I went looking for the tintypes and Cabinet cards of photos of African Americans. I knew that we helped to settle the West – even though I never learned that in history class – so I wanted to see if any of the artifacts in this Wild West auction featured black people.
My auction buddy Janet had sent me an email about the auction set for five days in Harrisburg, PA, about a two-hour drive from me. It seemed that a former mayor of the city had spent $8.3 million over 16 years to acquire “western” items for a museum.
I’m not sure why he thought that a capital city situated in the middle of the state of Pennsylvania would be a good place for a western museum. When I think western, this state doesn’t readily come to mind.
When I did a walk-through of the auction items at the Public Works building, I was equally confused. As I turned a corner inside the building – which was as thick with artifacts as the oppressive heat inside its un-air-conditioned interior – I came face to face with African masks and carvings.
How the heck did they qualify as western? And what about that photograph of a battalion of World War II African American soldiers at a training center in Virginia?
The tintypes and Cabinet cards of African Americans, though, could have been authentically western, based on the clothing. One of the trickest things about the auction items, it seemed, was trying to determine their provenance and authenticity. Only about 10 percent of the items were authenticated, according to a story in the Patriot- News, the local newspaper.
The museum was the brainchild of former Harrisburg Mayor Stephen R. Reed, but it never materialized. He was the force behind the National Civil War Museum in the city (which has some of the artifacts). Reed acquired the artifacts to furnish three other historical museums, according to the newspaper. He was criticized for using public money for the project.
Now the city is in a pile of debt and is searching for ways to get from under it. Designated a distressed city, its finances are under the purview of the courts. The mayor apparently used the artifacts to guarantee a loan on the Public Works building, and some city officials wanted to use the proceeds from the auction to help pay off the loan. The judge, however, nixed that idea, reminding city officials that she’ll decide how the money will be used.
Some officials expected the auction – which offered about 3,500 items for sale on the web and more in an on-site auction the last day – to bring in from $500,000 to $6 million. From what I’ve seen at auctions, it probably will not reach $6 mil (although the prices were too rich for my blood during the short time I was there).
This wasn’t the first time some of the artifacts were sold. About 3,000 were auctioned in 2007 and 2008, and netted from $1.6 million to $1.7 million.
Last week’s auction was conducted by Guernsey Auctions of New York, and the word was that 7,000 people had signed up for the online sale – most of the bids were by phone or via the internet. At last Friday’s auction, only a smattering of people withstood the stifling heat under a pavilion on City Island off the Susquehanna River to bid in person.
My auction pal Rebecca and I were among them. But once I we settled into some seats and listened to the bids, we knew that we would not be able to afford anything. She was interested in a poster titled “The Sensational Western Life Drama. Jesse James. The Missouri Outlaw” featuring a black man and woman (I didn’t exactly like the caricatured images) that sold for $1,400. It was a poster for a circa 1890-1900 traveling show about the life of the famed gunman and outlaw. It was apparently one of several posters for the show.
Goodbye to those tintypes and Cabinet cards I had my eye on. Too bad, because it’s not often that I come across early photos of African Americans. I did manage to find two tintypes of a man and woman last year while visiting the Brimfield Antiques Show in Massachusetts. Earlier this year, Swann Auction Galleries offered a grouping of photos and other memorabilia of black westerners (it did not sell).
African Americans were very much a part of the trek west. Slaves, free blacks and abolitionists made their way to the western territories before Reconstruction. The Exodusters took to the trails in the 1870s in search of a land where they could be free. Many of them were African Americans who were escaping harsh living in the southern states.
All-black towns sprouted in what was called Indian Territory, and by 1889 African Americans from the South found refuge in Oklahoma – with the help of Native Americans. Some of these towns still exist.
At the auction, I didn’t hang around to see how much the photos sold for because I figured I’d be outbidded on them, given the prices that most folks were spending on the other western items. Checking later, I found that I could have afforded at least two of them:
Three Cabinet cards sold for $175. They featured two men and a woman, photographed at studios in Nashville, TN; Chicago and San Diego. One of the men wore a five-star badge.
“Negro Cabinet Cards” from the Oklahoma Territory, circa 1890-1900. These appeared to be photos and one Cabinet card. They sold for $70.
A photo of an African American woman went for $30. The tintype of the couple sold for $300.
Soon, Rebecca and I wandered off to look over the tables of disparate western items scheduled to be sold on-site. Among them were several African American-related items:
I was familiar with this image because I had seen a copy of the poster before. Inscription: “Colored Man is No Slacker.” It was one of two 1918 World War I posters aimed at recruiting African Americans to fight for the United States.
This photo is credited to someone named Nelson. On the back was this inscription: “‘First Black Policeman and His Wife.’ Muskogee, Oklahoma. Dated 1911. Hand-tinted by Nelson. He is a painter who never revealed his techniques.”
The officer was not identified, but he resembles Bass Reeves, the first African American deputy U.S. marshal west of the Mississippi.
African American woman tells the fortunes of a white woman. Inscription: “1897, by Knaffl & Bro., Knoxville, TN.” The studio produced several of these photos of African Americans, many of them not at all flattering.
This is a reproduction of a painting titled “He Returns Victorious – 1783” by John Buxton. It depicted George Washington returning to Mount Vernon on Christmas Eve after resigning his military commission. Buxton based the painting on the excitement of the slaves at his arrival.
Rebecca had her own interpretation of what the slaves were reacting to: The African American man seated on a horse just in back of Washington alongside one of his aides. The slaves were in awe of “him,” she surmised.
The man was most likely William “Billy” Lee, who was Washington’s personal slave/servant in the field throughout the Revolutionary War. Lee can be seen in many portraits of the future president. Artists of that time – both here and in Europe – apparently included a black person as a “support figure” in paintings of noted people, according to a book on Washington.
After the war, Lee continued to be a slave at Mount Vernon; Washington finally freed him in his will in 1799. Lee died in 1828.
