Michael Lehr Antiques
Live Auction

June 2026 Vernacular Photo History Auction

Wed, Jun 24, 2026 11:00AM EDT
  2026-06-24 11:00:00 2026-06-24 11:00:00 America/New_York Michael Lehr Michael Lehr : June 2026 Vernacular Photo History Auction https://auction.michaellehrantiques.com/auctions/michael-lehr-antiques/june-2026-vernacular-photo-history-auction-23574
Our June 2026 auction presents a focused and exceptional selection of historical photographs spanning the 1840s through the early twentieth century, with unusual depth in named subjects, rare formats, and documented provenance anchored by strong vernacular material that rewards close looking.
Michael Lehr Antiques info@michaellehrantiques.com
Lot 557

3 RPPCs, Alligator Farm, Children Riding, Seminole Florida

Estimate: $50 - $100
Starting Bid
$25

Bid Increments

Price Bid Increment
$0 $5
$100 $10
$200 $25
$500 $50
$1,000 $100
$2,000 $250
$5,000 $5,000
$10,000 $1,000
$20,000 $2,000
$50,000 $5,000
Three real photo postcards document alligator farm attractions in Florida, each unused and unmailed, comprising a unified thematic group. The top two cards show tourist children seated astride large restrained alligators before crowds of onlookers on a dirt lot, while the bottom card depicts a group of Seminole children in traditional patchwork clothing posed with alligators before thatched chickee structures. All three are consistent with Florida alligator farm and tourist attraction photography of the early twentieth century.

In the top card a boy in a dark suit and hat straddles a large alligator held by a handler's stick, its jaws bound, with a crowd of adults and children watching behind. The middle card shows a younger child in a white dress and cap seated in the same manner on a similarly restrained alligator before the same or similar crowd setting. The bottom card presents nine Seminole children of varying ages, all dressed in the distinctive multicolored horizontal-band patchwork garments of Seminole tradition, grouped around two alligators on the ground before open-sided chickee structures with palmetto-thatch roofs. A partially legible printed caption appears along the lower border of the bottom card.

Alligator farms and Seminole villages were among the most commercially photographed tourist attractions in early twentieth-century Florida, particularly in the Miami and Everglades region, where Seminole families participated in staged exhibitions for tourist audiences. The three cards together document both the Anglo tourist experience of alligator riding and the Seminole community's role in Florida's emerging tourism economy.

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