Wanted in America: Posters Collected by the Fort Worth Police Department, 1898–1903 will change your perspective on the genre.

The book features 50 posters and the fascinating true crime stories behind them. While some of the offenders are virtually unknown today, others, such as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, remain household names. Some posters are the equivalent of AMBER alerts – the “wanted” are runaways or victims of kidnappings. In most cases the wanted are fugitive pickpockets, embezzlers, robbers, kidnappers, or murderers, and their descriptions include their associates and their victims.

They are a cross-section of America—men and women of all ages, social classes, and many nationalities.

Though the notices were created on a local level, they reflect national social and economic changes in a growing population.

LeAnna Schooley is executive director of the Center for Texas Studies at TCU, where she received her PhD in 2017. She has spent her career working in museums and public history organizations, including the W.K. Gordon Center for Industrial History of Texas, the Texas Historical Commission, and the Fort Stockton Historical Society.

Tom Kellam is a native of Fort Worth with degrees in philosophy, history, and library science. He worked in the Genealogy, Local History, and Archives Unit at the Fort Worth Public Library for twenty-three years. He is currently the district archivist for Tarrant County College.