In some areas of the West, soiled doves were required to buy and post licenses. The funds for those licenses paid for public services such as law enforcement. Posting a photograph alongside the license was an advertising ploy. Women of ill repute often placed their picture and license in the parlors of the brothels to tempt clients. Those pictures highlighted the proprietor’s assets.
– True West Archives –
Very likely a Wild West show or vaudeville marksman, the theatrical gent in this circa 1895-1905 cabinet card evokes the latter-day frontier with his Western headgear and thigh-high boots à la Buffalo Bill Cody. He models with a .22-caliber Model 1891 Marlin lever-action repeating rifle having a special order, half-octagon barrel and special order checkered stocking with pistol grip.
– Courtesy Private Collection –
Garbed in a fringed buckskin costume this “western” poser grasps what appears to be a percussion Sharps New Model 1863 straight-breech carbine without a patchbox. The ignition system, outmoded at the time the photograph was taken circa 1885-95, suggests that the gun most likely served as a studio prop.
– Courtesy Dickinson Research Center, National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, 2003.111 –
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