U.S. Military Presence and Border Violence Along the Mexico Frontier in Real Photo Postcards and Photographs, 1908 to 1915

Texas Latino Immigration Diaspora

Archive

Photographic archive documenting U.S.–Mexico border conditions during the Mexican Revolution period, capturing American military presence, cross-border observation, and recorded instances of violence in northern Mexico between approximately 1908 and 1915. The group includes a real photo postcard captioned “Triple execution in Mexico,” presenting direct visual evidence of execution practices during a period of political instability and armed conflict. The verso message—“Dear Hank: This sure is a hell of a place. Full of [snakes] + rattlers. Wish you were here to suffer with us…” combined with a U.S. postal stamp dated circa 1908–1909, situates the sender within an environment understood as harsh, remote, and dangerous. The material provides primary-source documentation of how American observers and soldiers encountered and communicated conditions along the border during the years surrounding the Mexican Revolution and concurrent U.S. military mobilization in the region.

Archive consists of 19 Photographs, including 14 real photo postcards and 5 small vernacular photographs, dating approximately from 1908 to 1915 and centered on El Paso, Texas, and adjacent areas of northern Mexico. Postcards measure approximately 5.5" x 3" and depict identifiable locations and activities, including a mounted military procession along Texas Street between Mesa and Stanton, and a composite terrain study attributed en verso to photographer F. J. DeMuth, inscribed “On Mexican Border El Paso 1913 or 14.” Additional imagery includes rural labor and transport scenes, such as the captioned “Mexican Water Hauler. Tex-Mex Border,” documenting environmental and economic conditions. The five smaller photographs, each approximately 2.5" x 2.5", depict American soldiers and are uniformly signed on the verso “RT (Baxter?),” indicating authorship or ownership by a single serviceman and suggesting a coherent personal grouping within the archive.

This archive situates border photography within the period of U.S. military surveillance and intervention along the Mexican frontier during the Mexican Revolution, when American troops operated in close proximity to revolutionary violence without formal war declarations. The presence of an execution image alongside casual correspondence and signed soldier photographs shows how violence was not isolated but embedded within the everyday visual and communicative practices of those stationed on the border. Minor edge wear, light creasing, and age toning present; inscriptions and postal markings remain legible; images retain strong clarity. Overall very good condition. These materials document how American servicemen and civilians encountered, interpreted, and transmitted conditions in northern Mexico, and the Western boarder states, providing primary-source evidence for the study of cross-border observation, informal military witnessing, and the circulation of violent imagery in the early twentieth century.

Item #18538

Price: $1,850.00