Search

The Emmett M. Smith photograph album contains approximately 790 photographs and 6 pieces of ephemera related to the experiences of American soldier and engineer Cpl. Emmett Merle Smith while he served with the United States Army Air Service’s 800th Aero Repair Squadron in France during World War I.

The Emmett M. Smith photograph album contains approximately 790 photographs and 6 pieces of ephemera related to the experiences of American soldier and engineer Cpl. Emmett Merle Smith while he served with the United States Army Air Service’s 800th Aero Repair Squadron in France during World War I.

The album (28 x 37 cm) has black cloth covers with “Postal Souvenirs” stamped on the front; the covers and spine are in poor condition, as are a relatively small number photographs (some of which bear signs of insect damage).

On the inside of the front cover is a tipped-in copy of A History of the 800th Aero Repair Squadron, an official unit history account of the squadron published by its members in 1919. A small group of 10 loose photos and 6 pieces of ephemera are also present, including postcards, snapshots, YMCA guides to Paris and Marseilles, and two programs related to jointly held French and American Mother’s Day celebrations in Paris in May 1919 that were organized by L’Association des French Homes.

The first pasted-in photographs in the album are a series of 24 panoramic views showing Parisian scenery and famous landmarks. This section ends with another YMCA guide to Paris and a matriculation card for the Université de Paris Faculte des Sciences 1918-1919 for Emmett M. Smith that includes a portrait. Smith appears to likely have been the compiler of this album as he appears in numerous other photographs throughout. He was a member of the 800th Aero Repair Squadron’s Flight A, who were stationed at Camp de Souge near Bordeaux.

From pg. 15 through to the end of the album photographs are individually numbered from 1 to 781. While a typescript index describes photographs #25-28, there is no overarching index for the entire series. Numerous photos have captions (including manuscript captions), though the majority do not. Images come in a range of sizes and appear to have originated from numerous sources including German and French photographers as well as snapshots possibly taken by Smith himself. “AR” also appears on several photographs, possibly indicating that these images were taken by 800th Aero Repair Squadron photographers. However, by and large photographers are not identified for specific images.

In general, this album contains frontline scenes of battlefields, dead soldiers and animals, trench views, and ruined structures as well as images documenting camp life, military bases, and aerial reconnaissance views. Numerous photographs of military equipment, weaponry, airplanes, tanks, warships, soldiers, and street scenes showing cities/towns and civilians are also present. Post-war scenes include documented stays in Paris, southern France, Italy, and Spain.

• #3 (image showing charging soldiers, some in gas masks, with one man appearing to be clutch his throat while falling; captioned “Actual photo of action at Verdune”)
• #7, 651 (800th Aero Repair Squadron group portraits)
• #12 (shot of Kaiser Wilhelm talking with German officers)
• #15, 17 (aerial views of Albert, France, in November 1916)
• #48, 70.1 (pictures of German tanks)
• #73, 76 (view of citadel with German signage and view showing street signage by ruins; amongst other views that appear to be in Belgium)
• #109 ("Toul - French plane ready for a flight")
• #110, 111 (images showing the French and American sections of the 1918 panoramic painting Panthéon de la Guerre)
• #142, 143 (two images of a train wreck by “Chiljian,” possibly Armenian American photographer Pvt. Henry B. Chiljian)
• #146, 148 (two images showing plane crash wreckage)
• #167 (French observation balloon being inflated)
• #209 (Georges Clemenceau visiting aviation field)
• #219 (clipping showing aftermath of the Halifax explosion with inscription reading “Spent 10 day aboard ship here right after explosion was supposed to have been here just before explosion but was delayed”)
• #374 (post-war image captioned “U.S.A. bound” which precedes series of naval voyage images)
• #451+ (images from Italy and Southern France)
• #525 (railroad scene with “Chicago Opera Association” sign in view)
• #631 (view of three men at typewriters working in an office with maps and aerial photographs pinned to the wall)
• #638 (aerial view captioned “My aviation camp. Camp de Souge - North of Bordeaux from the 2nd Artillery Aerial Observation Island 1917-1918-1919”)
• #649 (view showing surgery being performed on a man in operating room captioned “Hell - without [anesthesia]”)
• #699 (view showing a queue outside of a YMCA in Bangor, Maine)
• #712, 715 (two portraits of young women captioned “My Italian fiancée” and “My Spanish fiancée”)

The New England family travel photograph album contains approximately 600 photographs that document the domestic life and foreign travels of an unidentified husband and wife couple from suburban Boston during the first decade of the 20th-century.

The New England family travel photograph album contains approximately 600 photographs that document the domestic life and foreign travels of an unidentified husband and wife couple from suburban Boston during the first decade of the 20th-century. The album (28.5 x 36 cm) has pebbled black leather covers with “Photographs” stamped in gold on the front. By and large, images are presented chronologically and many have extensive captions which mainly identify the locations pictured as well as certain individuals. It appears that many image captions were cut and pasted from white paper and added on top of pre-existing faded captions that had been written directly on the album pages. Some images that show people of African descent have subtly derogatory captions. Photographs showcasing the family’s domestic life include pictures of annual spring blooms in their backyard; friends and family; various domestic activities including interacting with pet cats; and regional outings such as visits to Mt. Washington, Point of Pines nature park in Revere, Massachusetts, and poet John Greenleaf Whittier's birthplace in Haverhill, Massachusetts.

In the summer of 1905, the couple travelled to Montreal and up the St. Lawrence River to Quebec City and beyond, resulting in the production of nearly ten pages of photographic highlights (pgs. 7-16). Later that summer, they also took photographs while vacationing in the Lake Sebago region of Maine with friends whom they later visited in Providence, Rhode Island (pgs. 16-20, 22). A visit to New Orleans, Louisiana, and Beauvoir, Mississippi, in December of 1906 is also documented (pgs. 30-37). In 1907 the couple undertook a period of extensive international travel beginning with a trip to England, Scotland, Ireland, Belgium, and France (pgs. 38-57). A second visit to Quebec in September 1907 is briefly represented (pgs. 57-58), while a series of pictures from a trip to St. Augustine, Florida, in April 1908 are also included (pgs. 59-62). Photographs related to two separate tours of the Caribbean and Central/South America in July and August of 1908 and March of 1909 make up a substantial portion of the album (pgs. 63-103); images from the first tour mainly include scenes from Caribbean islands such as St. Thomas, St. Croix, St. Kitts, Antigua, Guadeloupe, Dominica, Martinique, St. Lucia, and Barbados as well as British Guiana, while images from the second trip include scenes from Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Panama, Venezuela, Trinidad, Dominican Republic, and Cuba. Also present are several commercially-produced photographs, including a number of panoramic views, showing scenes from Mexico (pgs. 104-111). The majority of images taken during the couple’s travels consist of typical sightseeing photographs showing important cultural landmarks and historic buildings as well as street scenes, methods of transportation, and local people and industries. Throughout the album there are also numerous photographs taken aboard various transport vessels mid-voyage.

A few noteworthy historical events are minimally represented by photographs in this album, such as the January 15 1905 Washington Street Baptist Church fire in Lynn, Massachusetts (pgs. 2 & 3); the Quebec Bridge a few weeks after its collapse on August 29 1907 (pg. 57); the Great Chelsea Fire of 1908 (pg. 59); Panama Canal construction in 1909 (pgs. 87-89); long distance views of the site of the village of St. Pierre, Martinique, which was decimated by the volcanic eruption of Mt. Pelée on May 8 1902 (pg. 80); and the wreck of the battleship Maine in Havana Harbor (pg. 179). Individuals identified by captions throughout the album include Dr. Robert L. Bartlett (pgs. 4 & 89); “Miss Morse” (pg. 5); Stanley and Donald Clauss of Providence, Rhode Island (pgs. 17, 19 & 22); Hattie English, Lizzie English, “Mrs. Boynton,” and “Miss Lord” (pg. 19); Samuel Pickard (pg. 20); Jessie Pauline Whitney (pg. 21); "Mr. Little" (pgs. 19 & 22); William Rhodes (pg. 26); Maud Burdett (pgs. 38 & 58); George C. Hardin (pg. 74); Dr. Selah Merrill, American Consul in British Guiana (pg. 80); "Mrs. Parker" (pg. 85); and Hermann Ahrensburg (pg. 91). Other images of interest include a couple of photographs showing United States cavalrymen at camp in Lakeville, Massachusetts (pg. 2); a multiple exposure photograph showing the wife and other women (pg. 22); four photos showing a group of women that appear to be associated with a possible Masonic organization with the acronym “O.E.O.T.” (pg. 23); two photos of local boys diving in St. Lucia (pg. 72); a picture of a school for natives in St. Thomas where students were supposedly fined 10 cents a day for being absent (pg. 82); photos from Kingston, Jamaica, showing women working on a railroad and men operating a hand-made sugar mill (pg. 86); a group portrait of a baseball team in Venezuela (pg. 92); photos of the natural asphalt deposit Pitch Lake in Trinidad (pgs. 94 & 95); and photographs showing people with Brownie box cameras (pgs. 82 & 103).