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The Boston Mob Pennsylvania Tour and Cross-Country Tour photograph albums contain pictures taken during travels in the Mid-Atlantic States, the northern Midwest, Colorado, and California in the early 1890s. The photographs show city scenes and buildings, natural scenery, and travelers.

The Boston Mob Pennsylvania Tour and Cross-Country Tour photograph albums contain 213 pictures taken during travels in the Mid-Atlantic States, the northern Midwest, Colorado, and California in the early 1890s. Each album is 29cm x 35cm with titles stamped in gold on the front covers. Most photographs are captioned.

The first volume, "Pennsylvania Tour 1891," contains 77 items, comprised of 15.5cm x 20cm prints pasted one to a page and 9cm x 12cm prints pasted three or four to a page. The first 7 pictures and the final picture were taken at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, including views of battlefield monuments and a military cemetery. The photographer also traveled to Luray, Virginia; Baltimore, Maryland; Washington, D.C.; and Richmond, Virginia. A few shots are group portraits of male and female tourists, who posed once in a railroad car by a banner reading "Boston Mob," and many others are images of city streets and natural scenery, including a series taken in and around a natural bridge and Cedar Creek in Virginia. While visiting Washington, D.C., the compiler photographed landmarks such as the Washington Monument, United States Treasury, White House, and State, War, and Navy Building. Ferries, horse-drawn trolleys (running on tracks), trains, bridges, and railroad depots are visible in many photographs. Of note is an aerial photograph of the White House and surrounding buildings taken from the top of the Washington Monument and a group of 5 items showing African American children playing on a street in Luray, Virginia.

The second volume, "Across the Continent 1892," contains 136 photographs (9cm x 12cm each), usually pasted four to a page. Most items are views of buildings and natural scenery in locations such as Niagara Falls; Sioux City, Iowa; Denver, Colorado; San Francisco, California; Los Angeles, California; Seattle, Washington; and Duluth, Minnesota, as well as other towns in Colorado and California. The pictures show donkeys, town and city buildings, a cattle ranch, and rock formations, particularly in the Garden of the Gods; the photographer visited Seattle during a snowy winter. A number of photographs show a smelter in Denver, Colorado. One group of California photographs features orange trees. Other items of note are a "Spirit Picture" of two overlapped city scenes and a shot of Grover Cleveland's inauguration on March 4, 1893.

This album contains photographs taken by the Philadelphia photographic business of Robert Newell & Son in the late 1860s. Images include views of Philadelphia buildings and street scenes; views of Cape May, New Jersey; a few scenes in New York City, studies of tableware; portraits; collages; groups of fire-fighters and equipment; and reproductions of paintings and engravings.

This album (35cm x 27cm, 50 pages) contains 163 images, including architectural views, landscape photographs, portraits, reproductions of paintings and engravings, objects, and commercial advertising displays. The volume, which contains an image of Robert Newell's photographic wagon, an advertising montage made up from images in the album, and an advertising montage for "R. Newell & Son, Artistic Business & Landscape Photographers," may have been used as a sample book for the Newell firm. Many of the photographs are dated in the 1860s, prior to the 1872 date that Robert's son Henry joined the business. The album was in an unbound and fragmented condition when acquired, later reassembled in Mylar sleeves with modern binding by the Clements. The page sequence is based on evidence of the original binding and the contents. Some images appear to have been removed from the album, including a portrait of Boston Corbett, the killer of John Wilkes Booth. Captions in pencil appear to have been added later, possibly by Robert or Henry Newell.

Many photographs are views of individual buildings and streets in Philadelphia including Independence Hall; the Philadelphia Mint; Girard Bank; the Arch Street Theater; plus other commercial buildings, churches, homes, and newly constructed residential areas. Items of interest include photographs of the procession of a visiting Japanese diplomatic delegation; the aftermath of a boiler explosion on Samson Street; canals and locks along the Schuylkill River; a high bridge under construction over a canal; an early oil well; images of commercial products and goods such as silver, cutlery, guns, and a display by importers Field, Langstroth & Co.

Photographic portraits include pictures of unidentified individuals, some likely actors and actresses; a reproduction of a painting of "Bishop Potter;" and a small full-length portrait of the bare-knuckle boxer John C. Heenan. The album also contains photographic montages of United States presidents and Civil War generals; a reproduction of a patriotic painting of George Washington welcoming Abraham Lincoln to heaven; a photograph of "Liberty Indignant" -- a patriotic tableau made up of a woman dressed as Liberty, with a portrait of Lincoln, a flag, and eagle.

The album contains reproductions of unidentified paintings, genre scenes, and engraved portraits. A view of the Fulton Bridge over Broadway may be the only New York City view in the album.

Of particular note are a picture of Robert Newell's photographic cart at Cape May, New Jersey, with a stereo camera visible; several images of vacationers, bathers, cottages, hotels, the railroad office, and an ice cream parlor at Cape May; a rare view of the interior of the Union Volunteer Refreshment Saloon in Philadelphia; a view of a crowd at the "rebel wigwam," the temporary convention hall built opposite Girard College for the first national political convention after the Civil War; and several pages of small images of Philadelphia fire-fighting companies and their equipment.

Of importance in the history of photography is a print from 1865 of what is believed to be the first experiment with indoor flash photography by J. C. Browne, showing a family group in a living room (Taft, pg.202).