Photo Album and Scrapbook Documenting an African American Couple's Travels Throughout the American West

American West: 1922-23. String tied photo album binding of black cloth measuring 11.25 x 7.25". Contains 129 original photographs, 74 commercially produced souvenir photos, five large format professional photos, six pictorial postcards, several pressed flowers, and a few ephemeral items. Handwritten annotations present on most leaves. Inscribed "Clara and Emil Stokes 1st and 2nd Honeymoon" to front pastedown, together with the dates of each trip (summer of 1922 and 1923). A photo album and scrapbook documenting the Western honeymoon trips of Clara Lynden and Emil Stokes, an African American couple from Kansas City, Missouri who were married in 1922. According to census records, in 1920 Clara was working as a teacher and Emil was a private chauffeur; by 1930 Emil was working in an auto shop, while Clara was proprietress of her own clothing store, the Emelen Ladies Ready to Wear Shop.

The album was carefully put together with the compiler, mixing various media together with many handwritten annotations, in order to tell the story of the trips and to provide a visual record of the sights they visited to serve as a keepsake back home. Many of the 129 photos taken by the couple depict tourist attractions throughout California and the American West, while a significant number of images depict the travelers themselves, and a few show the places they stayed, including their African American host families. The album begins with the couple at the Grand Canyon, including a photo of "the party" (including the couple and family members), and a photo of the group at the edge of the canyon (captioned "on the brink"). Next are a series of images of Los Angeles and Southern California: the couple posed in a cemetery ("the two in Los Angeles. Taken by Raymond Knox"), "our Los Angeles home", the home of "Mrs. Cudahy" (the wealthy wife of a fruit packer), the Douglas Fairbanks studio, "orange pickers", a trip to Catalina Island, Los Angeles harbor, and "drunks" on the street in Tijuana. The couple then traveled up the coast, with the next photos showing San Francisco, the couple posing on the grounds of UC Berkeley, "our home in Oakland," Shasta Springs, Multnomah Falls, Portland ("its the climate"), Seattle ("its the water"). From there they went East to Montana and Wyoming: Glacier National Park, with four images of Native Americans ("real Americans") including two chiefs, a stay with the Yanceys, a Black family in Great Falls, and "Mrs. Barpaw's House", followed by a series of images taken in Yellowstone National Park. Among these are shots of Emil feeding a rodent, posing in front of his cabin, trick cowboy riders at Pahaskia Tepee Hotel, the couple posing in front of Geysers and at the shores of Yellowstone Lake, and more.

Towards the end of the album meanwhile, is a page captioned "the beginning" with a lengthy note about the start of the trip, followed by a few images taken back home in Kansas City, including a pair of vehicles driven by Emil. An important record of African American tourism in the West, and a sophisticated keepsake representing a Black couple's efforts to narrate and document their own experience. Mild wear and yellowing to covers, mild creasing and soiling to album leaves, a few photos missing. Item #12642

Price: $7,500.00