PBA Galleries

111 gelatin silver prints with one stereoscope card. Most by New York photographer Paul Thompson or his studio. Sizes vary from 3x4" to 8x10". 

Paul Thompson was a New York documentary photographer whose work appeared in magazines and newspapers in the early 20th century. He accompanied Theodore Roosevelt on his famed post-presidential voyage to Africa (1909-1910), a trip chronicled in Roosevelt's book African Game Trails, published in 1910. Outfitted by the Smithsonian Institution, the expedition's purpose was to collect specimens for the Smithsonian's new Natural History museum. The expedition collected around 11,400 animal specimens which took Smithsonian naturalists eight years to catalog. Many of the photographs in the present file are from this sporting and scientific expedition. Other images detail a trip west to the Cheyenne Fair in 1907, scenes of New York, and several scenes from his home in Oyster Bay (including his trophy room).