The Snapshots in Time Collection

Album Page 319 — Four Bullfight Photographs with Handwritten Captions, USS Columbia Album, c. 1898-1910s

Album Page 319 — Four Bullfight Photographs with Handwritten Captions, USS Columbia Album, c. 1898-1910s

This album page preserves four snapshots of a Spanish-style bullfight (corrida de toros), captioned in period handwriting: the entrance parade of toreros, a pair of banderilleros at work, a matador's pass with the muleta, and a mounted picador. Likely taken by a crewman of USS Columbia during a liberty visit to a port with a bullring, the photographs document a popular public spectacle witnessed by American sailors abroad in the late 19th or early 20th century, and complement the album's other shore-excursion pages from ports such as Pensacola, St. Thomas, and Panama. Project: 218601