Photograph album documenting two itinerant roughnecks' travel through New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio until they found jobs at the Woodville Oil Field

New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, 1923.

This 8" x 6" album contains 37 b/w photographs, each measuring approximately 4.75" x 3". The crisp, well-composed snapshots are chronologically arranged and neatly glued to the album pages. Most have been captioned in white, but much of the writing has faded.

In addition to the rugged workmen, equipment, and environment of 1920s oil fields, these images show the men's Model T Ford, roadside tent camping, and a big campsite at Cleveland's Euclid Beach Park. Ohio became home to one of the first oil booms in the United States in the 1860s after a blacksmith, William Jeffrey, drilled a successful well in Trumbull County. The discovery of oil near Woodville in 1892 started a boom that lasted until 1905 by which time the area was mostly drained although drilling and pumping continued in a few of the area's fields.

A historically valuable visual record of life as a traveling roughneck in the eastern oil fields.

Rather scarce. At the time of this listing, no other Ohio oil field photograph albums are for sale in the trade. There are no auction records for similar materials listed at ABPC or the Rare Book Hub. OCLC shows no similar albums held in institutional collections.