Frontier Life images….

Growing up watching Westerns, playing Cowboys and Indians led to a fascination with the colonization of North America and the stories of the various tribes .(At a young age my old Ladybird books on “The Indians” and “Battle of the Little Big Horn” and even John Fords ‘Cavalry Trilogy’ or some John Wayne classics were foisted on my children 🙂 ) . ‘Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee’ led to reading more histories and books on the Native Americans and The Wild West. The colossal impact of the White Man on the landscape in a short period of time.
So I was delighted recently to find this fantastic selection of 66 photographs

Described as …

Between 1887 and 1892, John C.H. Grabill sent 188 photographs to the Library of Congress for copyright protection. Grabill is known as a western photographer, documenting many aspects of frontier life — hunting, mining, western town landscapes and white settlers’ relationships with Native Americans. Most of his work is centered on Deadwood in the late 1880s and 1890s. He is most often cited for his photographs in the aftermath of the Wounded Knee Massacre on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

And then as I reached the last photo I figured I’d look at the comments section. Maybe get a bit more information on different photos or the events surrounding them…..

I was sorry I looked.

The first comment was

How far we as a country have fallen.

Back in those days, if you didn’t work, you didn’t eat. Now, if you don’t work the government sends you a check.

It went downhill from there….