Women's Competitive Shooting with Shotguns and Rifles Archive of 20 Photographs, 1914-55

Women's Shooting

Photograph

Women’s civilian shooting sports photo archive, 1919 to 1955, recording female participation in trap, skeet, rifle marksmanship, and gun club competition within a sport publicly coded as masculine. The photographs place women on firing lines, prize lines, club grounds, and rural shooting fields, showing female marksmanship as leisure, competition, and family practice rather than wartime exception. Inscriptions connect several images to Marie Ellis, a competitive riflewoman seen competing at the Spokane Gun Club and at the Jacksonville Gun Club, alongside other named riflewomen in Florida. Dated moments from 1914, 1928, 1939, 1945, and 1955. The group as a whole showcases women posed with firearms, grouped around trophies, marked by scores, and identified through club affiliations.

Photo archive of 20 photos including 19 silver gelatin photographs and 1 photo negative, ranging from 2 x 3 to 8 x 10 inches, United States, 1914 to 1955. The photographs show women firing rifles from prone positions at a covered range; a woman in a shooting jacket aiming a scoped rifle; a woman standing outdoors with a long gun; a woman in a striped dress firing a shotgun while a man scores or records beside her; and a woman in a cap and sporting dress holding a shotgun on an open field. Several images show competitive scenes, including a women’s shooting team posed with shotguns around a large trophy, mixed groups of men and women standing with shotguns on club grounds, and a large photograph of military officers or uniformed men inspecting trophy sculptures and awards. Several photos show contestant Marie Ellis, with one in particular having an especially detailed caption en verso, highlighting that Ellis ” broke “95 x 100” and “48 x 50...a record for the Spokane Gun Club shoot made by a lady.” Another photo identifies Marie Ellis posed alongside two other identified competitors "Frances King" and "Marguerite [...]." Smaller earlier snapshots include a 1914 image inscribed “This is me, John,” a postcard with a child and adult handling a long gun, and outdoor portraits of women or girls with rifles.

Women’s shooting in the first half of the twentieth century occupied a narrow public position between domestic respectability, rural competence, club sport, and the expanding recreational firearms market. Trap and skeet fields, gun clubs, and prize shoots were largely male social spaces, but women entered them through family participation, local clubs, newspaper recognized scores, and competitive teams that used the same scorecards, trophies, uniforms, and club rituals as men. The Ellis inscriptions give the group a named thread across several decades, moving from early outdoor gun portraits to mid century club competition and the record language of sanctioned marksmanship. Light surface wear, scattered creasing, some toning, and handling wear to smaller prints; one negative present, the largest photo is mounted to board. Overall very good condition. A focused visual record of women claiming space in American gun club culture through competition, scoring, trophies, and public display from the 1910s through the 1950s.

Item #23563

Price: $1,850.00