Library Special Collections Blog
Old Mexico: 1892 Photo Album
Library Special Collections has recently acquired a spectacular album of photographs of Mexico from 1892. It contains 185 photographs by Charles A. Mayo and J.E. Weed who were based in Chicago, Illinois. The album was purchased with funds generously provided by the University Librarian Discretionary Fund.
Grafton's Tours, of Chicago, ran annual trips to "Old Mexico," and 1892 was the fourth year that they ran the trip. Thy ran their own special train, complete with a choice of sleeping accommodations and full dining cars. The brochure for the tour was at pains to point out that every possible detail of the journey was taken care of by the company, and that absolutely all expenses of the trip were included in the initial cost - $350 - allowing people to get the very most out of being in Mexico on the tour. Grafton's 1893 guide, "Grafton's Tours through Mexico, California and the Sandwich Islands," states that "The refined character of these tours, and the first-class manner in which they are conducted, attract as patrons the very best class of society people."
The tour lasted four weeks, and was designed to allow Americans to see the very best that Mexico had to offer, and according to the guide "These tours do not merely cover the direct line of travel between the Rio Grande and the City of Mexico, but diverge and penetrate sections of the sister republic which tourists traveling on regular trains miss seeing. The object in visiting a foreign country is to see as much of it as possible, and these tours have been arranged accordingly."
The guide also noted, as a sign of the times, "It will also be observed that Sunday railway travel is omitted - a feature that will commend itself to many."
The firm of May & Weed acted as "special artists" for Grafton's Tours. The firm accompanied the tour, taking photographs along the way. Customers could then make a selection from the photographs taken and then have them bound in to their own personal keepsake of the journey. The tour stopped in 41 places, including Mexico City, Cholula, Aguascalientes, Guadalajara, Guanajuato, Leon, Puebla, Queretaro, and Zacatecas, all of which are shown in the album.
The photographs are of particular interest, and of great value, to researchers for all the pictures of Mexican people going about their daily lives. There are views of the townspeople of Aguascalientes, bathing, doing laundry, and swimming in the acequia or canal leading from the town's well-known hot spring, as well as busy street views of Leon, Puebla, Mexico City and Zacatecas. There are also portraits of milk vendors, ox cart drivers, a man and wife perched on a horse, families outside their homes, water and wine carriers, people bathing and washing clothes, a crowd at a fountain, market vendors, cigarette factory workers, women making tortillas, guitar players, burro drivers and many others. Other subjects include railroads, volcanoes, waterfalls, aqueducts, bullfighting, cathedrals, Chapultepec Castle, and the site of the execution of Emperor Maximilian.
The library catalog record, with a full description of the album, can be found here. To page the album to view it in our reading room, click on the "Request material" button near the top of the record.
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By Simon Elliott