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PROPERTY OF A CALIFORNIA COLLECTOR
AN ALBUM OF 141 PHOTOGRAPHS
L. A. HUFFMAN
Details
AN ALBUM OF 141 PHOTOGRAPHS
L. A. HUFFMAN
gelatin silver printing-out prints, from a series of photographs taken in the 1870s - 1880s, including "round up views," "sheep pictures," "some old hunting scenes," "... days with the buffalo hunters, 1878-82," "Custer battle field," "Indian cabinets," "Indian views," and "typical Montana," each with number and copyright credit in the negative, corner mounts, and hand-written captions
Dimensions: images ranging from 3½ x 4 in. (8.8 x 10.2 cm.) to 6 x 8 in. (15.2 to 20.3 cm.)
L. A. HUFFMAN
gelatin silver printing-out prints, from a series of photographs taken in the 1870s - 1880s, including "round up views," "sheep pictures," "some old hunting scenes," "... days with the buffalo hunters, 1878-82," "Custer battle field," "Indian cabinets," "Indian views," and "typical Montana," each with number and copyright credit in the negative, corner mounts, and hand-written captions
Dimensions: images ranging from 3½ x 4 in. (8.8 x 10.2 cm.) to 6 x 8 in. (15.2 to 20.3 cm.)
Provenance
Purchased from L. A. Huffman by the present owner's ancestor.
Further details
Accompanied by a photocopy of the following typewritten letter by L. A. Huffman, as well a price list for photographs in the album.
"Fate had it that I should be Post Photographer with the Army engaged here in the Yellowstone - Big Horn Country during the late seventies in the stirring Indian campaigns close following the destruction of Custer's command. The Northern Pacific Railway had not yet entered Montana. George had not yet made the Kodak but Thanks be, there was the old wet plate, the collodion bottle and bath. I made photographs. Yes, is was worth while, despite the attendant and ungodly smell surrounding that old process.
Round about us the army of buffalo hunters - red man and white - were waging the final war of extermination upon the last great herds of American Bison seen upon this continent.
Then came the cattleman, the "Trail Boss" with his army of cowboys, and the great cattle roundups. The the army of railway builders. That was the fatal coming. It was then as Emerson Hough puts it that "the belt slipped the engine raced." One looked about and said, "This is the last West." It was not so. There was no more West after that. It was a dream and a forgetting, a chapter forever closed.
But this is not to be Recollections of a Country Photographer. That will be printed otherwhere, but this is to tell you that I preserved many of the negatives made in those times. I have them here in my workshop and make original prints direct from them. There are 101 prints in the large collection and 40 in the small one, each complete and comprehensive. They are in a class by themselves - they tell their own story. You ought to see them. Here are the condensed lists of titles and prices of the ten series separately or collectively, and these two collections of 141 prints are the cream of a thousand plates. L. A. Huffman, Miles City, Montana"
"Fate had it that I should be Post Photographer with the Army engaged here in the Yellowstone - Big Horn Country during the late seventies in the stirring Indian campaigns close following the destruction of Custer's command. The Northern Pacific Railway had not yet entered Montana. George had not yet made the Kodak but Thanks be, there was the old wet plate, the collodion bottle and bath. I made photographs. Yes, is was worth while, despite the attendant and ungodly smell surrounding that old process.
Round about us the army of buffalo hunters - red man and white - were waging the final war of extermination upon the last great herds of American Bison seen upon this continent.
Then came the cattleman, the "Trail Boss" with his army of cowboys, and the great cattle roundups. The the army of railway builders. That was the fatal coming. It was then as Emerson Hough puts it that "the belt slipped the engine raced." One looked about and said, "This is the last West." It was not so. There was no more West after that. It was a dream and a forgetting, a chapter forever closed.
But this is not to be Recollections of a Country Photographer. That will be printed otherwhere, but this is to tell you that I preserved many of the negatives made in those times. I have them here in my workshop and make original prints direct from them. There are 101 prints in the large collection and 40 in the small one, each complete and comprehensive. They are in a class by themselves - they tell their own story. You ought to see them. Here are the condensed lists of titles and prices of the ten series separately or collectively, and these two collections of 141 prints are the cream of a thousand plates. L. A. Huffman, Miles City, Montana"