph of the Capitol Building.