1886 University of California Football Team Photo

 Beautiful early photo of the 1886 University of California football team.  They went 6-2-1 mainly playing athletic clubs available in the area.  During this time most of the West Coast schools did not have football teams and most of the action was on the east coast.

1894 Buchtel Football Cabinet with John Heisman

     The 1894 Buchtel football team now University of Akron went 1-0 defeating Ohio State.  They were coached by the legendary John Heisman.  

     John Heisman is pictured in his University of Pennsylvania sweater where he played from 1889-91.  He went on to a long HOF coaching career for many colleges including a 1917 Georgia Tech national championship.  The Heisman trophy given out to the top college football player is named after him.

1887 Phillips Academy Andover

 Here is a team photo of the 1887 Philips Academy football squad.  Future Yale player and early Stanford coach C.D. Bliss is pictured here.

Mid 1890s Cornell Football Player Cabinet

 This is an early Cornell University football player I haven’t been able to identify.  I especially like the mounted cabinet with the Cornell flag on it.  I could find similar examples in the mid 1890s with other players in similar poses with the same sweater.  One such player was Glen Pop Warner who was the captain of the football team in this era.

1883-84 Adams Academy Football

 Adams Academy started in 1872 in Quincy, Massachusetts.  Former President John Adams gave the land and money to help start the school.  The Adams Academy was used to prepare students for Harvard.  They were rivals to Phillips Andover and Exeter.  I acquired this image in a group of images from Edward Allen Pease who is seen laying at the bottom of the image.  He later attended Harvard university and graduated in 1888.

1895 Brown University Football Team Cabinet

 This is undoubtedly one of the best teams Brown put together in the 19th century.  This was the first team to score on Yale and ended up tying the eventual National Champions 6-6 at home.  On this team was the first All American Brown had yielded Dave Fultz.  He led them to a national championship in baseball and went on to become a Major League Baseball player.  Also on the team was college football hofer Eddie Robinson who went on to coach at Brown and eventually for the NFL Providence Steam Rollers

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1883 Yale University Freshman Football Cabinet photo

This is a great early photo of the Yale Freshman team.  Most of those pictured played a part in the national championship squad of 1884.

Alex Coxe was a 290 pound player instrumental on the 84 and 85 championship teams.  He was also. crack hammer thrower for Yale.  In the 1884 game against Dartmouth he scored four touchdowns in their 113-0 blowout.

Thomas L. Nervy Bayne was the quarterback of the 1884 Yale championship team.  He helped them defeat Harvard that year 48-0.  He ended up getting suspended and kicked off the team after that season.  It opened the door for Harry Beecher to take over as QB.  He later founded Tulane’s first football team in 1894 bringing football to Louisiana and beating LSU 34-0.

Reggie Ronalds played on the 1894 chanpionship team and later was one of the rough riders with Teddy Roosevelt.

Robert Corwin was Captain of the 1886 Yale football championship team.

1870s Large “W” Football Team Cabinet Photo

This is one of the oldest football images I have, and dates back to the beginnings of football.  Notice the very primitive bulbous football.  These were often difficult to acquire in America and often contained a pig bladder.  They would usually have to be blown up multiple times during a single game.  I believe that it may have been a prep school such as Worcester Academy, Williston seminary, or Wesleyan Academy.  There would have been very few colleges playing the game during this time.

1892 Phillips Exeter Imperial Football Cabinet

This is a very clear imperial cabinet photo of the 1892 Phillips Exeter football team.  PE was an important feeder prep school for many of the Ivy League colleges.  Their schedule consisted of playing many college teams including Harvard.

1888 Yale Eating Club photo with Charlie Gill

Eating clubs were popular in the 19th century in Ivy League schools like Princeton and Yale.  They were a combination of eating hall and fraternity.  This photo contains Charles Otis Gill.  Gill was Captain of the Yale football team in 1889 and also on the very first all-American team that year.  He was a member of many great Yale football teams including arguably the best team of the decade the 1888 Yale football squad.  After graduation he briefly coached the University of California in 1894.  He was a minister for most of his life and ended up authoring various books.

1882 Dartmouth Sports and Activities Cabinet

This is a Pach Bros Cabinet depicting Dartmouth sports and activities in 1882. It also came with this antique frame that appears to be similar period.  It really shows the unique equipment and uniforms from the day.  

The football player holding the ball is Clarence “Cap” Howland who is considered the Walter Camp of Dartmouth.  He came to Dartmouth from Williston Seminary who had been playing a similar style football to Harvard and Yale.  In 1880 he organized the first football team.  

It wasn’t until 1881 that they played and won their first game against Amherst.  H.A. “Holy” Drew was one of  the players instrumental in their first win due to his plunging of the line.  He is the other player pictured and also filled in as the captain in 1882 when Howland suffered a broken nose which sidelined him. 

Charles Frederick Mathewson in addition to being on the baseball team was also on the first football team.

In 1882 Dartmouth wanted to test their skills against a big dog such as Harvard.  They fell flat on their face losing 53-0.  This causes the Dartmouth school newspaper to print “Rugby is dead. If there is any other game Dartmouth can play better than football, it would be better to encourage it.”  Later in 1882 Dartmouth played McGill in a very unique game.  The captains compromised on playing 13 vs 13.  This was 2 more than Dartmouth was accustomed to and 2 less than Mcgill’s usual number.  Dartmouth ended up winning this game.  Cap Howland was also captain of the 1883 and 1884 squad before continuing his football career at Columbia during law school.  One final note that may interest you guys is that Dartmouth ended up playing Yale in 1884.  They lost 113-0 and is the first time a football team had lost by 100 points.

1887 Harvard Football Game photos

This is an incredibly rare find.  19th century original game photographs are nearly non existent even for the 1890s, but even more so in the 1880s.  This is from a group of photos that came from the Harvard Archives showing rival opponents Wesleyan University and M.I.T.  Harvard had a great team this year 652-17 and going 10-1.  Their lone loss being against Yale this year.  In these photos you will see great images of Jarvis field.  One image shows Joseph Sears making a rush who was the Harvard Captain the next year in 1888.  Also on this team was Arthur Cummock who was captain in 89 and 90 and helped them win a championship in 1890.

1897 Football Stereoview

This is an example of a stereoview photo from the 19th century.  These mounted photos were viewed using a stereo viewer and really popped out of the image.  While this is a somewhat common example, the number of football related stereoviews are few and far between.  I have not been able to identify the team portrayed in this image.

c.1880 Unknown New Jersey football Cabinet Photo

I have been able to date this cabinet photo based on similar non-football images by Service in Bridgeton N.J. To between 1878-1883. This is around the time when few colleges were actually fielding football teams.  The first college “foot-ball” game was in 1869 between Rutgers University and the College of New Jersey (Princeton).  This game resembled soccer more than the football we have grown accustomed to.  Around 1875 Schools such as Harvard and Yale had moved from a more soccer style to rugby rules.  

Around the same time the photo was taken Bridgetown, NJ was a bustling town.  There was a school West Jersey Academy that was almost the equivalent of a community college today.  One of the players has a W and J on their uniform.  I have been able to identify similarities between the main building at West Jersey Academy and my cabinet.  The only issue is I can’t confirm that they even had a football team back then.  Records for any school in this period, let alone a now defunct school, is hard to find.  If anyone else has any clues let me know.

1891 University of Illinois player cabinet photos

These are some really rare 1891 University of Illinois football cabinets.  This was the second official season for the team.  They went 5-1 and defeated Indiana University twice.  Two of the cabinets are identified and 2 are unknown.  Frank Arms who is in some kind of lateral pass pose, was a member of the very first team.  All cabinets have the name Wright on the back.  There is a player Royal Wright who played in 1890 and 1891 so it may have been passed down from him.

1894 Dickinson Football Cabinet Photo

Dickinson is a college in Carlisle Pennsylvania.  They played and scrimmaged with many of the Carlisle Indian School teams.  An attractive early cabinet photo, this squad had an average season going 2-2-1.

1882 Harvard Football Collotype Photos

These are examples of early collotype photos.  The process is a little bit different than a lithograph in the sense that the image is developed directly on the thicker paper.  The 1882 team went 7-1 with their only loss coming from the hands of Yale.  The second image is from the players composing the class of 85’.  On the back of the images are the names of the corresponding players.

1888 Cambridge Latin football photo

In 1888 an interscholastic league was formed between 7 schools in the Boston area and a trophy was donated from undergraduates at Harvard.  The hope was that more high school teams would churn out players that in turn would eventually become Harvard stars.  The main source of players of the time were coming from the prep schools Andover and Exeter.  The first year was a success and continued on as a tradition.  Here is a photo of the first championship team Cambridge Latin School.

1905 Columbia University football cabinet photo

I found this large photograph at an antique show in Oklahoma.  It was misidentified as an Oklahoma team.  I had my doubts considering the age and the fact that Oklahoma wasn’t even a state until 1907.    I could tell that the uniform colors appeared to be white and light blue.  I was able to ID the photo as the 1905 Freshman football team at University of Columbia.  I haven’t seen too many early surviving photos from the football team at Columbia.  Even though they were one of the earliest teams dating back to 1870 they were not the powerhouse in the 19th century like Yale, Harvard and Princeton.  There is also some information written on the back where I was able to link it back to William L Benham, the captain holding the football.