1895 White Pit Bull with Two Children on Cabinet Card
The Archives | 3rd Edition
Pit Bull Dogs and Kids
The 3rd edition of The Archives is another example of a Cabinet Card, taken by a Watervliet, MI photographer, Austin’s Studio, in 1895, featuring a white pit bull dog pulling a wagon posing with two young boys.
When advancements in technology allowed for the ability to capture moments in time, it was not uncommon for dogs to be included in family portraits. It was in this era where you’d find a lot of early photographs of pit bull dogs standing beside their human children.
I assume this helped create the ‘nanny dog’ moniker often attached to these dogs. I have some thoughts on that theory that will likely be written in future long-form blog entries, but for now we will focus solely on who these young boys were pictured with their canine companion.
The Vrooman’s
Oddly enough, a listing of this exact cabinet card was found on the auction site - WorthPoint, but not much was uncovered there. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear as if we will find out the name of the white pit bull dog yet either, but thankfully a huge clue was left on the backside of the card with a handwritten note that gave the identity of one of the boys.
It read:
’Nyle W. Vrooman - taken January 19, 1895’
Nyle Whitney Vrooman was born on December 28, 1892, to father, Charles F. Vrooman, and mother, Emma Jeanette Nutt Vrooman. This means the little boy wearing a white cap in the wagon is Nyle at two years old.
Sitting behind the dog in a black hat is his brother, John Daniel Vrooman, born July 27, 1883, and would have been eleven years old in this photograph.
A search in the site, FamilySearch.org, located Nyle’s World War I draft registration card. It stated he was a farmer, and was the primary provider of the family, which included his wife, Ila Gertrude McConnell Vrooman, and mother, Emma.
Additional internet searches located a couple articles from the local Watervliet newspaper during the 1920s where Nyle was briefly mentioned along with his wife, Ila, and children, Catheryne and Margaret. According to the U.S. Census in 1940, Nyle was 47 years old.
What I found most interesting, for lack of better words, is there were several members of this family who passed away prematurely. Nyle’s father, Charles, died six years after this photograph was taken on Nyle’s brother, John’s, birthday - July 27th in 1901. He was 45 or 46 years old - the reason being, his actual date of birth is unknown. His brother, John, passed at the age of 54 in 1937. And, Nyle’s youngest daughter, Margaret, passed when she was only 8 or 9 (in 1929).
About the Photographer
There is something special about these old cabinet card photographs that cannot be replicated with modern technology. They are truly a work of art in their own right - let alone the actual images captured.
They usually have the studio name, and most often, the address or city the photographer is located at. In this case, that photography studio is - Austin’s Studio, which operated in Watervliet, Michigan. The owner’s full name was - George Walter (G.W.) Austin, who was born on July 27, 1865 (another weird July 27th coincidence).
He appeared to be well known in the area and have a great sense of humor judging by Facebook posts from the North Berrien Historical Museum. A record was found in FamilySearch.org, as well as a PDF from the University of Michigan, who put together a directory of early Michigan photographers.
In this document, it listed George W. Austin as active in Watervliet from 1892-1901 (pg. 99). On page 6, it stated Mr. Austin worked on his father’s farm prior to his photography business. He married a woman named Mary Althea Nooney in 1886 – with whom he had a daughter named Marnie. George moved Austin’s Studio from Watervliet to Kalamazoo (MI) in 1902, which is where it stood until he passed in 1923.
Included in the final sentence of this bio, it said:
“Following a long illness, George died on April 1, 1923. His daughter had been active in the business for several years, and Austin Studio continued in Kalamazoo under Marnie’s management for another decade.”
About Cabinet Card Photography
This is the second cabinet card we’ve seen in this series, and trust me, we will be seeing many more examples of them in future entries.
The Cabinet Card was first developed in the 1860s, and grew in popularity in the 1880s. Essentially, it’s a photograph mounted on a stiff cardboard, and intended on being displayed in a sitting room, rather than placed in an album.
While still used until the 1920s, it’s use declined at the turn of the century once personal photography became more the norm. A great summary of how to spot a cabinet card is found in this Science and Media Museum blog post – How to spot a Cabinet Card.
About “The Archives”
The Archives is a special blog series, which explores the complicated past of pit bull terriers through historical photographs, newspapers, and other vintage artifacts.
This project is part of the documentary film – Once In A Lifetime, and each item is preserved in high resolution scans of the original and made available exclusively on the Politics of Pit Bull Dogs Substack.
To view all posts for “The Archives”, go to:
https://riverfirefilms.substack.com/t/the-archives