David F. Barry1906, 2 March (postmark)
D. F. Barry Studio Envelope
Envelope
Cowan's Auctions, IncAmerican History: Timed Online Auction, ending 26 March 2018, Lot: 250
A printed D. F. Barry Photography Studio envelope, featuring printed portraits of D. F. Barry and Chief Rain-in-the-Face at upper left corner, along with lines of text advertising, "Photos of Sitting Bull, Gall, Rain-in-the-Face and John Grass, The Sioux Orator, / Curley. Custer's Scout and Only Survivor of Custer Battle / The Custer Battlefield, Sitting Bull's Family, etc.," at lower right. Envelope postmarked March 2, 1906 in Superior, WI, with a two-cent revenue stamp affixed at upper right corner. Envelope is addressed in ink to "Mr. W. A. Thompson Jr." of New Orleans, LA. Verso features New Orleans postmark dated March 4, 1906, and an R.P.O. postmark with the same date.
D. F., or David Frances Barry (1854-1934) had a long and successful career as a traveling photographer, capturing subjects from the American West including Native American men and women, frontier scouts, soldiers, trappers, pioneers, Wild West performers, forts, battlefields, and more. He photographed some of the most famous Native American personalities of the day, including Sitting Bull, Rain-in-the-Face, Chief Gall, Red Cloud, and others. Barry moved back East to Superior, Wisconsin in 1890, where he opened up a studio, advertising his previous photographic successes on the Plains. When Barry eventually died in Superior in 1934, he left behind a wealth of captured scenes and figures from American western history that might not otherwise have been recorded.
LL/80658
