Coal-fired warships of the early twentieth century required their entire crews - including ship's musicians - to labor at 'coaling ship,' one of the dirtiest and most exhausting routine evolutions in the pre-oil Navy. This album page from a sailor's personal photograph collection aboard the protected cruiser USS Columbia (C-12) shows the ship's band, faces and arms blackened with coal dust, shortly after finishing the job at the Dry Tortugas, Florida. A companion deck view and a photograph of the battleship USS Illinois (BB-7), taken during the same Caribbean training cruise around 1905, round out the page. Project: 218595