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The European Tour, Yosemite, and Minnesota photograph album contains pictures of scenes in various European countries, reproductions of famous paintings, portraits of prominent Europeans, and comic strips. Many of the visual items are engravings and colored illustrations.

The European Tour, Yosemite, and Minnesota photograph album (27cm x 34cm) contains around 780 photographs, engravings, and illustrations of scenes, people, architecture and artwork from various European countries, Great Britain, and the United States. Newspaper clippings and comic strips appear at the end. Most of the photographs appear to be commercially produced prints of the type made for tourists, and many of the illustrations are in series related to a particular place. The images range in size from full page to smaller items pasted in as many as 11 or 12 to a page. Original covers are missing.

Countries represented in the photographs include present-day Turkey, Greece, Italy, Germany, France, and Great Britain around the 1870s. Bird's-eye views, street scenes, landmarks such as religious buildings and ancient structures (particularly in Athens and Rome), famous paintings and sculptures, bas reliefs, and other works of art predominate. Of interest are a group of pictures showing traditional Neapolitan funeral costume, and a photograph of Mount Vesuvius erupting in 1872. Portraits of local ethnic "types" in traditional dress, political and religious leaders, and royalty are also present. The engravings and other illustrations, sometimes colored, often depict similar scenes and landmarks.

The final pages contain photographs taken in present-day Yosemite National Park and Minnesota, a newspaper clipping showing a "dynamiter in [a] Los Angeles police station," electrical equipment related to the New York City Subway, and a group portrait of firefighters in Watertown, New York. A group of newspaper clippings of the comic strip "Sambo and his Funny Noises" are pasted on top of European views. The comic strip, by William F. Marriner, ran from 1905-1914 and chronicled the misadventures of "Sambo," later "Samuel Johnson," a racist stereotype caricature of an African American boy.

This nineteenth-century album contains 46 once-bound pen-and-ink caricatures on heavy card stock, each card with or formerly with metal eyelets on one short edge. A pencil inscription at the back of the volume reads, "Mr. Albert L. Briggs, Providence, RI," and internal references to Providence, Rhode Island, further suggests that either Briggs or another local resident may have produced the artwork. The figures represented in the volume vary widely and some are more sympathetic or more disparaging than others. The illustrator relied heavily on exaggerated features, stereotypes, and jokes directed at people's physical appearance to provide social commentary especially on race, ethnicity, gender, and class.

This nineteenth-century album contains 46 once-bound pen-and-ink caricatures on heavy card stock, each card with or formerly with metal eyelets on one short edge. A pencil inscription at the back of the volume reads, "Mr. Albert L. Briggs, Providence, RI," and internal references to Providence, Rhode Island, further suggests that either Briggs or another local resident may have produced the artwork. The figures represented in the volume vary widely and some are more sympathetic or more disparaging than others. The illustrator relied heavily on exaggerated features, stereotypes, and jokes directed at people's physical appearance to provide especially social commentary on race, ethnicity, gender, and class.

At least seven of the illustrations relate to women, including drawings referring to women's rights and various women's roles as mothers, performers, physicians, and cooks. One, labelled "What is home without a mother," may be a reference to a song by the same name published in 1854, and it features a woman with a monstrous face. Another titled "HANNAH LONG" depicts a woman peddling "Quaker Bitters" (probably the Providence, Rhode Island, patent medicine by that name) and may be referring to Hannah Longshore (1819-1901), who graduated from the first class of the Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1851.

Many of the caricatures focus on impoverished or working class people, showing individuals in tattered clothing or in lower-paying professions such as a farmer, a shoeshine, and a seeming gravedigger. A number of illustrations depict men in various stages of intoxication or alcoholism. Forms of social disorder are highlighted in caricatures of a convict and of a knife-wielding murderer labelled "THE MAN THAT KILLED JOHN GILPIN." Commentary on physical and mental disability are also represented, in drawings of a mentally ill man labelled "Luny" and a man with unaligned eyes and feet labelled "On exhibition."

Other caricatures reflect racial, ethnic, and religious stereotypes. Two racist caricatures depict African Americans, including one of a Black Congressman and one of an Uncle Remus character. Another caricature depicts a recent immigrant, while two are anti-Semitic (those labeled "The Torturer" and "NAME IT"). Two figures depict high religious figures, from Catholic or Orthodox Christian churches; one wears a robe, a fur-brimmed mitre, and snowshoes. The word "KAMSCHASA" is written near the bottom of the robe, likely referring to the Kamchatka peninsula in Russia.

Other caricatures highlight people based on their height, weight, profession (such as a king, a knight, an editor, a lecturer), or social posturing. For example, attitudes like dignity, contentment, nosiness, and bashfulness are spotlighted. Others appear more innocuous, such as illustrations of someone reading the morning newspaper and another of someone taking "Rush's Pills," but underlying subtexts for many of the images likely have additional meaning.