1906-1908 Early Mexico and California Border Vernacular Photo Album

[Mexico] [Photography] Vernacular album of a trip to Mexico and California in 1906-1908. 179 silver gelatin and sepia photographs, measuring 3" x 3.5" to 5 x 9.5". Oblong large 8vo album in black cloth board. Photos affixed directly to album leaves, with detailed manuscript captions. Over half of the images were taken in and of Mexico. The beginning of the album starts with the couple at Spartanburg station in South Carolina waiting for the train, getting their shoes shined, and early images of young African American street performers. A few scattered images show buildings in Atlanta, Montgomery, New Orleans, and San Antonio before reaching their destination. (truncated) The landscape begins to get more arid and dry as the couple reaches Mexico City. Rural images show various candids of Mexican men and children in straw sombreros, some with donkeys, some outside of their stone homes on their farmland, and one selling goods outside of the train station. Other images show merchants at a flower market inside of Mexico City park, and the visitors standing outside of the Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral. A series of photographs show a bull fight surrounded by a stadium filled with onlookers. The couple then moves on to Guadalajara where photographs of city buildings and young smiling Mexican girls wrapped in sarapes. Nine large photographs give a grander perspective of the scenery. Two landscapes show the small cityscapes surrounded by rural farmlands of Puebla, and of Villa de Guadalupe. One detailed photo shows an ornate cafe in Chapultepec with moving horse carriages in the background, Mexican cafe workers and a wealthy Mexican man in suit and top hat in the foreground. Three vernaculars show Mexican laborers and merchants; one of a man in an aloe bush presumably preening for the best leaves, another of a few Mexican women of various ages selling fruit at the base of a shady tree, and one especially dramatic candid profile of a Mexican merchant with an exhausted expression on his face and an empty wooden crate strapped to his back and head after a tiresome day of selling his goods in the hot sun captioned; "Returning from market." Many other photos show various regions of California such as the Redlands, Santa Monica, and Pasadena with mostly photographs of buildings, seascapes, cityscapes, and rural landscapes before their development. Modernity is seemingly lost in many of the images, with clay-roofed buildings, stone pathways, and ranchers atop horses without a car in sight. This richly diverse album serves as a reminder of a forgotten time in the not so distant past that laid the foundations for the cultural landscapes we now live in. Minor spine and edge wear, minor fading to a few images. Some pages have minor warping. Overall very good condition. (Inventory #: 20028)