At the end of the nineteenth century, photographer Henry L. Wolf created a photo portrait of Southwest Kansas that documents the farming culture in and around Garden City in Finney County. From rural fairs to the native prairie, Wolf’s photographs capture the life of this farming community against a stark landscape that Wolf himself described as “raw.” Select Collections - Photograph - Wolf, Henry L. to see the Wolf photo collection on Kansas Memory.
The son of an itinerant Baptist minister, Henry L. Wolf grew up and learned the photographer’s trade in Illinois. He moved to Eastern Kansas with his wife and two children in 1883 and for a time operated a traveling studio from town to town. In 1888, he moved his family to the sand hills south of Garden City where they farmed. Wolf opened a photo studio in Garden City that he operated with his son Max for thirteen years. He closed the studio in the early 1900s and the family moved to Manhattan, Kansas.
Kansas Historical Society staff scanned these images from a collection of 207 glass plate negatives donated to the Society in 1971 by Mrs. Max Wolf, the wife of Henry's son. Cracks noticeable in the images show where the emulsion is separating from the negative's glass base.
For additional Henry L. Wolf photographs select the category Collections - Photograph - Wolf, Henry L.