Flashback Friday: Lantern slides of the Florida Everglades

Lantern slide depicting Alanson Skinner's expedition to the Florida Everglades in 1910. National Museum of the American Indian, L00300.

For Flashback Friday, let’s go to Florida in 1910. This hand-colored lantern slide depicts three men following behind an oxen team pulling a cart through the waters of the Florida Everglades. The man on the left is possibly Alanson Skinner (anthropologist), the Seminole man in the center is wearing a foksikco bi, or 'big shirt', and the man on right may be their guide Frank Brown.

This photo was probably shot by Julian A. Dimock. In 1910 the American Museum of Natural History in New York sent anthropologist Alanson B. Skinner to conduct ethnographic field research on the Seminole people of the Florida Everglades. Both Skinner and professional photographer Julian A. Dimock photographed the expedition.

In 1916 Skinner joined the staff of the Museum of the American Indian. He probably used this and other lantern slides for public lectures. He may have donated the images to the museum, or they may have been found among his things following his death in an automobile accident in 1925 while he was on a collecting trip to South Dakota for the museum.

To see more photos from this expedition, check out the set on the Smithsonian Collections Search Center.


Emily Moazami, Assistant Head Archivist
National Museum of the American Indian