Brown & Schaffer

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BROWN & SCHAFFER

The story of these two photographers is interesting. For several years I have been finding real photo postcards from the cruise that were numbered. The cards included every portion of the cruise, including the months leading up to the cruise and the period after up to the Hudson Fulton Exposition. Many of the cards included sailors onboard the USS Georgia or were taken from the USS Georgia. Some include the caption "Brown & Schaffer". As I referenced the crewmembers of the fleet using "With the American Fleet from the Atlantic to the Pacific" by Robert D. Jones, I found only one "Schaffer" listed aboard the USS Georgia as a First Class Musician! Even further, there was a Second Class Musician named Brown onboard. His name H. O. Brown appears on one of my cards as the photographer! Apparently, they collaborated in a business to sell postcards.

From what I have collected, these sailors probably took more photos of the cruise than any other photographer. Cards in my collection are numbered between 1 and 1000. Many are duplicates with the same number. I surmise that they provided photo albums for shipmates to look through and select by number photos that wanted for printing. If this is the case it would account for the numbering and some photos having hand-written captions in the photos competed at a later date.

I have found many cards within the collection that were later made in to color postcards by H. H. Stratton, of Chattanooga, Tennessee! These were all completed and available at the end of the cruise with some having cancels in February 1909. No doubt they had worked out a deal to sell some of their negatives to Stratton. In addition I have found some cards that have "Copyright Brown & Schaffer 1909" after they got back from the cruise. It appears for a period they had their own postcard company.

I have organized this collection into the various port visits and events of the cruise in the navigation bar to the left. I have also tried to include them in other portions of my site.

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