We often search for early cabinet cards featuring individual players. Not surprisingly, many (most) important examples of these images may not depict early football players in their actual playing gear, particularly in the case of cabinet cards from the 1870s and early to mid 1880s. For example, if a cabinet card comes from a class album (often the only time you will see an individual’s photograph outside of any existing team portrait), it would normally picture a player in formal attire, or in the cases where they are in uniform it may be that of a sport other than football, such as crew. These cabinet cards are essential research tools in addition to their value as collectible football related ephemera. Obtaining these images is especially relevant and meaningful when researching schools outside of the “big three” of Harvard, Princeton and Yale, and may be your only means in identifying players or early teams. The difficulty however, lies in finding these images, as it can be an extremely difficult task. Oftentimes, when early individual cabinet cards from smaller schools or lesser-known football programs surface, it is doubtful that such likenesses will appear again on the market for a very long time, if they show up at all.
In the 1890s, concurrently with the growing popularity of the game, cabinet cards with football players in uniform became much more common.
Most references on early football will picture a number of such examples of these early cabinet photos.
We would like to share some of these early cabinet photos; individuals who played football during the earliest years of the sport, in this case for Amherst College (from the class of 1879). Amherst organized a college team in 1877 but only played one game against Tufts that year, winning by a score of 8 to 4. Tufts played three games in 1877, losing to Amherst, Harvard and Yale. In 1878, Amherst's first full year of intercollegiate football, most of the individuals pictured below played on the College Fifteen (most colleges were playing 15 men a side); twice against Yale (Walter Camp was their captain), once against Harvard and once against Brown (this was Brown's first intercollegiate game). Several sources include Amherst playing a fifth game in 1878 against Williston, but it is unclear if this was an official or practice game.
Charles Millard Pratt, '79. In
1878 he was a member of the '79 Eleven. He was the first alumnus to donate a
building to Amherst College - the Pratt Gymnasium, erected in 1883. It was
reconstructed several times, first as the Pratt Museum in 1942 and more recently
as the Charles M. Pratt Dormitory, in 2007.
Charles Lyman Goodrich, '79. Captain of the College Fifteen in 1878, member of the '79 Eleven.
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