When I first encountered these photographs in the American Heritage Center’s collections, I was genuinely jarred. As a white person researching these images from 1920s-30s Wyoming, I found myself uncomfortable and unsettled. My immediate reaction was emotional rather than academic – these images are difficult to view, yet they document a reality of Wyoming’s past that deserves honest examination.
The Photographers Behind the Lens
These images come from two important Wyoming photographic collections. The Hugo G. Janssen photographs document life in Lovell and surrounding Bighorn Basin communities from 1917 until his death in 1960. Born in Germany in 1893, Janssen arrived in Lovell just before World War I and established his photography studio in 1917. His work provides a comprehensive visual record of the area.
Lora Webb Nichols (1883-1962) offers another remarkable window into early 20th century Wyoming. Beginning with her first camera at age 16, Nichols amassed about 24,000 negatives throughout her lifetime, which was mostly spent in Encampment. Her images chronicle domestic life, industrial development, and social dynamics in south-central Wyoming during the copper mining boom and beyond.
What We’re Seeing
The photographs show community members in blackface, a practice with deep and troubling roots in American entertainment. The “CO 3846 WELCOMES U” banner visible in one image identifies the group as members of Civilian Conservation Corps Company 3846, based in Deaver, Wyoming, located about 20 miles northwest of Lovell. The CCC, Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal program that put young men to work on conservation projects from 1933 to 1942, is rarely remembered in connection with this aspect of camp entertainment culture.
What’s particularly striking is seeing blackface performances in Wyoming towns with virtually no Black residents. This reveals how thoroughly minstrelsy had penetrated American culture, reaching even isolated Western communities far removed from the urban centers where such entertainment originated. Lovell, Deaver, and Encampment are no exception to that pattern, but neither are they unique.
Not all of these images are equally difficult to look at, but some are particularly hard. One photograph shows a child in blackface holding a watermelon slice — a layering of racist caricature that is jarring even by the standards of the other images here. I want to name that directly rather than let it pass without acknowledgment.
Historical Context Without Excuses
When these photographs were taken, blackface minstrelsy was mainstream entertainment across America. Beginning in the early 19th century, minstrel shows remained popular well into the 20th century. They featured caricatured portrayals of Black Americans that reinforced harmful stereotypes while appropriating and distorting elements of Black culture.
White participants in small-town Wyoming likely viewed these performances as ordinary entertainment rather than something problematic. The fact that photographers like Janssen and Nichols documented these events without apparent criticism speaks to how normalized such performances were.
This doesn’t excuse the practice, but it helps us understand its pervasiveness across all regions of America, including rural Wyoming. The historical record shows that blackface wasn’t just a Southern phenomenon but was embraced nationwide, regardless of proximity to African American communities.
Why These Photos Matter Today
These photographs document a once-commonplace aspect of American entertainment history that many white Americans have had the privilege to forget — but forgetting is not neutral. The stereotypes minstrelsy embedded in American culture caused real harm, shaping how Black Americans were perceived, treated, and discriminated against for generations. While Black Americans have continued to live with those effects, many white Americans, including those in Wyoming, moved on without ever reckoning with what these performances represented.
By examining these photographs honestly—and asking what it meant for entire communities to participate in this kind of entertainment—we can better understand how racial attitudes were formed and sustained far beyond the places we typically associate with that history. That understanding feels worth the discomfort of looking.
By AHC Simpson Archivist Leslie Waggener.