[Circa 1895].
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Unbound. Albumen photograph. Image size 6.75" x 4.75" mounted on stiff card. Corners of the backing board cut away just slightly affecting a couple of corners but not substantially affecting the image, two faintly visible short cracks in the margins, extending into the image a little, overall very good.
Shown are eleven players in two rows either standing or kneeling in front of a backdrop of patterned wallpaper. Dressed in jerseys and padded pants, with one player holding the ball, all players are identified in pencil on the verso with their positions: Brady, Walter Lamar, Alex Yargee, John Phillips, John Meagher, Wm. Merrill, W.B. Wilson, Alex Foreland, Ernest McDaniel, Charlie Moore, and Willie McCombs. The *Indian Journal* of April 12, 1894 mentions Yargee had "...spent Saturday and Sunday in Eufaula in company with Prof. Brown." The *Dawes Final Rolls* listing tribal members in 1902 in which the names of Yargee, Phillips, Maegher, and Merrill appear.
The Indian University was founded in 1880 by Almon C. Bacone in Tahlequah, Indian Territory. According to the *Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture*, the school was chartered by the Muscogee-Creek Nation for the purpose of providing a Christian education for American Indians. By 1885, it had been expanded and relocated to Muscogee. Between 1883 and 1895 it graduated 43 students with either bachelor's or master's degrees. It also featured a football team, and played the first Indian Territory football game against Henry Kendall College (later renamed the University of Tulsa). A photograph of the Kendell team exists with the team photographed against the same wallpaper background. It isn't such a large leap to speculate that the portraits were taken at the same time, and mostly likely in commemoration of that first contest. Rare.
Item #397737
