American Boy Scouts photographs, 30 early images of Scouting at its foundation in America.
New York: Underwood & Underwood, c. 1915. Ephemera. Proof sheet of photographs of Boy Scouts of America in its infancy. The Boy Scouts in America started in 1910. Camp Archibald Butt (named in one of the photos) ran from 1914 to 1916 on the shore of Chesapeake Bay.
Underwood & Underwood were founded in 1887 and were an American firm that made and sold stereo views and later rented images to newspapers and other publications. In 1895 they were the first to enter the education field with the production of stereo views and, in 1898, they began marketing the Underwood Travel System - boxed sets of views of a particular country with descriptions of the scenes printed on the back in 6 languages. They then began to hire photographers and buy images from all over the world. These proof sheets were used to choose the particular view selected for the stereo card. The numbers on the sheet were used to locate the negatives (mostly glass plate), which were kept in large files. The majority of the images are unpublished and most of the negatives were destroyed.
This sheet is a file sheet from those archives with each photograph titled in ink beneath the image. Titles include Hon. James Bonaparte presenting medals to four boys, Wireless operator on camp Arkansas Scouts on duty at the state fair ground, use of ax, Life Saving Badge requirement, Making good Americans, a scout is loyal, a scout is courteous, a scout is kind , a scout is cheerful, a new troop is learning to tie knots, advanced first aid , swimming, lighting a fire in the open with not more than two matches, Sir Robert Baden Powell.
Elephant folio proof sheet of photographs, titles in ink beneath images, chipped around the edge of the sheet affecting some of the plate. Albumen photographs bright. Good + overall. Item #27864
Price: $650.00