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Listen: The Latin ProgramTexas Jim Mitchell with an alligator at his Sarasota Reptile Farm attraction.
Image Number
Photographer
Date
Date Note
Rights
Collection
N2011- 7, Photographic collection, 1930s-1970s; Box 9
Geographic Term
Subject Term
Personal Subjects
Corporate Subject
Physical Description
General Note
Accompanying note: "Texas Jim Mitchell, a real Sarasota character, seen at his Reptile Farm, a Sarasota attraction, filled with alligators, snakes, and rare tropical birds, on the road out to the circus grounds. He was raised by Indians, was a ballyhoo artist selling patent medicines, still gets into his Indian costume and does an excellent Indian snake dance. His descriptions of his wild animal collection at his Reptile Farm is well worth hearing, filled as it is with the most entertaining of anecdotes and gags."
Biographical Note
Joseph Janney Steinmetz was a world-renowned commercial photographer whose images appeared in such publications as the Saturday Evening Post, Life, Look, Time, Holiday, Collier's, and Town & Country. His work has been referred to as "an American social history," which documented diverse scenes of American life from affluent northeasterners to middle-class Floridians. Steinmetz moved from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Sarasota, Florida in 1941.
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