East African photographs, EEPA 2002-004, circa 1904-1919

Linen covered family album compiled by German merchant Paul Schaff. The album contains 24 pages and 101 photographic images ranging from small silver gelatin to large toned albumen. There are also several postcards and a pencil-drawing showing the owner on the last page. There is a caption under a postcard of a street in Dar es Salaam stating "Daressalam, my old domicile." Other photographs depict Dar es Salaam, Tanga, Bukoba, and Kifumbiro. The photographs reflect various subjects, including landscapes (Lake Victoria), a German military post, towns, adornments, and peoples, including the Luo, and Maasai. There are a few, large albumen prints which seem to depict German South-West Africa --judging by the dress of women in two images. These photographs might have been presents. Perhaps the owner of the album took a trip to that colony. Inscribed on the album cover are the words, "Zur Erinnerung an Deutsch-Ost-Afrika" [In memory of German East Africa] and a Maasai shield drawn in china ink and colors in the lower corner of the cover. On one of the last pages, there is the halftone color print of a bugle playing Askari, captioned "Deutsche vergesst nicht Eure Kolonien" [Germans do not forget your colonies]. The pencil portrait of the owner on the last page concludes the story line.

Author

Custodial History note

Purchased, 2002. Conserved through a preservation grant funded by the Smithsonian Institution Women's Committee, 2006.

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