World War I Training Camp and Wisconsin Family Life Photo Album with Logging Scenes ca 1900s to 1920s

Wisconsin Photo Album

Archive

Wisconsin military family photo album, ca 1900s to 1920s, a regional visual record that combines World War I era training camp activity with domestic and labor life in the Upper Midwest. The album preserves a sequence of soldier training images alongside family gatherings and logging scenes, documenting the integration of civilian and military experience during the period of U.S. mobilization for World War I. The presence of organized drills, rifle practice, and tent encampments situates part of the album within formal military preparation, while the surrounding images of river excursions and rural industry provide context for the social and economic environment from which these soldiers were drawn.

Photo album containing approximately 310 silver gelatin photographs mounted on cream leaves within a 10 x 12 inch album with brown leather covers. Photographs range in size from approximately 2.5 x 4.25 inches to 3.75 x 5 inches, with two images captioned. Twenty seven photographs depict a military training camp in Wisconsin, likely in Monroe County, where facilities later consolidated into Fort McCoy. These images show soldiers living in canvas tents, filling bedding with hay, drilling on firing ranges, maneuvering over obstacles, and assembling with rifles and field equipment, alongside informal scenes of recreation within camp. The remaining photographs document family life in the Winona, Wisconsin region, including outings along the Mississippi River and nearby lakes, as well as logging operations from approximately 1915 to 1925 and a horse drawn streetcar of the Oshkosh Street Railway Company.

The album offers a localized perspective on the relationship between military training and civilian life in the American Midwest during the World War I era, when National Guard and newly raised units trained in temporary camps prior to deployment. The juxtaposition of camp discipline, rural labor, and family leisure reflects the broader structure of early twentieth century American life, in which industrial resource extraction, transportation networks, and military service intersected within regional communities. The logging images further document an important sector of the Wisconsin economy, while the transportation imagery situates the region within expanding urban and interurban systems. Covers show wear with heavy chipping to spine; several leaves detached and three photographs missing. Images largely sharp with minor instances of blur. Overall very good condition.

Item #17587

Price: $750.00