I'm trying to figure it out when I've been taking a few breaks from working in the garden today...found these boxing gloves from 1892 and it appears this is about the point where they started stitching them tightly around the wrist.
The objects are antique "indian clubs", used for strength exercise and juggling in the 19th century. Considering the winged helmets on the shirts, the boxing gloves, and the exercise clubs . . . I suspect that this is an athletic club rather than a football team. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_club The football team in the second photo are actually indians from the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania. They may have been pretty good. Pop Warner coached there and Jim Thorpe was one of his players.
