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Oklahomds Missing Link 187
Although the equipment available was adequate to make
such a picture, and the photographers present were capable, it
is unlikely that such a picture was made. If such a picture were
made, prints from it never were circulated, and none exists to-
day. This conclusion is a result of a search that has spanned
many years.
Photographers of that day had only one practical market for
their product. They had to sell "views" to people along the
waiting line, and these views sold better if the people could recog-
nize themselves in the pictures. They would pay a quarter for
a picture that showed the family in a wagon, or the head of the
household mounted on a horse, ready to make the race for a
claim. A practical photographer tried to get enough people in
a picture who could be recognized in order to make several sales
from one negative.
A few might buy general views, but quarters were scarce in
the pockets of the land seekers, and few photographers were
willing to take long chances on exposures that might not sell.
Many of them had come great distances to film this epie, and
expected to show a profit from their enterprise. Not one repre-
sented a great publishing house since publishing houses did
not use photographers at the time.
Illustrated periodicals of the day did offer a limited
market to photographers but the pictures had to pass through the
hands of an artist before they appeared in print. Only a few
could be used.
The previous year, in 1888, Levy brothers, of Plhiladelphia,
had developed a method of screening photographs for repro.
duction by printing processes, but the trade was skeptical and
the use limited. It still was necessary for an artist to ereate an
illustration, which was photographed on wet plate, printed on
metal and etched in acid. Somc superb illustrations appeared in
such magazines as Leslie's, Harper's, Century, and others, but
they were not direct reproductions of photographs.
During the Civil War artists watched raging battles, and
made on the spot sketches, which later were refined and repro-
duced in periodicals of the time. When it was not possible for
an artist to be present, he sketched from a photograph, if one
were available, but a credit line, "from a photograph," always
appeared beneath the illustration. Artists preferred to work from
life, but since this was not always possible, they grudgingly
relied on photographs, but made certain in the credit line their
efforts were limited by the lifelessness of the picture used.
Magazines that appeared before the Run of 1889 included
illustrations of the preliminary action, some sketchy, some well