Animals

Marion Gaynor, daughter of New York Mayor William J. Gaynor, and her pet crow "Pete" circa 1910. View full size. 8x10 glass negative, George Grantham Bain Collection. Marion, an animal lover whose first of four marriages came when she was 16, died after a train hit her car at a Long Island grade crossing in 1944.

1920. "Sham battle, Camp Meade" (Fort Meade, Maryland). View full size. National Photo Company Collection glass negative.

November 1908. Chester, South Carolina. Wylie Mill. Boy with calf is Pamento Benson. Raising it for beef. Has worked in mill 2 years. Mr. Benson said, "Just as soon as the boys get old enough to handle a plow, we go straight back to the farm. Factory is no place for boys." Next to Pamento is Ray Benson, "helper in the mill." Next Clarence Rost, works in mill. View full size. Photo by Lewis Wickes Hine.

Nov. 3, 1913. "Shooting bull, Central Park." 5x7 glass negative, George Grantham Bain Collection. View full size. Headline in the New York Times:

The steer which caused the excitement in Fifth Avenue was one of eight which escaped from the yards of the New York Stock Company at Sixtieth Street and the North River. In the pursuit another man was wounded, a policeman was trampled on, and a delivery wagon was wrecked. The excitement began about 4 o'clock yesterday morning and did not end until five hours later, when the last steer was shot to death in Central Park. The steer which alarmed Fifth Avenue was one of the wildest of the lot, and it was a police bullet fired at it which went wild and killed George Beattie, night watchman of the building under construction at 24 East 55th Street. ... The steer, bleeding from wounds, turned into Fifty-Fifth Street, followed by a string of revolver-popping automobiles. ... According to stockyard authorities, about 200 short-horn Oregon steers were unloaded yesterday morning, consigned to various butchers in the city ...

July 8, 1926. Washington, D.C. "Miss Hattie E. Alexander & Mrs. S.A. Carlin testing serum." View full size. National Photo Company Collection. [Update: A few years after this photo was taken, Hattie (on the left) would become Dr. Alexander. As president of the American Pediatric Society in the 1960s, she was among the first women to head a major medical association.]

1920. "Poultry at government farm. Beltsville, Maryland." View full size. National Photo Company Collection glass negative.

September 7, 1923. "Massachusetts Nautical School." Sailors and shipboard pets. View full size. National Photo Company Collection glass negative.