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 image is labeled by the photographer ‘Les maisons de Médenine‘ which is French for ‘houses of Medenine’. While modern Ghorfas were shown as housing for slaves in the film Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, in reality these were built for storing grain, not as residences. Medenine is a town in southern Tunisia.

The photographer for this public domain image was F. Soler, a Tunisian photographer active in the late 1800s and early 1900s. His portraits and landscape images of the people and places of Tunisia are quite common, especially in post-card format, but little is known about the photographer himself.

This cute little fellow was photographed in San Antonio Texas in the mid-1890s, with his faithful dog at his side. Think he will grow up to be a cowboy? Regardless of his later profession, I’m sure he was thoroughly embarrassed by pictures of him in this frilly outfit. Maybe that is why nobody ever bothered to write a name on the back of this card-mounted photograph, so we have no clue as to who he was.

The photographer was Bruno Nauschuetz. Born in Germany about 1862 his parents brought him to the USA about 1867. He probably started his photography business in the late 1880s, as we find him located at 700 Austin Street in San Antonio in the 1891 city directory, and by 1892 he is at 221 Sharer where this photo was taken. He was still in business as a photographer in San Antonio at the time of the 1910 census, and died 19th May, 1914.

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.