Stereographs of African landscapes, people and culture

This is an unidentified collection of stereographs, the majority of them undated, of African landscape, villages, towns and people. The countries represented are Kenya, Egypt, Tanzania, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Uganda. Among the African peoples mentioned are the Buganda, Wanderobo, Kikuya, Taita, Masai, Lumbwa and Nandi.

Most of the cards are labeled on the verso in the same hand. They are unsigned but identified by the initials V.S.K. A number of the cards describe interactions with local people, and carry descriptions of the landscape and customs. In addition to many landscape photographs there are a number of towns represented such as: Dar-el-Salaam (Box 1, Folder 2), Freetown (Box 1, Folder 3), Zanzibar (Box 2, Folder 2), and Aden (Box 2, Folder 16).

One notable item is a photograph of Carl Akeley cradling the head of a dead giraffe (Box 2, Folder 8). There are several cards of the Kisubi Catholic Mission station near Entebbe and its patients. Notes describe the mission’s work with people suffering from sleeping sickness, the beginning of the disease in the region in 1901, and its effects in the area around Victoria Nyanza Lake (Box 1, Folder 4). Also in this folder is a distant photograph labeled, “Duke Abruzzi’s Caravan (leaving Entebbe).” The duke d’Abruzzi was a Spanish mountaineer and explorer whose ventures ranged from Africa to the Arctic. A set of photographs from Nigeria describe the construction of a railroad for the transportation of tin in Bauchi Province, Northern Nigeria (Box 1, Folder 3).