Early 20th Century Photo Album in the Tropics

Panama Canal, Sailing

Photo Album

Photo album showing subjects on water and land mainly in tropical location, possibly Panama. Early 1900s. Black leather album measuring 10 x 7 inches with photos mounted to black pages. 86 pages. This album centers around a crew of seafaring American men on a small yacht in what appears to be Panama in the early 1900s. In a few photos, we can see the construction of a major canal, which could very likely be the Panama Canal. The Panama Canal project was taken over by American engineers in 1904 and was completed in 1914, which seems to coincide with the time when these photos are taken. Visible in a few photos is the American yacht ensign flag that consists of the 13 stripes and and an anchor with stars circling it. This flag signified that the vessel was a "pleasure boat", meaning it wasn't for military or commercial purposes. Many of the photos also show groups of indigenous children and some adults. One image shows a small boy without clothes standing in a handcrafted canoe that has come ashore a sandy beach. Another photo shows an overview, presumably from the deck of a large ship, with one dark-skinned man rowing a cone and boys swimming in the water all around him. Photos of houses built in plantation style with wooden shutters outstretched and wide front porches to capture the day's breeze. Many photos show white men aboard ships, shirtless and in bathing suits, posing together or steering and managing the boats. In one photo, 4 men pose in a stack with the tallest riding the shoulders of the man below him, sailboat masthead visible behind the group. In another a group of 7 subjects both men and women sit around the table at a dinner party, most of them in tissue-paper party hats, several men mustachioed in suits, raising their glasses to toast. The album recalls the world of Hemingway, a blend of outdoor adventure, suntanned physicality and aristocratic gentility that typified colonial culture during the early twentieth century. 2 photos show men in military dress of the time. One page clipped in half. One page torn from album and missing. Small tears to several pages do not affect images. Light sunning to some images. Overall very good condition.

Item #18205

Price: $550.00