Album consists of a total of 466 images on 56 leaves + inside front cover, including at least 18 real photo postcards (RPPCs), 17 photographs or RPPCs of cartoons and one photo of a map. Sizes vary: most approximately 3 x 4 inches or 3 x 5 inches, although a handful are substantially smaller (1.5 x 2.5 in.) or larger (6.5 x 8.5 in.). An estimated 135 photographs and RPPCs appear to have been commercially produced for tourists, either because they have captions in the plate or because they show typical scenes of the place being visited, usually empty of people and/or without named subjects; sometimes these are also of a different quality or were taken at a different time of year than the vernacular photographs of the same place. All photos either captioned in white on the leaves by the compiler or captioned in the plate; additional writing in pencil to the backs of some photos. The album is in largely chronological order, following our unnamed sailor's service aboard the USS Albany (1921-23?), detailing his time spent in the Philippines, Hong Kong, various locales in China, and Vladivostok; Huron (1924), travels in China; Pecos (1924-25?), Panama Canal/ Canal Zone; Quail (1926-27), Canal Zone, Ecuador, and Nicaragua; and Langley (1927-29?), San Diego. At all of these locations, the photographs capture fascinating details of shipboard life, from a raucous 1925 Neptune ceremony during the crossing of the equator aboard the USS Pecos, to battle practice aboard the USS Huron, to a seaplane's failed landing on the USS Langley, the first aircraft carrier in US history. Additionally, they provide a striking record of the places visited and the interactions of the area's inhabitants with US troops. This is particularly notable in Russia and China, where the considerable majority of the photos were taken and/or acquired. Vladivostok in 1922 was a last holdout against the revolutionary Red Army, finally becoming part of Soviet Russia in November of that year, after the last of interventionist forces from Japan, China and the US (who had troops on active duty there from the Albany from 1919-1920) departed and the White Army resistance collapsed. Included in the album are images of the city's YMCA, Russian soldiers at a train station, American sailors posing with Russian women while a Japanese soldier hustles past, a Russian armored car, a ship that once flew the US flag now flying the Czechoslovakian flag, and much more. The photos of China are equally revealing. Although a number of the photos here are either scenery or were most likely commercially produced, they nevertheless provide scarce images of the country at the time. Chinese junks line the harbors, a Sikh policeman poses with an American soldier in Shanghai, beggars and peddlars make their way through the streets of Pekin (Beijing), American sailors drink at an establishment called Annie's in Tientsin (Tianjin), a Chinese man gets his hair cut by a barber in an alleyway, and so on. Three additional sections, not in chronological order, close the album: one, most likely RPPCs, of the 1923 Honda Point Disaster; another, apparently vernacular photos of an undated trip aboard an unknown ship down the Yangtze River; and a third, a series of RPPCs and commercial photographs of various US Navy ships and planes, Chinese city scenes, and a 15-panel cartoon depicting sailor life in the Asiatic fleet, including racist caricatures of Chinese people. Thirty-three additional photos of family and friends are also included in the middle of other sections, possibly taken when the sailor was home on leave. An altogether remarkable photo album, providing a scarce record of American naval life in the Pacific immediately following WWI. [From dealer description]
