[Photograph album documenting the Wabash Mexican Mid-Winter Tour through Mexico in 1895]

Resource Information

The work [Photograph album documenting the Wabash Mexican Mid-Winter Tour through Mexico in 1895] represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in UCLA Library. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Still Image, Visual Materials.

Label

[Photograph album documenting the Wabash Mexican Mid-Winter Tour through Mexico in 1895]

Title variation

Mexican tour 1895

Creator

• Mersman, Otto L., (Otto Lewis), 1864-1940

Contributor

• Mersman, Otto L., (Otto Lewis), 1864-1940
• Mersman, Mary Hord Scudder, 1869-1954

Compiler

• Mersman, Otto L., (Otto Lewis), 1864-1940

Former owner

• Mersman, Otto L., (Otto Lewis), 1864-1940
• Mersman, Mary Hord Scudder, 1869-1954

Subject

• Mexicans -- Photographs
• Peasants -- Mexico -- Photographs
• Railroad travel -- Mexico -- Photographs
• Church buildings -- Mexico -- Photographs
• Photographic prints
• Kodak card photographs
• Photograph albums
• Bullfights -- Mexico -- Photographs
• Torreón (Coahuila, Mexico) -- Photographs
• Mexico -- Photographs
• Bull rings -- Mexico -- Photographs
• Mexico City (Mexico) -- Photographs
• Horse-drawn rail cars -- Mexico | Mexico City -- Photographs

Genre

• Photograph albums
• Photographic prints
• Photographs
• Kodak card photographs

Language

eng

Summary

Photograph album compiled by Otto L. Mersman, documenting a trip to Mexico by a group of prominent businessmen from St. Louis in January of 1895.

Biographical or historical data

Businessman and civic leader in St. Louis, Missouri.

Cataloging source

CLU

Characteristic

picture

Summary expansion

The businessmen and their wives travel to Mexico aboard a special excursion train. According to an article in the Jan. 17, 1895 edition of the Fort Worth Gazette, the train was one of the finest ever seen in Texas, "consisting of three sleepers, one dining car, an observation car, and a baggage car. The cars were of the most elegant description and were fitted up in the most luxurious style. The observation car contained barber shop and baths." The group of some fifty travelers on this month-long excursion, called the "Wabash Mexican Special Mid-Winter Tour," set out from St. Louis on the Wabash Railroad, traveling through Kansas City, Milano, Texas, and San Antonio. There they continued on the Southern Pacific to Eagle Pass, then the Mexican International Railway to Torreón, and finally the Mexican Central Railway to Mexico City. The 150 photographs, of which 98 are Kodak No. 2 card photographs with circular images (9 cm diameter), depict churches, bell towers, plazas, parks, and city streets of Mexico City. Two photographs display a curious "split screen" format, with two long rectangular images printed side by side. A streetcar is visible in one of the photographs taken along Reforma de los Leones; another photo captures the Cafe La Concordia in the historic center of the city. There are numerous photos of the men and women travelers, posing in parks, on city benches, in horse carriages, and riding donkeys. Several photos were taken from train cars, and show tracks and trestles and desert landscapes; several show the train stopped in small towns, and local vendors selling fruit and souvenirs to the passengers. The portraits of peasants show very poor people in rags, often with their dogs, sheep, and donkeys, and small children crying, perhaps frightened by the wealthy American capitalists and their wives standing nearby, dressed in bulky black suits and dresses. There are photos of the parade of matadors and bulls at a local bull fight, the baroque facades of Mexican churches, and several scenes of the monuments, headstones, and niches of a cemetery. The shadow of the photographer is visible in several photos; and several others document the photographer carrying his box camera, and also photographing a peasant holding a sign advertising a bullfight

Technique

not applicable