CORNELL UNIVERSITY SIGMA CHI FRATERNITY PHOTO ALBUM 1904-1905 STUDENTS IN DRAG TOBOGGAN RUN SPRING DAY CAMPUS SENIOR TRIP

Item #1669

This worn but remarkable early 20th-century photograph album contains 174 photographs, with the central and most compelling section devoted to Cornell University student and fraternity life in 1904 and 1905. The album appears to have belonged to a male Cornell student connected with Sigma Chi, and includes unusually lively documentation of college life, fraternity culture, campus views, student performances, winter recreation, crew, sailing, and travel.

The album begins with 26 miscellaneous photographs, including travel and location views, with evidence of missing photographs in this opening section. The following 148 photographs are annotated Cornell University images, and this Cornell section appears substantially complete, with no obvious losses among the Cornell photographs seen. Many photographs are neatly captioned in white ink on the album leaves.

The Cornell material is excellent. Included are views of Sage Chapel, Sibley College, Percy Field, Library Tower, Cayuga Lake from Cornell Heights, Ithaca Falls, Taughannock Falls, Triphammer Falls and the Hydraulic Laboratory, Cascadilla Dam, and other campus and Ithaca-area locations. Of special interest are several photographs of Sigma Chi Lodge, Cornell, including exterior views and interior views of the dining room, smoking room, fireplace hall, and fraternity-related memorial window. One page is captioned “Some Sigma Chis,” and another identifies “The Seniors,” with named students including Roe, Gillies, Cory, Bope, and Spieder.

The album is particularly rich in student-life content: groups of young men in dormitory and fraternity rooms, students lounging in robes on a “Sunday Morning,” informal portraits, fraternity gatherings, named student portraits, and humorous posed scenes. There are excellent images of Cornell crew, including “Freshmen Crew” and “Ex Seniors ’04,” along with photographs of students sailing on Cayuga Lake. There are outstanding winter photographs of a toboggan run, including “The Start” and a wonderfully dry caption reading “Twenty minutes wait for half a minutes fun.”

Especially notable are several images of students in costume and drag. A “Spring Day” section includes students in elaborate comic costumes, a large figure or parade prop, theatrical outdoor scenes, and men dressed in women’s clothing. One striking photograph is captioned “Vail Coffin Bowers,” showing three male students in women’s dress posed together outdoors. Another Spring Day image shows a costumed student holding a rifle while perched on or inside a comic animal figure. These images give the album unusual value as documentation of campus performance, fraternity humor, gender play, and early 20th-century student pageantry.

The travel sections add further appeal. Two pages show Colorado locations, including Cascade Hotel and a “Result of a Cloud Burst” view. Near the end of the album are pages from a senior trip or Christmas trip, dated 1904-05, with railroad travel, Washington, D.C. views, the Willard Hotel, Baltimore, North Carolina, the White House, Savannah Yacht Club, and “The Seniors.” The album also includes boating, Junior Prom, and other leisure photographs.

Leather-covered album, worn, rubbed, chipped, and edgeworn. Several album leaves have neatly broken loose or detached from the binding, and one page is missing approximately two-thirds of the leaf. The first miscellaneous section shows evidence of missing photographs. Despite the condition issues, this is a highly appealing, well-captioned, and content-rich Cornell fraternity album with exceptional candid student-life images.

Price: $1,250.00