[Chinese-Americans - Photography - American West]

Charley Young. [Supplied Title]

American West: 1880s-1890s. Cabinet Card measuring 5 ½ x 4 inches on larger mount. Identification on ink verso. Some fading, very good. Very Good. Item #List1934

A photograph of a Chinese man on horseback in western attire, possibly taken in Oregon or California in the 1890s. A search of genealogical and newspaper records yield results for one or possibly two Charley Youngs of Chinese descent living in the United States during the period. We find a record of a Charley Young of Chinese descent living in San Francisco in the 1890s, with a birthday listed as 1865. There are also multiple newspaper accounts of a Charley Young in Portland, who married the superintendent of a school in Portland: “Charley Young, an Americanized Chinaman.” He married Mary Bly, superintendent of the Baptist Chinese Mission School in Portland. A Charley Young later appears in court records for a smuggling case involving prominent Chinese merchants in Oregon, and describes a “Charley Young, an Americanized Chinaman recently married to a white girl.” We are unable to tell, given the limited identification on the photograph, whether these records refer to our subjects, but regardless the photograph provides an uncommon visual record of Chinese-Americans in a rural United States setting, particularly during this period of severe population decline following the Chinese Exclusion Act.

Price: $600.00