Selected Bibliography

Cardozo, Christopher. Native Nations: First Americans as Seen by Edward S. Curtis. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1993. LC call number: E77.5 C8 1993.

This oversized, coffee table book reproduces more than one hundred images selected from Curtis's twenty-volume set in fine quadratone (sepia-toned) plates.

Curtis, Edward S. The North American Indian, being a series of volumes picturing and describing the Indians of the United States and Alaska. New York: Johnson Reprint Corp., 1970 (c. 1907-20). LC call number: E77 C98 and E77 C98 suppl.

A reprint of the original work, the first twenty volumes contain illustrations and textual information. Twenty supplemental sections of large reproductions of the original photogravures are bound in an additional four volumes. The P&P Reference Collection copy has notations in the volumes that identify those images which can be found in the Prints and Photographs Division Curtis collection. Copy negative (reproduction) numbers are also noted. An original first edition of The North American Indian is in Library's Rare Book Division.

Day, Sara, editor. Heart of the Circle: Photographs of Native American Women. San Francisco: Pomegranate Artbooks, 1997. LC call number: E89 C87 1997.

The first book devoted exclusively to Curtis's images of Native American women. More than one hundred intimate and revealing portraits from the collections of the Library of Congress are included.

Davis, Barbara A. Edward S. Curtis: The Life and Times of a Shadow Catcher. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1985. LC call number: TR 140 C82 D38 1985.

Generously illustrated with high-quality black-and-white and color-tinted photographic reproductions, this biography traces Curtis's devoted and extensive documentary work with Native people and his creative fund-raising schemes to support that commitment. It also chronicles his early interests in photography, his successful portrait studio in Seattle, his volatile family life, and the Hollywood productions and gold mining pursuits of his later life.

Gidley, Mick. Edward S. Curtis and the North American Indian, Incorporated. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998. LC call number: E77.5 G53 1998.

A scholarly study of the North American Indian project as a corporation, Gidley analyzes the financial, editorial, business, and technical aspects of Curtis's massive enterprise as well as the ideological and aesthetic forces that shaped the final publication.

Hausman, Gerald and Robert Kapoun. Prayer to the Great Mystery: The Uncollected Writings and Photography of Edward S. Curtis. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995. LC call number: E77.5 C83 1995.

The first work to focus on the unpublished Curtis photographs held at the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, this well-illustrated study contains ninety-three photographs which were not included in the twenty-volume The North American Indian, as well as many lesser known published images.

Lyman, Christopher M. The Vanishing Race and Other Illusions: Photographs of Indians by Edward S. Curtis. New York: Pantheon Books, 1982. LC call number: E77.5 L95 1982.

Lyman critiques Curtis's pictorialist, romantic, and idealized images of Native people because they obscure a drearier, more desperate reality. Curtis is also criticized for editing "modern" elements, such as alarm clocks and automobiles, from the views and for his use of props and costumes. Lyman exposes various misrepresentations in Curtis's depictions, as well as in other photographers' work of indigenous people, with many photographic examples.

Makepeace, Anne. Coming to Light: Edward S. Curtis and the North American Indians. VHS video, co-produced by Anne Makepeace and Thirteen/WNET for American Masters, 2000. Available from Bullfrog Films.

This educational film tells the dramatic story of Curtis's life and his changing views of the people he set out to document. Hopi, Navajo, Inuit, Blackfeet, Blood, Piegan, Suquamish, and Kwakiutl people who are descended from Curtis subjects, or who are using his photographs for cultural preservation, discuss the meaning of the images to native people and to all Americans today.

Pitzker, Barry. Edward S. Curtis. New York: Crescent Books, 1993. Call number: E77.5 P75 1993.

Reproduces nearly one hundred images from the Curtis collections at the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, and the University of Washington.