Could this be stroke style?

[Wes Merchant]

 I know Cullen and Collins have come up in some discussions here but I didn't see this cut. What do think?

http://www.loc.gov/item/berl.13485

[Joel Hooks]

Pretty straight forward finger style banjo.  Loud, sharp and consistent with the era's recorded sound.  

By the 90s "alternate fingering" was the call of the day and one could rip off a lot of notes on one string in succession using it.

Joseph Cullen and William Collins were vaudeville banjoists.  They played loud and snappy.  Those trills that you here are also pretty much standard for the era first finger tremolo fills.

[Wes Merchant]

Thanks folks, I've heard the Vess Ossman version tune, this sounded less "slick" so I wondered about the actual tecnique.

[Trapdoor2]

Considering that, #1 Cullen and Collins are/were well-known fingerstyle players and #2 that "Eli Green's Cakewalk" has been one of the more popular pieces for fingerstyle banjo (still is) since its publication (for fingerstyle banjo) in the 1890s and #3, this falls outside the range of the tenor banjo...I would say that no, it is not stroke style, no, it has no brush strokes and no, it isn't played plectrum style. It is pure and simple fingerstyle, consistent with the period and the players. If you wanted to reproduce it, look no further than the ABF (American Banjo Fraternity), keepers of the flame for this genre of 5-string fingerstyle in the US.

Here's a great video of it being played in the proper manner, fingerstyle: http://youtu.be/DyfHdmVb7FY