1904 large format Card Mount Photograph of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Cowboy Performers including William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody himself taken while the Show was performing in Scotland.

The photos pictured here were a part of a collection which was the personal property of Buffalo Bill Cody and his family, and which descended directly in the Cody family to his great-granddaughter Patricia Ann “Patsy” Garlow – granddaughter of Cody’s daughter Irma.

ca1894 Cabinet Card Photograph of the daughter of William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody – Irma Cody taken in the studio Brooklyn photographer Stacy.

Provenance: These fantastic Photographs descended directly in the family of Irma Louise Cody Garlow, Buffalo Bill Cody’s last surviving child. Buffalo Bill and his wife Louisa Frederici Cody (1843-1921) had four children but only their two daughters – Arta (1866-1904) and the baby Irma (1883-1918) lived to adulthood. Irma married Frederick Harrison Garlow Sr. (1880-1918) and had 3 children – Frederick Harrison Garlow Jr. (1911-1985); William Joseph Garlow (changed name to Cody) (1913-1992) and Jane Cody Garlow (1909-1987). When Irma and Fred Garlow Sr. died within three days of each other during the influenza pandemic of 1918, the three young children were cared for by their Grandmother Louisa, wife of Buffalo Bill Cody. Fred Garlow Jr. married Margaret Southerland and they had two children Patricia Ann (b.1948) and Mark Frederick (b. 1952). The Photographs that we acquired were the property of Patricia Ann “Patsy” Garlow, Buffalo Bill’s direct great-granddaughter. It was among the property of the Cody-Garlow family and was originally the property of William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody and his wife.

1894 large format Card Mount Photograph of William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody and his wife Louisa Federici Cody taken by Brooklyn photographer Stacy.

Many of these Photographs spent most of the last half of the 20th century on loan to the Buffalo Bill Historical Center of the West and bear BBHC index numbers on the versos. We were also told that any of the items with tack holes were displayed on the walls of one of Cody’s homes including the TE Ranch, the Bobcat Ranch (usually Irma’s home), the Pahaska Tepee and his residence in North Platte – Scout’s Rest Ranch.

ca1910 Real Photo Postcard / Photograph of the Yellowstone Hunting Lodge of William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody known as the “Pahaska Tepee” in winter.

The photographs included in this collection varied greatly, from some likely one of a kind Photographs taken with a snapshot camera and printed out as Real Photo Postcards, photos which were likely given as a mementos to Cody by the photographers,  a number of personal photographs taken by Stacy in the photographer’s studio and at Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show grounds during the 1894 Season (during which the Show performed at Ambrose Park in Brooklyn, New York for the entire summer), etc.

ca1910 Real Photo Postcard / Photograph of William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody with his close friend Native American Lakota Chief Iron Tail and a man believed to be Captain Jack Crawford on the show grounds of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West.

One postcard pictures the “fairgrounds” at Bourg, France with a herd of livestock grazing on the small plot. The Postcard is addressed to “Col. Cody Buffalo Bill” at Reims. The message and the Postmark are dated July 10, 1905 and the message appears to have been written by an Advance Man for Buffalo Bill’s Wild West named Dean.  Apparently “Dean” was scouting possible locations where Buffalo Bill’s Wild West might be able to appear during the European tour that was taking place in 1905. It seems that the fairgrounds at Bourg was too small to accommodate the show and “Dean” was reporting this directly to Buffalo Bill.

1905 Postcard written and addressed to William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody from an advance man of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West in Europe regarding a possible location for the Show to perform in Bourg, France. This Postcard was sent to Cody while the Show was performing at Reims.

We feel truly lucky to have been able to hold some of this history in our hands, and hope that you have enjoyed reading about it – and perhaps buying one of the items for yourself! We will be offering selected items from this collection over the next few week as part of our weekly eBay auctions.

For more information, please see our eBay listings.

Pictured above is an  original, 1863 Battle of Gettysburg / Civil War subject CDV Photograph, which was sold to support those children orphaned by the Civil War. This fascinating  CDV is titled “The Children of the Battle Field” and features a fantastic Albumen Photograph taken from the famous Ambrotype Photograph which was originally found clutched in the hands of an unidentified Union Soldier who died on the Battle Field at Gettysburg.

The three young children pictured here are identified in printed text on the card mount below the photo as “Frank. / Fredrick. / Alice.”. Printed text on the back of the mount reads: “The Children of the Battlefield. / This is a copy of the Ambrotype found in the hands of Sergeant Humiston of the 154th Regiment of New York Volunteers, as he lay dead on the Battle-Field of Gettysburg. The copies are sold in furtherance of the national Sabbath School to found in Pennsylvania an Asylum for dependent Orphans of Soldiers in memorial of our Perpetuated Union”. Further text on the reverse reads “This Picture is private property and cannot be copied without wrongdoing the Soldier’s Orphans for whom it is published”.

Here is a “Sketch” written in 1863 detailing the story of “The Children of the Battlefield”:

“Few readers of the public journals will fail to remember that, after the battle of Gettysburg, a dead soldier was found on the field, clasping in his hand an ambrotype of his three little children. No other incident of the present fratricidal war is known to have so touched the heart of the nation. For months after the battle, the soldier’s name, and the home of his family, were a mystery. The ambrotype found within his clasped hands was obtained by J. Francis Bourns, M.D., of Philadelphia, who had the picture photographed, in the hope that its circulation might lead to the discovery of the family, and the soldier’s own recognition, and, at the same time, that the sales of the copies might result in a fund for the support and education of the little ones thus left fatherless. Publicity was also given to the incident in many newspapers throughout the country. From various quarters letters of affecting inquiry were soon received; but still the mystery of the soldier was unsolved. At length, in the month of November, a letter arrived with the intelligence that a soldier’s wife at a little town on the Allegheny River, in Western New York, had seen the account of the picture in a religious paper, the American Presbyterian, of Philadelphia, – a single copy of which was taken in the place. She had sent her husband such a picture, and had not heard from him since the sanguinary struggle at Gettysburg. With trembling anxiety she awaited the reply and the coming of the picture. A copy of it came, and was the identical likeness of her own children, and told the painful story that she was a widow and her little ones were orphans. The unknown soldier was thus ascertained to be Amos Humiston, late of Portville, Cattaraugus county, New York, sergeant in the 154th N.Y. Volunteers.”.

A glass plate showing the aftermath of The Battle of Gettysburg titled “A Harvest of Death.” This image was taken by Timothy H. O’Sullivan for Alexander Gardner circa July 5-6, 1863. It is courtesy of the Library of Congress.

For more information, please see our eBay listing.

An early Billings, Montana photographer, Alfred Baumgartner had a studio on Minnesota Avenue which opened in 1906 and closed just a few years later. Little is known of his work except that he was certainly a true Western Photographer – had a “cowgirl” in his employ at the studio and most of his surviving works are in studio portraits of local Billings, Montana residents. We recently purchased a small collection of simply fantastic and stunningly beautiful, Art Photo style portraits of Native American Crow who lived on the expansive Crow Indian Reservation south of Billings, that were taken and copyrighted in 1906 by Alfred Baumgartner.

As far as we can tell Baumgartner, never published this or any of the Crow Images in this wonderful collection as we can find only a single example of a Native American Photograph by Baumgartner in any museum or library collection (that photograph is of Crow Chief Plenty Coups and is held in the collection of the Yellowstone Western Heritage Center- image can be found here). We believe this beautiful Photograph may be the only known example or at the very least exceptionally rare.

Each Photograph in this collection is very much in the style of Carl Moon with a soft, warm “feel” to the Image and a respectful treatment of the subject, and most features a wonderfully appropriate and beautiful painted backdrop and the high quality and stunning beautiful, embossed card mount that complete the artistic presentation. There is text in a number of the negatives, or stamped on the recto, that reads “Baumgartner Studio, Billings, Mont.”.

Studio full length Photographic seated portrait of an unidentified Crow Woman    dressed in a beautiful, elk tooth tunic and wearing a multi-strand necklace and agency blanket.

 Photographic portrait of an unidentified Crow Warrior dressed in traditional garb with an elaborate, multi-strand necklace and with typical Crow hair style along with his wife. Also in the Photo is a second Crow brave dressed in much more western style clothing with his wife and young child . (We feel that we have seen this Crow Brave at the left before but we have been unable to identify him. Any information regarding his identity would be greatly appreciated.)

Studio full length portrait Photograph of an unidentified Crow Warrior dressed in traditional garb with an elaborate, multi-strand necklace and with typical Crow hair style. (We feel that we have seen this Crow Brave before but we have been unable to identify him. Any information regarding his identity would be greatly appreciated.)

This Photograph is a half figure, studio portrait of Strikes the Iron dressed in a wonderful, elk tooth tunic.  (The subject is not identified but the wife of Chief Plenty Coups was photographed numerous times in her life and she is easily recognizable.)

This Photograph is a full figure, studio portrait of the Plenty Coups and his wife Strikes the Iron dressed in a combination of traditional and western garb with Plenty Coups wearing his full eagle feather war bonnet and a pipe bone breastplate.

More information on Chief Plenty Coups:

The last traditional Chief of the Crow Nation, Plenty Coups was a visionary that led his people from the ‘Buffalo Days’ into the 20th century. He was an accomplished statesman and ambassador well known by several US Presidents and foreign leaders. Chief Plenty Coups best illustrated the close bond between the US and Crow Nation when, in 1921, he offered his war bonnet and coups sticks at the dedication of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. In his speech, he promised the allegiance of Crow warriors to fight any enemy of the United States. His promise has been upheld countless times in wars or armed conflicts since that gathering. The Chief was a leader by example – he was a productive farmer and stockman, expert steward of his 1885 allotment, and a supporter of education. In 1928 Plenty Coups and his wife, Strikes the Iron, willed their home and land as a place for all cultures to come together in a cooperative nature. Their homestead is now Montana’s Chief Plenty Coups State Park. The Chief did not dedicate this location to glorify himself or his deeds, but to honor the culture of the Crow Nation and to bring people together.

For more information, please see our eBay listing.

Annie Oakley, the iconic American champion sharpshooter and trick-shot artist, was born Phoebe Ann Moses in a rural western border county of Ohio. Oakley’s amazing talent and timely rise to fame led to a starring role in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show, which propelled her to become the first American female superstar.

Born in 1860, Annie was the sixth of Jacob and Susan Moses’ eight children. Her father, who had fought in the War of 1812, died in 1865 at age 65 from pneumonia and overexposure in freezing weather. Her mother married Daniel Brumbaugh, had a ninth child, Emily, and was widowed a second time. In 1870, Annie and her sister were admitted to an orphanage and within a few months she was “bound out” to a local family to help care for their infant son, on the false promise of fifty cents a week and an education. She spent about two years in near-slavery to them, where she endured mental and physical abuse. She would often have to do boys’ work. One time the wife put Annie out in the freezing cold, alone, to survive. Annie referred to them as “the wolves.” Even in her autobiography, she kindly never told the couples real name. When, in the spring of 1872, she reunited with her family, her mother had married a third time, to Joseph Shaw.

Annie began trapping at a young age, and shooting and hunting by age eight to support her siblings and her widowed mother. She sold the hunted game for money to locals in Greenville, as well as restaurants and hotels in southern Ohio. Her skill eventually paid off the mortgage on her mother’s farm when Annie was 15.

Oakley soon became well known throughout the region. During the spring of 1881, the Baughman and Butler shooting act was being performed in Cincinnati. Traveling show marksman and former dog trainer Francis E. Butler (1850–1926), an Irish immigrant, placed a $100 bet per side (roughly equivalent to $2,000 of today’s money) with Cincinnati hotel owner Jack Frost, that he, Butler, could beat any local fancy shooter. The hotelier arranged a shooting match between Butler and the 15-year-old Oakley. The last opponent Butler expected was a five-foot-tall, 15-year old named Annie. After missing on his 25th shot, Butler lost the match and the bet. He began courting Oakley, and they married on June 20, 1882. The couple never had children.

In 1885 Butler and Annie joined Buffalo Bill’s Wild West – and the rest, as they say, is history!

An 1890’s, cabinet card photograph has recently come to light which is believed to be a previously unknown portrait of shooting champion and renowned trick shot artist Annie Oakley. The photo is by Waltermire of Sioux City, Iowa, and depicts a female trick shot artist that bears a striking resemblance to Annie Oakley. The young woman is pictured making adjustments to a pump-action target rifle (actually a Colt Lightning small frame 22 pump action rifle) and surrounded by sharpshooter targets, American flags, and a second target rifle. The image has never been seen before, and although the woman pictured bears a striking resemblance of Annie, it has not as yet been definitively identified as being a portrait of the woman respectfully nicknamed (by Hunkpapa Lakota Sioux Tribal Chief and Holy Man Sitting Bull) “Watanya Cicilla” (rendered “Little Sure Shot” in public advertisements). Given the content of the photograph and the strong resemblance of the young woman to Annie Oakley, there is a growing confidence that this is a previously unknown portrait of the iconic female sharpshooter – one Oakley historian and researcher has offered the following comment:

“I’ve seen a lot of cabinet cards people have thrown out there with Annie’s name as a suspect. This is the first one I’ve seen where I think it may be the real deal…”

The photograph depicts a young, female trick shot artist working with what appears to be a clay pigeon on the stock of the pump action Colt 22 caliber rifle. She is seated on a chair and holds the rifle straight out in front of her. Behind her is a painted background and an array of American Flags. To the right of the young woman we see a second target rifle and a number of targets and other accouterments, which one would associate with a trick shot artist in a Wild West Show. The mount is also printed with the photographer’s credits of Waltermire of Sioux City, Iowa. We know that on September 22, 1896, Buffalo Bill’s Wild West (with Annie Oakley as a member of the cast) performed at Sioux City, Iowa, and it is entirely possible that this is when the Photograph was taken.

Because this image has never been seen before, and the sharpshooter pictured is not identified in any way, we, as yet, cannot state definitively that the young woman pictured is “without a doubt” Annie Oakley. It seems almost impossible to believe that there was another female sharpshooter, who resembled Annie Oakley to this extent, that would have been photographed in the manner seen here, and who was of such notoriety that the photographer felt it unnecessary to identify in any way.

If you’d like to learn more about this piece, further details can be found at our eBay listing.

In early portrait photography, children would have to sit for quite some time before the full process of each shot could be complete. To keep them calm and comfortable, the child’s mother would be cloaked in fabric and sit with the child on her lap, serving as the backdrop for her child’s portrait. Due to traditional methods of matting and framing, the end piece would crop the mother’s figure completely out of the frame, making her look as nothing more than a draped piece of cloth.

However, as the photographs are uncovered and the mothers “discovered,” there is this eerie, almost ghost-like effect to the photographs. An entire Flickr community has been set up to track the instances of hidden mothers in old tintypes and cabinets. Some are humorous, but some are down-right (unintentionally) disconcerting:

Sources: Retronaut, Boing Boing, Accidental Mysteries, The Hidden Mother Group on Flickr

Circling around the blogs (such as Miss Moss and Lincoln Taft) are vintage photographs of the University of Miami Women’s Basketball team. A collection of most all team photographs can be found at the University of Miami’s Flickr stream. Miami had the foresight to transfer its photo archives to an online database, so that they can be shared and enjoyed by a mass audience, rather than simply tucked away in dusty old books, sitting in a library’s back room.

I think it’s an interesting and important concept for universities, museums, and other cultural institutions to put their photo archives on sharing sites such as Flickr. It is a means to preserve and retell history, as well as to inspire others to dig up otherwise unknown and unseen remnants of the past.

Plus, just look at those hair bows.

The photographs scattered throughout this post and all from a spectacular, circa 1867, finely bound, large folio album. Each is an original, stunningly beautiful, large format Albumen photograph of the Himalayan Mountains and the region of Kashmir by the preeminent, 19th-century British travel photographer Samuel Bourne– renowned for his prolific seven years’ work in India, from 1863 to 1870.

The album, titled Cashmere, contained 38 of the most beautiful, original, circa-1867 Albumen photographs taken during Bourne’s 12-month, 1866-7 journey through the Himalayas to the region then known as Cashmere (or Kashmir). Seldom does a collection of these breathtaking Albumen photographs come to light, and the volume described here is an untouched, complete album of views documenting Bourne’s epic journey.

The Album itself is sumptuously bound in heavily chamfered leather with elaborate decorations in gold gilt, red, green, and black decoration. The board designs have an air of an exotic, Arabic text, and gold gilt lettering in the central panel on each cover reads simply: “Cashmere.”

Contained within the album are 44, light- to medium-weight card leaves on which are mounted 38 images in total– 27 are rare, full plate images measuring 11 1/2″ x 9 1/2″ which are (obviously) mounted one to a page. There are also 9 photographs measuring 7 1/2″ x 4 1/4″ and 2 measuring 3 3/4″ x 4 1/4″. Each photograph is surrounded by a double, hand ruled, line border in blue and black inks. Below each image, there is a hand-lettered title done with gold and blue inks, in an exquisite, Gothic-style Calligraphic font. The leaves with mounted photographs are hand numbered with Roman Numerals I through XXXIII.

The included photographs are some of the most stunningly beautiful, mid-19th century “travel” images we have ever come across. The first 26 Photos document Bourne’s journey through the Himalayas, while the final 12 are views that were taken in the region of Kashmir.

Arriving in Calcutta early in 1863, British Landscape Photographer Samuel Bourne initially set up in partnership with an already established Calcutta photographer, William Howard. They moved up to Simla, where they established a new studio, Howard & Bourne, to be joined in 1864 by Charles Shepherd, to form Howard, Bourne & Shepherd. By 1866, after the departure of Howard, it became Bourne & Shepherd, which became the premier photographic studio in India.

When Samuel Bourne set off on his nearly 12 month sojourn to the Kashmir region of the Indian Sub-Continent, he journeyed with an immense amount of equipment and personal luggage. Everything needed to be carried on the backs of, what he called, “coolies“– human pack animals. Included were 2 very large wet plate cameras and 250 12″x10″ glass plates and 400 8″ x 4 1/2″ plates, not to mention the tremendous amount of chemicals, darkroom equipment, lenses, tripods, etc. In all there were 42 men employed in carrying Bourne’s equipment on this epic undertaking.

Working primarily with a 10×12 inch plate camera, and using the complicated and laborious Wet Plate Collodion process, the impressive body of work he produced was always of superb technical quality and often of artistic brilliance. The images contained in this album attest to his skill and artistic genius. His ability to create superb photographs whilst traveling in the most remote areas of the Himalayas and working under the most strenuous physical conditions, places him firmly amongst the very finest of 19th-century travel photographers.

We believe that the photographs contained in this album were printed out sometime between 1867, when Bourne returned from Kashmir, and 1870, when he returned to England after 7 years in India. Upon returning to his homeland, Bourne expended most of his energies in non-photographic business endeavors. Although continuing to photograph as a relaxation, and belonging to the local Photographic Society, much of his creative energy from this time onwards was devoted to water-color painting. Bourne is justly regarded as one of the finest landscape and travel photographers of 19th-century India; combining a fine eye for composition with high technical expertise.

Ruth Malcomson (April 16, 1906–May 25, 1988) was crowned Miss America in 1924, earning the title at the tender age of 18. Stunningly beautiful by the standards of any era, Malcomson, a native of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was the amateur winner in the 1923 Miss America contest and returned in 1924 to defeat incumbent Mary Campbell, who was seeking her third consecutive crown. Malcomson was only the third woman to hold the title of Miss America, with her victory coming in the fourth pageant held at Atlantic City. At the time, being only a couple of years old, the beauty contest was sometimes still referred to as “The Atlantic City Pageant,” with the winner called “The Golden Mermaid.”

According to the Miss America website, the first winner to embark on a Tour of Europe was BeBe Shopp in 1948, but a recently uncovered collection of photographs show Ruth Malcomson in France, England, Spain, Italy and Algiers in what is believed to be the summer of 1925. Ruth and her parents were obviously accompanied by a professional photographer, and the trip resulted in a collection of 277 outstanding images of the stunningly beautiful Miss America, her family, and the countryside through which they traveled. Only 34 of the photographs, however, include the young Miss America herself.

Each of these wonderful, original photos measure approx 4 5/8″ x 3 5/8″ and each is printed in rich, warm tones on printing out paper of the period. Each photo carries the full backmark of Philadelphia Photographer H. Armstrong Roberts– the originator of what we know today as the “Stock Photography” business– the selling / licensing to publications of stock photographs under copyright for single use. It is quite likely that this tour was not an official “Miss America” activity, but certainly the fact that a professional photographer accompanied the Malcomsons made this much more than a family vacation.

This collection of photographs was originally obtained directly from the estate of Ruth Malcomson some time ago and we were able to determine that H. Armstrong Roberts Company (still today one of the major suppliers of Stock Photographs) does not have these images in their archive. We were able to find less than a handful of period photographs of the 1924 Miss America in the public domain and we believe that the original, cci1925 Photographs in this group here are all likely the only examples of each image in existence!

Besides the 34 Photographs which include Ruth Malcomson (most also include her mother and some her father also) the Collection includes 62 photo views of Algiers (including fantastic street scenes); 55 photo views of Brittany, Normandy, Biarritz, Alsace and The Riviera; 51 of the South of France, including Marseilles; 7 views of Spain; 24 photos of the Loire Valley, Provence, and Avignon and 44 photographs of the Pyrenees and Alps. All of the Photographs were obviously taken on the same trip and are identical in format, artistic style and quality.

If you’d like to learn more about this piece, further details can be found at our eBay listing.