National Guard; US Mexico Border War U SBiblio.com
1917ref. 223051917. Wakefield Ben. U.S. field artillery soldier photograph archive documenting National Guard mobilization and artillery training at the United States-Mexico border during the Border War created in El Paso Texas and surrounding areas in 1917. The photographs record the service of Ben Wakefield of Toledo Ohio a member of Battery C 1st Battalion Ohio Field Artillery stationed at Fort Bliss during the period of heightened border militarization following the 1916 raid on Columbus New Mexico led by Francisco "Pancho" Villa and the subsequent U.S. Punitive Expedition under General John J. Pershing. The images provide visual documentation of field artillery operations mounted logistics and daily camp life among National Guard troops deployed to reinforce the border during a moment when the United States was simultaneously confronting instability in northern Mexico and preparing for entry into the First World War. Through portraits training scenes and encampment views the archive records the mobilization of state militia forces into federal service during one of the most significant domestic military deployments of the early twentieth century. Photo archive consisting of 31 silver gelatin photographs produced in El Paso Texas and nearby encampments in 1917. Approximately half bear pencil inscriptions on the verso identifying Wakefield or the location including captions reading "Wakefield" "Ben Center Wakefield" "Wakefield Horse" and "El Paso." One photograph bears a developing stamp from Bohne's Studio of Toledo Ohio. The photographs depict Wakefield and fellow artillerymen posed in regulation campaign hats breeches and puttees along with multiple images of horse-drawn artillery equipment including the standard U.S. Army M1902 3-inch field gun. In one photograph Wakefield and three soldiers pose beside the artillery piece with Wakefield seated before the gun wearing a slouch cap. Additional images show artillery teams maneuvering guns across open desert terrain using horses and mules soldiers marching in formation against the mountainous landscape of the Chihuahuan Desert and a photograph captioned "game Football El Paso" depicting soldiers playing football on a dusty parade ground with rows of canvas tents behind them. Another image shows the field gun positioned behind a brush screen during nighttime operations suggesting artillery drills or simulated combat exercises conducted during the border deployment. Archive of 31 photographs. Silver gelatin prints ranging approximately from 2 x 1 inches to 5 x 3 inches. The photographs collectively document the material culture and operational structure of U.S. National Guard artillery units stationed along the border during the 1916-1917 mobilization period when Fort Bliss served as a major staging ground for forces supporting the Punitive Expedition and guarding against further cross-border conflict. The images illustrate horse-drawn artillery transport tent encampments arranged in orderly rows and the social life of soldiers during extended deployments in the Southwest. Light edge wear and minor silvering visible on several prints with occasional handling marks consistent with age. Images remain clear with strong contrast. Overall very good condition. A cohesive visual record of National Guard field artillery service on the U.S.-Mexico border during the final phase of the Border War and the broader military mobilization preceding American entry into the First World War. unknown
ref. 47618Various publishers & dates. Extensive photographic archive documenting events on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico Border during the Mexican Revolution focused primarily on the Border Wars in Texas and the Veracruz Incident of 1914 comprised entirely of contemporary images all but a few of which are original vintage prints. The collection includes: • Sixty-one commercially-produced real-photo postcards ca. 14cm x 9cm or the reverse; • Six commercially-printed postcards using non-photographic processes same dimensions; • Three carte-de-visite portraits ca 9cm x 6cm mounted to cards; • Eight small-format photographs ranging from 14cm x 8cm to 11cm x 16cm of which three appear to be commercial images; • Three 8x10 20cm x 25cm photographic prints printed at some later date from original plates but apparently not contemporary; • One vintage 4x6 10cm x 16cm photograph mounted on board. All but a dozen or so images are captioned in the negative and most are additionally captioned in pencil in a later hand on verso. Approximately half the images include no photo credit; of those that do we have identified the following photographers: W.H. Horne D.W. Hoffman Walter P. Hadsell Van Zile & Chalk and L.O. She. Condition is generally Very Good. Two of the photo postcards are damaged with abrasions to significant portions of image area; the remainder show various degrees of edge wear aging and creasing but by and large image quality remains excellent. None of the postcards are postally used though a few include brief contemporary notes on verso. The refusal of Mexican President Porfirio Dîaz to cede power to his rival Francisco Madero in the elections of 1910 resulted in a violent large-scale revolt by campesinos and leftists setting off the thirty-year long Mexican Revolution. American involvement in the conflict began in 1911 when President William H. Taft under the guise of heightening border security moved to back Díaz against the rebels. The resulting mobilization - Taft sent more than 20000 American troops nearly a quarter of all American forces to the Mexican border with especially heavy concentrations in Texas and New Mexico - was to that date the largest mobilization of American military forces in peacetime. At the same time many Americans whose sympathies were not aligned with the Díaz dictatorship including anarchists wobblies Native Americans and more than a few soldiers of fortune went south to fight on the side of the rebels. The resulting border conflict which took place over nearly a decade occasionally pitting American insurrectos against American Federal troops resulted in thousands of Mexican and hundreds of American deaths. The Border Wars reached their climax around the period 1912-1914 which happened to coincide with a near-hysterical vogue for postcards among the American public. The result is that the Mexican Revolution is perhaps the first major armed conflict to have been extensively photo-documented in real time and certainly the first to have had a significant mass audience for that documentation. At least three hundred commercial photographers have been identified in association with the Mexican Revolution and they produced tens of thousands of images ranging from the relatively innocuous e.g. peaceful street and harbor scenes in Veracruz to the horrific lynchings and sidewalk cremations. This entire range of content is represented in the current collection along with portraits of most of the key players on the Mexican side including El Presidente Porfirio Díaz; his primary rival and successor Francisco Madero; Madero's successor by coup Victoriano Huerta; and various military figures including General Juan Navarro Felipe Angeles Ramírez and numerous others. Many of these semi-professional images though produced with commercial intent "professional" remains a guarded term in the context of what was essentially battlefield exploitation photography are valuable for their almost off-hand depictions of violent day-to-day life on the contested border including the casual destruction and acceptance of death from both sides that seemed to define this conflict. Of particular note are numerous of photographs of African-American troops the so-called "Buffalo Soldiers" as well as at least one image depicting Native American soldiers in uniform. Locales represented include Camp Grossmont in California; El Paso and Laredo in Texas and their cross-border sister cities Juarez and Nuevo Laredo; Veracruz site of the American incursion of 1914 known as the "Veracruz Incident"; and various unidentified encampments and battle sites in both Texas and Mexico. A wide-ranging and compelling photographic collection documenting not only a key period in U.S. military diplomacy - one which for better or worse set the tone for American-Mexican relations for the succeeding century - but also a tangible manifestation of the first widespread public incarnation in America of the picture-postcard as a vehicle for both propaganda and photojournalism. unknown
1946ref. 0001566PRESIDIO TEXAS WEST TEXAS TX. Good. 1946. On offer is a very interesting archive of two 2 manuscript relics of mid-20th Century border problems of illegal immigration being note pads of a West Texas border patrol agent detailing his daily activities during work hours. They start in May 1st 1946 through September 30th 1951. He worked West Texas around Presidio and does a super job detailing his work life from the mundane: shoeing his own horse and the names of other patrol agents he worked with to the exciting: hunting and catching aliens hauling them off to jail naming the ranches he patrolled and much more. All pages in both booklets are written on. The binding is loose in the books but all pages intact and overall G.; 24mo - over 5" - 5¾" tall; KEYWORDS: HISTORY OF WEST TEXAS PRESIDIO BORDER PATROL AGENT ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION IRREGULAR IMMIGRATION UNAUTHORIZED IMMIGRATION UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRATION ILLEGAL ALIEN ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT CLANDESTINE WORKERS SANS PAPIERS WITHOUT PAPERS UNAUTHORIZED ENTRY BORDER CROSSING HUMAN TRAFFICKING HUMAN SMUGGLING SOUTH WESTERN TEXAS AMERICANA HANDWRITTEN MANUSCRIPT DOCUMENT LETTER AUTOGRAPH DIARY JOURNAL LOG KEEPSAKE WRITER HAND WRITTEN DOCUMENTS SIGNED LETTERS MANUSCRIPTS HISTORICAL HOLOGRAPH WRITERS DIARIES JOURNALS LOGS AUTOGRAPHS PERSONAL MEMOIR MEMORIAL PERSONAL HISTORYantiquité contrat vélin document manuscrit papier Antike Brief Pergament Dokument Manuskript Papier oggetto d'antiquariato atto velina documento manoscritto carta antigüedad hecho vitela documento manuscrito papel. . unknown
1917ref. List2530VP 1917. Scrapbook measuring 15 ½ x 10 ½ inches. With forty leaves most with newspaper clippings and varied ephemera attached. Boards detached contents generally fine. Laid in is a blueprint map entitled Map of Part of Hidalgo County Texas Showing Line of March in my Mexican Border Service 1916. Made from Survey Notes taken on the march by Corp. C.A. Rice 74 Inf. N.G.U.S. Buffalo N.Y. Armory. Map measuring 33 ½ x 14 ¾ inches irregularly shaped and apparently complete. Very Good. A scrapbook documenting the military service of 1st Sergeant Samuel Gaffney of the 74th National Guard New York in the Mexican Border Service. Gaffney documents the campaign in great detail through printed matter - with each of the forty leaves containing material affixed including panoramic photographs advertisements from local businesses along the routes programs from entertainment offered to the troops military orders and official correspondence and many affixed newspaper articles and photographs. The scrapbook is most notable for the inclusion of an unrecorded map by Charles A. Rice the Buffalo native who would eventually map the campaign in larger fashion in a map entitled Map Showing Lines and March and Border Patrols in my Mexican Border Service 1916-1917. The map here just showing the route through Hidalgo County is unrecorded. The larger map - which was produced as souvenirs for the other members of the 74th - is quite scarce as well with five copies known to exist per OCLC with two different numbers. This blueprint map which appears to be complete cartographically and missing only the ornamental border on one portion shows the route taken early in the campaign in 1916. The Buffalo native Rice 1885-1931 who would eventually settle in Texas after the conflict also wrote a history of the 74th during the campaign. Rice published the maps and memoir himself. The map shows the route in great detail showing the location of wells farms roads and identifying landowners. Water quality and abundance is understandably a common theme in Rice’s notes. Some notes show the location of bandits smugglers and the like. We find no other examples of blueprint maps by Rice. Other highlights from the scrapbook include seven panoramic photographs of the 74th encamped at Pharr; a broadside advertisement for the shop of Agustin Acevedo in Pharr listing prices of goods; a handbill advertising the 74th’s Minstrels and Great Entertainment show on September 16 1916; an advertisement for a production entitled Glorious Liberty at the National Theatre in Pharr; two circulars instructing troop movement issued by Headquarters Brownsville District; several postcards with songs about the campaign; several snapshots; a mounted albumen photograph of troops at rest with the notation “Corp Frederick Paid” verso; a typed poem entitled “Home Again” and a notebook page describing his activities from January 1917 onward; and a thanksgiving menu for 1916 for the holiday spent at Pharr. The remainder of the scrapbook is composed of affixed newspaper clippings which provide extensive information on the 74th collected in a single volume. Overall a significant scrapbook with much information to glean for students of the 74th’s activities with the map providing a unique cartographic reference of the early days of the campaign. unknown
1911ref. 220241911. Pancho Villa and División del Norte Mounted Troops of the Mexican Revolution. A vintage Extra Large silver gelatin photograph by Agustín Casasola measuring 16" x 20" . Striking and rare original photograph from the early years of the Mexican Revolution depicting Pancho Villa and a detachment of his División del Norte mounted on horseback before a weathered colonial-era convent or mission compound likely in the state of Chihuahua or Durango. All men are in uniform heavily armed with bandoliers and rifles wearing wide-brimmed sombreros characteristic of the revolutionary norteño aestheticn. The image documents revolutionary leader Pancho Villa and a group of armed fighters assembled before a walled ecclesiastical compound in the mountainous regions of northern Mexico. Villa emerged as one of the central military figures of the Mexican Revolution commanding cavalry forces known as the División del Norte that operated across Chihuahua Durango and other northern states during the uprising against the long dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz. Photographs produced during the early revolutionary campaigns played an important role in circulating images of insurgent leadership and helped establish Villa's reputation as a charismatic popular commander. Casasola Agustín Víctor photograph. Casasola Studio circa 1911. Large silver gelatin photograph with "Casasola Praga No. 16 Mexico" studio stamp on versoPancho Villa and revolutionary cavalry before church compound. Mexico City: The photograph depicts Villa and a detachment of mounted soldiers positioned before a colonial era church or mission compound likely located in the northern Mexican states where Villa's forces operated. The men are mounted on horseback and dressed in revolutionary military attire including bandoliers rifles and wide brimmed sombreros associated with the norteño revolutionary aesthetic. Villa believed to be the third rider from the right appears in the central grouping of mounted officers. The architectural background features domed towers and high walls characteristic of colonial religious buildings creating a visual contrast between the armed revolutionary force and the remnants of Mexico's colonial institutional landscape. Agustín Víctor Casasola founded one of the most influential photographic studios documenting the Mexican Revolution producing images that later formed the core of the Archivo Casasola. Casasola photographers recorded revolutionary leaders soldiers civilians and daily life during the conflict shaping both Mexican historical memory and international visual understanding of the revolution. Large format prints such as this example were produced in limited numbers for press circulation archives or exhibitions documenting the conflict. Photograph measures approximately 16 × 20 inches. Minor edge wear with a small closed tear at the upper left margin and light creasing at the lower right margin away from the image area; print surface clean with strong tonal range and detail. Overall condition very good. unknown
1921ref. 6158Various places in Mexico Texas and Arizona 1921. Overall about very good. 106 real photo postcards including six duplicates. Varying sizes but most approximately 3.5 x 5.5 inches. Scattered contemporary and later manuscript annotations. Light wear at edges occasionally a bit heavier. Some scattered damp and dust soiling. A substantial collection of over 100 real photo postcards that depict scenes from the Mexican Revolution and the related border war interventions of the United States Army. The images included here some quite violent in nature are dated from 1913 to 1922; most are captioned in the negative. They show ruined buildings military encampments injured soldiers and corpses on both sides of the U.S.-Mexican border and in Veracruz. Also included are identified portraits of individuals such as Francisco Madero Pancho Villa on his deathbed and American General John Pershing. Many of the images are by El Paso photographer W.H. Horne who was one of the most prominent photographers of Border War incidents captured the Columbus Raid in New Mexico and photographed skirmishes near his home in El Paso. Also present are a short series of images by Cal Osborn who documented border incidents near Douglass Arizona and a group by William Hadsell William Hadsell an American resident of Veracruz who ran a Kodak store and was a prolific recorder of events there. Several Mexican photographers are represented as well. Many of the photos are quite gruesome in nature and show corpses in various states of decomposition as well as the aftermath of battles and executions but in all provide an arresting visual document of the interventions by the United States in Mexico during the 1910s. Powerful images of the Mexican Revolution and the resulting upheaval there and along the border with the United States. unknown
