[Annotated Vernacular Photograph Album Mostly Documenting the Life of a California Woman Living in North Texas, Before She Eventually Returns to California in the Early-20th Century]

[Various locations, including Texas and California, 1925. Very good.. [35] leaves, illustrated with 272 original vernacular photographs of various sizes, plus a handful of ephemeral items, all mounted. Oblong folio. Contemporary black cloth photograph album, gilt titles on front cover, string tied. Minor soiling, staining, and rubbing to boards, minor edge wear. An artfully-composed annotated vernacular photograph album documenting the life of a female compiler and her family in Texas and California over about a decade after World War I. The album opens with a few dozen scenes on the Los Rados and Cheyenne pastures of the Q Ranch and in the relevant (truncated) residences in Channing, Texas. The Q Ranch scenes feature cowboys on horseback, horse-drawn carriages, scenes of cattle rustling, and more. The album compiler was most likely a woman living for some time at the Q Ranch; she notes on more than one occasion when people are leaving the ranch for more western locations. For instance, in May 1919, the compiler notes when "Em and Norine left for 'Sunny California.'" They include a handful of "Scenes enroute Texas - California," which show mainly scenes in New Mexico. Another series shows pictures memorializing several people "Leaving Channing and us for Husband and Pocatella, Idaho." Several photographs from 1921 depict the compiler's experiences at the Union Laundry in Breckenridge, Texas; this section also includes several pictures of the Breckenridge Natatorium.

There are also other western scenes showing a ranch in Harney County, Oregon, located "miles and miles from no-where." These Oregon pictures depict both men and women working the fields of a farm and ranch in a remote location. The scenes in California record the compiler's time visiting family in San Pedro, Inglewood, Hermosa Beach, and other places in California. Towards the end of the album, the compiler notes that she is "Home Again Here at Last Never more to Roam Home Sweet Home" when she arrives in California. Other locations documented here include Juarez, Mexico (apparently a vacation), scenes along the Santa Fe Route in Colorado to California, and others.

Several subjects are identified by name in the present album, such as John Quarrles, Jr., Jeannie Thomas, Louisa Collins, Grandmother Millering, Katie Braithwaite, Rosa, Euola, and Gladys Dawson, and numerous others, sometimes only noted by their first names. These names should provide ample opportunity to connect the subjects of the present album to a larger context within the community of North Texas ranching families based in California. (Inventory #: 2671)