dallas wrote:Another thing that is strange is that at least the 3 men whose legs can be seen are wearing officer's boots and spurs.
David Puckey wrote: Must be posed as no-one would wear their best boots to shoe, as they would not be best for long!
Must be a cold place, both a stove and a forge in close proximity.
On the observation on the boots, those are good observations and you both have sharp eyes!
For those not too familiar with what is being observed there, it's clear the men must be officers as they are wearing officers' boots. And they're wearing the official boot, not one of the many private patterns of field boots that show up in this period. That's further evidence, perhaps, that they were participants in a school, or were really turned out for the photo. Enlisted men in this period would have worn service shoes.
As to their being highly polished, however, and even as to their wearing spurs, we might not want to take too much from that. We'd expect school attendees, officer or enlisted, to start off the day with polished boots, and even if they get pretty scuffed up during the day, it's not too hard to get them buffed back up at night. Spurs in this era were such a part of the uniform that they show up in surprising examples even when there was no chance of riding, so that's not too surprising either.
I think this photo is clearly posed. But what it is intended to illustrate is really interesting. These men are all officers, and they're well turned out. They haven't done much shoeing that day. The location does look very much like the period buildings at Ft. Riley in the same period (there's a high likelihood that this one was taken at Ft. Meyer). School photo? Refresher course? Some odd gag?
On the stoves, one thing I thought I'd note, given the fellow in the mackinaw to the left, is that in really cold weather, some older type iron stoves radiate blazing hot heat if you're near them, then a few feet a way, in the same building, it's arctic. Weird how that works, but I've experienced that a time or two in really cold weather in buildings still heated with iron stoves. Even today, many decades since these were common, people instantly revert to the old custom, and everyone will be gathered around the stove, cup of coffee in their hand, in those rare instances.
