4 x 5 1/2 in. albumen photographs on original cardstock mounts, being bust portraits of Cole, Bob, and Jim Younger of the James-Younger Gang. (Each with even toning, edge/corner wear to mount.) Studio stamp in lower margins and Henrietta Young's 1889 copyright stamp on versos. Each archivally mounted and framed for display, 13 3/4 x 16 in. (not examined outside frames). 

Rare set of portraits of the Younger brothers from Stillwater Prison. A penciled note on the versos records Cole Younger's presentation to a Mrs. Phipps on 8 December 1889. By this time the brothers were well into their prison sentences for the disastrous attempted 1876 bank robbery of the First National in Northfield, Minnesota. While the James brothers escaped that skirmish, the Youngers did not but were instead brought into custody badly injured and with the expectation of dying in prison. Their careers began as teenage "bushwhackers" recruited into the rebel guerillas under Quantrill in the bloody edges of the Civil War, continuing their post-war "financial terrorism" with the James brothers, raiding banks, trains, and coaches.

"We tried a desperate game and lost. But we are rough men used to rough ways, and we will abide by the consequences," Cole remarked upon capture, but all three brothers seemed to reform in prison. Their infamy as outlaws was such that their sister had the present set of portrait cards made to meet requests for images of her notorious brothers. James Younger in particular hated the attention and was reluctant to give his autograph and Bob Cole died in prison from tuberculosis in 1889.

Younger Brothers, four Midwestern American outlaws of the post-Civil War era—Thomas Coleman (“Cole”; 1844–1916), John (1846–74); James (“Jim”; 1850–1902), and Robert (“Bob”; 1853–89)—who were often allied with Jesse James.

As youngsters in Lee’s Summit, MO, the Youngers were witness to the bloody Kansas–Missouri border skirmishes and then the strife of the Civil War. Cole Younger joined William C. Quantrill’s raiders, Confederate guerrillas and near-outlaws, and met Frank James, another member. After the war, in 1866, Cole joined Jesse and Frank James and other outlaws as a gang robbing banks in Missouri and surrounding states. Jim Younger joined them in 1868, John Younger about a year later, and Bob Younger about 1872. The next summer the gang added train robberies to their derring-do. By this time, Pinkerton agents and Missouri sheriffs had been long in pursuit. In March 1874, three of them found John and Jim Younger and killed John in a shootout.

The three remaining Youngers reached the end of their career on Sept. 7, 1876, when they, with Frank and Jesse James and three others, attempted to rob the First National Bank of Northfield, Minnesota. Leaving the bank, they were met by gunfire from a mob of citizens, who pursued them as they fled into nearby swamps. Three of the gang (Clell Miller, Bill Chadwell, and Charlie Pitts) were killed. Frank and Jesse James escaped; and the Youngers, with Jim badly wounded, were captured. The three Youngers pleaded guilty to robbery and murder and were sentenced to life imprisonment. Bob died in prison of tuberculosis. Cole and Jim were granted pardons in 1901. Jim, in ill health, put a bullet through his head the following year. Cole wrote The Story of Cole Younger, by Himself (1903), played in Wild West shows and carnivals for a few years, and then retired to his hometown of Lee’s Summit, MO, where he died of a heart attack.