?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500
(AMERICAN INDIANS.) Large collection of Real Photo postcards collected by a girl at the Sac & Fox Indian School. 86 Real Photo postcards, 16 other photographs, and a 1927 manuscript note; generally moderate wear, a few quite worn or defective, most with manuscript notes on verso but generally no stamps or postal markings, a few captioned in the negative. Stroud, OK and elsewhere, bulk circa 1909-1918 and undated
The central figure here is Clara Falls (1898-1975) of Avery, OK. She attended the Sac and Fox Indian School a few miles to the south in Stroud, OK (where famed athlete Jim Thorpe had attended a few years earlier as a boy). Many or most of these images depict members of the Sac and Fox nation. Highlights include: a view of the Pawnee Indian Agency; a portrait of "Niskocot, Sauk Indian" of Stroud in traditional dress; a group of 4 named friends in traditional dress holding a modern "Sac and Fox" pennant; a family of four named passengers in a car, holding an Oklahoma City pennant; the interior and exterior of the home of white Wild West performer Pawnee Bill; and a uniformed American Indian baseball team. Several show groups of students at the Sac and Fox Indian School, and many identify Clara Falls (along with dozens of friends and family members). Two postcards apparently date from World War One: a pair of named uniformed soldiers in Ellenz, Germany; and an unnamed American Indian soldier in uniform "taken at Hempstead, L.I." The notes on verso range from identifications of the sitter to a few complete messages; some are unmarked. One is addressed in an American Indian language. Many are addressed "Clara Falls, Stroud" although they did not go through the mail. A few postcard images are credited to photographer C.F. York of Stroud in the negative.
The non-postcard photographs include cropped cabinet cards and unmounted snapshots. One shows five young men, most armed with guns. Most are uncaptioned, although one is dated September 1933 at the Sac and Fox Agency. The lone manuscript is a transfer letter for two women from the Chilocco Indian Baptist Church to the Only Way Baptist Church, 1927.
