[Photo albums]: African-American Family Photography, 1928-1932. Two volumes by ` - 1932

[Chicago and Michigan, 1932. Hardcover. Good. Two string-tied oblong octavo albums. One with leather covers containing 176 black and white gelatin silver photographs and the other with card cover with 61 gelatin silver photographs. Both albums with "Photographs" in gilt on the front and some scattered captions. The leather of the first album is rubbed and flaking, with a few prints perished, still very good. The other is poor with wear, external tape repairs and several disbound leaves; the internal photos are very good. An extensive trove of African-American vernacular photographs compiled by a single family in Michigan and Chicago in the late 1920's and early 1930's. The focus of the albums appears to be an unnamed family patriarch, a rotund and unusually photogenic man, probably employed as a chauffeur or driver (in several images he poses in what is likely a chauffeur's uniform). Images of him with his family appear, often in and around fine automobiles of the era with Michigan license plates dated between 1928 and 1932 appearing in different photographs. Many of the photos taken in city environs appear to be Chicago, with a series of images likely captured in 1929 at the City's South Side Stadium (three of these feature an unidentified Negro League baseball player in a Memphis Red Sox uniform). At nearly 250 photographs, a large visual record showing an unusually well-appointed and seemingly affluent African-American family.