Cowboy Photos

Someone asked how to link to the Easton Curiosity Shop and, of course, I had no answer. Here's what to do. Use your browsers bookmark feature to bookmark this address:

http://eastoncuriosityshop.blogspot.com

I'm a big fan of Firefox as a browser despite the excellence of Google Chrome and the fact that this blog wouldn't be possible without Google Blogger, iGoogle, and Google Reader.

Today's theme comes from the Denver Post's Plog which is their name for a blog that features photos. I got this link from Arts and Letters Daily, and what a link it is. Between 1887 and 1892 photographer John C. H. Grabill sent 188 photos from the Wild West to the Library of Congress for copyright protection. He worked around Deadwood and is most famous for his pictures of the aftermath of the Wounded Knee Massacre. Grabill worked at the high point of black and white photo plates so the 66 photos of cowboys, Indians, miners, towns, trains are minutely detailed and many are spectacular. My favorite, however, is a simple shot of Wild Bill Hickok's gravestone erected in 1891 seventeen years after his death in 1874. The epitaph "Custer was lonely without him."

I'm also including another link to a Denver Post plog that features shots of American cities before 1950 (often much before like the famous shot of Richmond, Virginia buildings blown up with flour dust by retreating Confederates). Below is a shot of Irish clam diggers in Boston in 1882.