Bidspirit auction | 1917. Vernacular Photograph Album of

1917. Vernacular Photograph Album of Family Life, Leisure, and WWI Military Interest. - An oblong format vernacular photograph album, documented with the year 1917, containing gelatin silver prints mounted on black construction paper leaves. The collection provides a comprehensive visual record of early 20th-century social history, featuring domestic scenes, leisure activities, and local architecture. Subjects include multi-generational family groups posing on residential porches, women dressed in period attire including day dresses and sailor suits, and children at play. Notable architectural and landscape photographs depict a shingle-sided house with shutters, a stone-foundation porch with a striped awning, and a tall, octagonal municipal water tower featuring a clock face and belfry. Leisure and travel themes are represented by individuals on horseback, figures climbing large split-trunk trees, and groups engaged in swimming and boating on a lake. Of specific historical interest are several photographs featuring men in World War I-era military uniforms, including a standing portrait of a soldier in a greatcoat and cap, and a group portrait of three men, one in a high-collared tunic. The photographs are annotated in white ink directly on the prints with the year 1917. The album is bound in a textured brown covering over boards, featuring a blind-tooled double border on the front cover. The album exhibits significant structural deterioration and wear. The binding is heavily degraded with extensive scuffing and flaking to the front and rear covers (photos 1 and 2). There is severe loss to the spine covering, exposing the underlying binder's board and mull (photo 3). The interior black paper leaves show brittle edges with chipping and small tears at the margins (photos 4, 8, and 11). Several pages show evidence of missing photographs where only adhesive residue or mounting corners remain (photo 13). The gelatin silver prints generally exhibit good clarity, though some show minor surface handling wear and peripheral silvering (photo 18).