Ninth plate bust-length studio ambrotype portrait of Earl Marble. [St. Joseph, Missouri], [Summer 1860]. Leatherette case split at hinge.

"...[they] started out to wreak vengeance upon Abolitionists. They caught Thompson, and beat him until he was apparently dead...Marble, who prided himself upon his long, poetical locks which fell over his shoulders, was also caught by them, his locks shorn off, and then he was permitted to his way."

A significant ambrotype photograph portrait of Earl Marble, a political provocateur and newspaper editor in Kansas/Missouri. Marble was a colorful character whose time in the border region of Kansas and Missouri is indicative of the complexity of the Bleeding Kansas Crisis. Marble's stance as an abolitionist apparently so incensed his adversaries that a mob cut off his hair in St. Joseph, Missouri during the tumultuous summer of 1860.

In July 1857, the "Geary City Era" newspaper of Geary City, Kansas was purchased by three men, including Earl Marble, who became its new editors. With a tagline of "equal and exact justice to all" the three editors highlighted their diversity of political opinion in their editorial credits: "Edwin H. Grant, Republican. Joseph Thompson, Democrat. Earl Marble, American." Despite various party affiliations, the Era was staunchly Free Soil, stating in the 2 January 1858 issue: "The struggle for Freedom in Kansas is not yet over, and all those who desire reliable information of all transpiring here, should subscribe for a Kansas newspaper. The Era is, emphatically, a Free State Family Newspaper!" In the same issue, Earl Marble is quoted from a "Free State Meeting" at Lawrence on 23 December 1857: "Whereas, a proposition has been made that we go into an election on the 4th of January, 1858, for the purpose of electing State and county officers under the Lecompton Constitution; therefore, be it Resolved, That we consider it detrimental to the interests of the Free State party to go into said election, as we are unalterably opposed to recognizing in any manner whatever, the legality of the Lecompton swindle, but will cheerfully coincide with the policy of the party, to be decided at the Convention on the 23d instant." (The Geary City Era, 2 January 1858, p. 2).

Marble and Thompson considered themselves "Free State Democrats." Although Democrats, they did not believe in the expansion of slavery, mostly to protect the rights and incomes of poor whites. After publishing the Geary City Era for a period of time, Marble and Thompson moved to St. Joseph, Missouri, where they started a new newspaper, the "Free Democrat," with their former colleague Dr. E.H. Grant. The editorial staff emphasized that it was "people's paper, one devoted to the interests of the laboring masses" (3 September 1859), and that they believed slavery in Missouri to be an "unprofitable institution."

In 1878, a periodical called the "Kansas Chief" published a fascinating account of Marble and Thompson's lives: "Thompson has since been a pretty thorough Republican, having to over all such fanciful notions as Free State Democrat and Union Democrat. He has discovered that there is but one kind of Democrat, and that is one who sticks to the party and obeys his masters under all circumstances. A little episode that occurred in St. Joseph, in which he and Marble were concerned, perhaps had a good deal to do in the intensifying his Republicanism. In May, 1860, at the time the news of the nomination of Lincoln was received, the Fire-eating Democrats held a public meeting in St. Joseph. Incendiary speeches were made by Slayback and others, and the hearts of the young chivalry were fired, until they could not contain themselves, but started out to wreak vengeance upon Abolitionists. They caught Thompson, and beat him until he was apparently dead, when they threw him into the Court House yard, and left him. Marble, who prided himself upon his long, poetical locks which fell over his shoulders, was also caught by them, his locks shorn off, and then he was permitted to his way.” (13 June 1878, The Kansas Chief (Troy, Kansas), p. 2).

The contemporary note accompanying this handsome portrait of Marble dates it to summer 1860, the height of the violent political tensions. His conventionally short hair suggests that it was taken after his "long, poetical locks" were chopped by the Fire Eaters. After the war, Marble evidently moved East and pursued a literary career.

A compelling original photograph of an individual who had a prominent role in the violent Bleeding Kansas border struggles of the burgeoning American west before the Civil War.

[Civil War, Union, Confederate, Bleeding Kansas, Stephen Douglas, Slavery, Enslavement, Abolition, Emancipation, John Brown, Frederick Douglass, African Americana, African American History, Daguerreotype, Ambrotype, Tintype, Cased Images, Union Cases]