Quarto album (ca. 27,5x19 cm). 26 card stock leaves (1 blank). With 98 mounted original gelatin silver photographs, each ca. 8x11,5 cm (3 ½ x 4 ½ in). Most photos with captions. Period green cloth album with the silver-tooled generic title “Photographs” on the front board; with compiler’s black ink manuscript title on top of the frond board and the spine; with compiler’s period ink inscription on the front free endpaper: “Margot Alice Postlewaite views taken on out two months trip on the Prinzessin Victoria Luise. Leaving New York Wednesday, March 12th 1902.” Spine with slight wear, several photos with mild silvering, but overall a very good album with strong photographs.

Historically interesting album of lively vernacular photos taken by Margaret Postlewaite, a family member of noted American Episcopal missionaries of St. Paul (MN) & St. Louis (MO), during her voyage from New York to the Mediterranean and Black Seas in the spring of 1902. Margaret and her travel companions (including her stepmother) left New York on board the luxurious cruise ship “Prinzessin Victoria Louise” and sailed to Gibraltar with a stopover in Madeira. In the Mediterranean, they visited Nice and Palermo and then, via the Bosphorus Strait, went to the Black Sea. They traveled to Constantinople, Trebizond, and Batoum, reached Tiflis by train, and resumed their journey by the ship to Sebastopol, Yalta, and Odessa. On the way back, they stopped in Algiers, Genoa, and Contrexéville.

Margaret Alice Postlewaite (ca. 1871-1955) was the granddaughter of the Rev. Ezekiel Gilbert Gear, a pioneer Christian missionary of Minnesota. She “was active in women’s parish work when her husband [the Rev. Henry W. Mizner] was priest-in-charge, and later rector, of St. Stephen’s House, St. Louis. Mo., from 1901 to 1926. She was also active in church work at the American pro-cathedral in Paris, where she lived from 1927 to 1939, and at St. Luke’s Chapel, Trinity Parish., N.Y.” (The Living Church. May 1, 1955. P. 19.)

The album contains ninety-eight photographs with most images documenting the Black Sea voyage. Ten excellent photos of Constantinople feature general views of the city, harbor, and local landmarks (the Theodosian Walls, Camondo Stairs, and Beylerbey Palace). Several candid urban scenes show merchants selling fruits in a local bazaar and crowds gathering at the harbor of Constantinople. The “Ottoman series” also includes ten lively photos of Trebizond, depicting its coastal view and local dancers enthusiastically engaging in the Anatolian war dance with knives. Ten rare photos of Tiflis show an openwork entrance to the luxury Hotel D'oriental (where the travelers stayed), a procession of men in chokhas on Golovinski Avenue (now Rustaveli), and locals in traditional attire (with a beggar woman, likely a Muslim, sitting nearby). Especially interesting are over twelve images of Sebastopol, depicting its harbor, local landmarks (Memorial to the Charge of the Light Brigade, Monument to Kornilov, St. George monastery, Church of the Resurrection, the Baidar Gate), and cheerful, vibrant scenes of the voyagers laughing, drinking & "taking luncheon on the top of Baidar Gate." The rest of the Black Sea photos mostly depict Yalta (harbor & Alexander Nevsky Cathedral) and the crowded dock of Odessa.

The album also includes about thirty-five scenes of Funchal ("the bullock sledge in which we saw Funchal," etc.), Gibraltar (coastal views), Palermo (Palermo Cathedral, Porta Nuova, the Benedictine Cloister, etc.), Genoa (Statue of Christopher Columbus), Algiers (a street scene with two local boys), Contrexéville ("the old lace woman & her chicken"), and Nice (the Villefranche harbor, view from the Hotel des Anglaise, where the travelers stayed, etc.). One interesting image at the rear shows the traveling party “on board the Princess Victoria Louise” posing for a photo (with names indicated). Overall, a historically interesting album illustrating a voyage to the Mediterranean and the Black Sea.