Dr. Thompson Shaving [Portrait Photograph of O Dome Koos of the Klamath Tribe]

Ashland, OR: B. L. Cunningham, 1905. Ephemera. Near fine. A gelatin silver print of an elderly man in profile, holding a mirror in one hand and trimming his beard with scissors held in the other hand. The subject's clothes, a thick cloth jacket and canvas jeans, are worn and full of holes.

The image is captioned in pencil on the mount, with the following hard-to-read text on the back (verso), also in pencil: "No. 113. Dr. Thompson Shaving. Said to be 110 years old-the oldest of the Klamath Indians. B. L. Cunningham[?], Photo. Ashland, Oreg. This is a sample of the [?] of [?] Klamath [?], O. J. L[?]."

Dr. Thompson ("Indian name" O Dome Koos) appears in the census of the Klamath Indian Agency in the early 1900s, with the final entry in 1907, suggesting an outer limit for the date of this photograph. His date of birth recorded in the census varies from year to year, but 1823 is the median, suggesting he was perhaps in his seventies at the time of this picture.

The photographer was probably Burton L. Cunningham (born 1876, Kansas), who appears in the 1900 census living with his parents in Wood River in Klamath County, Oregon. He appears in the 1910 Portland City Directory as a geologist.

Image: 4-7/8 by 7-5/8 inches on a black mount, 8-3/4 by 10-3/4 inches. A good image, perhaps with a slightly shallow focus, with good contrast and moderate tonal variation. There is minor silvering along the bottom edge of the print. The mount is near fine, with light wear to the corners.