[Large Annotated Vernacular Photograph Album Featuring Scenes in Cuba and Florida]

[Various locations, mostly in Cuba and Florida: March 5 to April 1, 1909. About very good.. [21] leaves, illustrated with 235 photographs, all with typed captions. Oblong folio. Contemporary full dark brown cloth, brad bound. Moderate staining and coiling to covers, some edge wear. Bottom corners of all leaves chipped, not costing content. Occasional minor wear to photos or captions. A well-organized and meticulously-captioned vernacular photograph album with significant content on Florida and Cuba in the first decade of the 20th century. The album is organized chronologically and features a family from Ohio traveling from home by train to Florida and thence to Cuba, then returning home in the spring of 1909. The first seven and the last twenty-five photographs emanate from Ohio (where the journey started), Tennessee, and Georgia, but otherwise the album features Florida and Cuba in over 200 pictures. The scenes in Florida range from Jacksonville to Key West and other points in-between, featuring the state in almost 120 photos, both before and after the traveling party went to Cuba. The images capture portraits of the travelers, numerous homes, hotels, businesses, and other buildings, including an ostrich farm in Jacksonville, numerous scenes in Ocala (including one image featuring "Mary and her old colored Mammy"), various churches and other scenes in Tampa, residences in Key West, beach scenes at Long Key, various hotels and agricultural fields in Miami, and various buildings in Palm Beach, Ormand, and St. Augustine, concluding with a front view of the "Old Slave Market" in the latter city.

Most notably, the album includes eighty-six photographs of Cuba, the nexus point for the present trip, where the party arrived on March 20. The Cuba scenes mostly feature Havana, with several views of "Beautiful Residences" and other buildings, plus some street views and other scenes in the city. Other interesting Havana scenes picture the railroad station, "The Bone Yard -- Old destroyed Catacombs," scenes in the Malecon, and more. Some of the street scenes in Havana picture local residents, one of "Children on the street corner" and another showing "Children scrambling for pennies" in the middle of the street. The album also contains views of the wreck of the Maine, Morro Castle, the interior of Fort Cabanas, and more. The travelers managed to wander outside Havana for a day, when they ventured to the countryside and the town of Guines on March 23. While there, the compiler took photographs of countryside outside Guines, a railroad car full of sugar cane, thatched houses, a group photograph of the students at a "Spanish School in Guines," a "Child crying in the street," a group of locals outside a cafe (captioned "Strangers in a strange land...Where we tried to get something to eat"), other street scenes in the town, and the local jail. The last photograph of Cuba here features a "Large Sugar Mill in Providencia." The group then returned through Florida, Georgia, and Tennessee (where they spent a day at Lookout Mountain and Orchard Knob) before their final stop in Dayton, Ohio. A wonderful early-20th century travel album, with significant views in Florida and Cuba.