American Historical Ephemera & Photography

7 1/2 x 4 3/8 in. or smaller albumen photographs on cardstock mounts (prints with varying degrees of toning, spotting, dampstaining, and edge/corner wear; mounts with toning, soiling, and edge/corner wear). Each with verso imprint advertising Trager & Ford's epilepsy-curing water from Minne Pazuta and Northwestern Photographic Company's views of "Everything of interest in the late Pine Ridge War" including the "Wounded Knee Battle." Most captioned and/or copyrighted in the negative. No photographer listed, but most likely captured by George Trager. Captions include: Chief Standing Elk 1st Lieut. to Chief Little Wound / Black Horse. -- (2) Birds Eye View of Complete Battle Ground at Wounded Knee S.D. -- Pine Ridge Agcy S.D. North View. -- Birds Eye View of Pine Ridge Agcy S.D. -- Leaders of the Hostile Indians at Pine Ridge Agcy S.D. During the [caption cut off]. Chief Two Strike / Chief Crow Dog / Chief High Hawk. -- And 3 others, including one showing a group of white and Lakota Sioux subjects with Buffalo Bill Cody. -- Together, 8 photographs. 

[With:] 6 1/2 x 4 3/4 in. photograph on lilac cardstock mount (print with significant toning, soiling, discoloration, and surface wear/loss; mount with soiling, discoloration, and edge/corner wear). Pencil notation on mount recto reads, "Mo-ha-nook." Indecipherable embossing/blindstamp to upper edge of print. Two subjects are featured on horseback, one a white man, the other a Sioux man wearing war bonnet.

George Trager, of nearby Chadron, NE, was the first photographer on the scene after the Wounded Knee debacle, and took a number of photographs in January 1891 as US troops began collecting and burying bodies left on the field. He and partner Joe Ford established the Northwestern Photographic Company to sell their photographs.