Edward S. Curtis's The North American
Indian
Related
Resources
In American
Memory
Other Online
Resources at the Library of Congress
Other
Resources at the Library of Congress
On the World
Wide Web beyond the Library of Congress
In American
Memory
Other Collections Illustrating
the American Indian Experience
-
American Indians of the Pacific Northwest
-
This digital collection integrates over 2,300 photographs and 7,700 pages
of text relating to the American Indians in two cultural areas of the
Pacific Northwest, the Northwest Coast and Plateau. These resources
illustrate many aspects of life and work, including housing, clothing,
crafts, transportation, education, and employment. The materials are
drawn from the extensive collections of the University of Washington
Libraries, the Cheney Cowles Museum/Eastern Washington State Historical
Society in Spokane, and the Museum of History and Industry in
Seattle.
-
Omaha Indian Music
-
Omaha Indian Music features traditional Omaha music from the 1890s
and 1980s. The multiformat ethnographic field collection contains 44 wax
cylinder recordings collected by Francis La Flesche and Alice Cunningham
Fletcher between 1895 and 1897, 323 songs and speeches from the 1983 Omaha
harvest celebration pow-wow, and 25 songs and speeches from the 1985
Hethu'shka Society concert at the Library of Congress. Segments from
interviews with members of the Omaha tribe conducted in 1983 and 1999
provide contextual information for the songs and speeches included in the
collection. Supplementing the collection are black-and-white and color
photographs taken during the 1983 pow-wow and the 1985 concert, as well as
research materials that include fieldnotes and tape logs pertaining to the
pow-wow.
Additional Online
Resources at the Library of Congress
-
Meeting of Frontiers
- Meeting of Frontiers is a bilingual English-Russian
collaboration. It tells the story of the American exploration and
settlement
of the West, the parallel exploration and settlement of Siberia and the
Russian Far East, and the meeting of the Russian-American frontier
in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest. The narrative sections are
illustrated and supplemented by digital reproductions of books,
manuscripts, photographs, maps, sound recordings, and early movies.
Among the illustrative collections are two that feature photographs of
American Indians:
- The
Frank G. Carpenter Collection
Frank G. Carpenter (1855-1924) was a
journalist, traveler,
and the author of books on geography, including the Carpenter's Geographic
Readers, standard texts used in American schools for forty years.
Carpenter traveled throughout Alaska in the 1910s, where he took many
photographs documenting the territory's stunning natural beauty, plants
and wildlife, native peoples, and important economic activities such as
fishing and mining.
- The
John C. H. Grabill Collection
Grabill was an early Western photographer who worked out of Deadwood and
Lead City, South Dakota. His photographs of frontier life in Colorado,
South Dakota, and Wyoming are particularly valuable in documenting
economic life on the frontier, such as the work of cowboys and miners, and
the interactions between Native Americans and early white settlers.
- Images of
Indians of North America
-
The Prints and Photographs Division preserves and makes available more
than 17,000 pictorial records of Native American people. Most of the
images are photographs made between 1860 and 1940. Other material includes
drawings, engravings, lithographs, posters, and architectural drawings.
An overview of
this material and guide to access is available online.
- Indian Land Cessions in the
United States
- United States Serial Set Number 4015 contains the second part of the
two-part
Eighteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the
Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1896-97 by J.W. Powell,
Director. It features
sixty-seven maps and schedules of treaties and land cessions compiled by
Charles C. Royce,
with an introductory essay by Cyrus Thomas.
Other
Resources at the Library of Congress
- In the Prints and Photographs Division
-
The Prints and Photographs Division Edward S. Curtis Collection
consists of more than 2,400 silver-gelatin, first generation prints--some
of which are sepia-toned--made from Curtis's original glass negatives.
About two-thirds of these images were not published in the North American
Indian volumes and therefore offer a different and unique glimpse into
Curtis's work with Native cultures. Acquired by the Library of Congress
through copyright deposit, the dates on the images reflect date of
registration, not when the photograph was actually taken. Arranged in
twenty-two groups (LOTs), primarily on the basis of geographical location,
most of the photographic prints are 5"x7" although nearly one hundred are
11"x14" and larger. Although the Prints and Photographs Division does not
hold any of the few existing original glass negatives, reproductions of
the photographic prints can be made from the Library's copy negatives.
Many Curtis images can be viewed in digitized form in the Prints and Photographs
Division online catalog. In addition to a search screen, the catalog
provides extensive information about the Edward S.
Curtis Collection, including a biographical sketch, information about
how to order reproductions, rights information, and a bibliography. Also
available are a selection of images
with historical context and a Tribe Index.
For each tribe, the index links to a record for the relevant
LOT; a
further link enables one to view any of the items from the LOT that have
so far been cataloged online and digitized.
- In the
Rare Book and Special Collections Division
-
The Library of Congress holds a
complete copy of The North American Indian by Edward S. Curtis.
On the World Wide Web beyond the Library of Congress
Photography of American Indians
-
Richard Throssel:
Photographer
of the Crows. (American
Heritage Center, University of Wyoming)
- Richard Throssel was a contemporary and colleague of Edward Curtis.
This site contains sixteen images depicting individuals and scenes
from southeastern Montana.
-
Hannah and Richard Maynard. (British Columbia Archives)
- Database of about 110,000
photographs taken by Hannah and Richard Maynard in British Columbia
during the late 1800s and early 1900s. Some are of American Indians
and Indian cultural artifacts. A keyword search using the term
"Indian"
retrieves more than 3000 images.
- Photography
Collection. (Denver Public Library)
- A selection of historic photographs (about 70,000) from the
collections of the Denver Public Library Western History/Genealogy
Department and the Colorado Historical Society. Current on-line collection
contains images and catalog records of Native Americans, pioneers, early
railroads, mining, Denver and Colorado towns.
- Benedicte
Wrensted: An Idaho Photographer in Focus. (Idaho Museum
of Natural History)
- A site describing Benedicte Wrensted's photographic portraits of
Indians from southeastern Idaho taken in 1890s-1910s. The site provides
about 30 sample photographs. Includes notes on "Reading Historical
Photographs," which contrast poses used for Euro-Americans and Native
portrait subjects. Some of Wrensted's photographs were used in the
Handbook of the North American Indian.
- Reading
Photographs. (William Hammond Mathers Museum)
- An illustrated essay exploring some of the potential uses of
photographs as documents through an examination of the Wanamaker
Collection of American Indian photographs at the William Hammond Mathers
Museum in Bloomington, Indiana. Provides an extensive description of the
history of photographic documentation of Indian life, including use of
studio props and manipulation techniques. Includes bibliography.
- Photographic
Resources Guide to the North American Collection. (Peabody
Museum, Harvard University)
- Includes online finding aids and some sample images. The archival
collection (not online) totals about half a million photographs
of field work from around the world.
- Native American Photographs: Nineteenth
Century Images From The Collections. (Pitt
Rivers Museum, University of Oxford)
- An introductory description to the collection of Native American
photographs (with about 20 sample images) held at the Pitt Rivers Museum
in Oxford, England.
- Women
Photographers and the American Indian. (Women in Photography
Archive)
- Bibliography and some biographical descriptions of thirteen women who
photographed Indian life in the late 19th and early 20th century. Some
sample photographs. Text from Rendezvous 28:1&2 (Fall/Spring
1992/3).
- Adam Clark Vroman. (University of California, Riverside)
- Photos of Southwest missions, and some portraits of American Indians.
- Native
American Collection. (University of Utah)
- Includes a list of 121 photographs, with only a few sample
images online. Most of the photographs are copies
of originals in the Smithsonian Institution.
- Edward Curtis (PBS American Masters Series)
- Biographical material and lesson plans to supplement the documentary film
"Coming to Light: Edward S. Curtis and the North American Indians," by
Anne Makepeace, which premiered in the PBS "American Masters" series on
April 23, 2001.
- Dawn of a New Day
(Arizona State University Libraries, Department of Archives and Manuscripts)
- A photographic exhibition organized from six archival collections. Five individuals
and one family who worked and sometimes lived among American Indians donated historical
images that reveal cultural forces at work during the first half of the 20th Century.
- Gallery of the Open Frontier
(The University of Nebraska Press in conjunction with the National Archives)
- Largely drawn largely from the collections of the National Archives, this web
exhibit and database indexes over 23,000 images of life west of the Mississippi up
to 1917. Work by individual photographers and government agencies, including over
2,500 photographs from records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
- Indian Peoples of the Northern Great Plains
-- Online Image Database (Montana State University et al)
- Includes photographs, ledger drawings, and other sketches of Plains Indian cultures
from: the library collections of three Montana State University campuses ( Bozeman, Billings, and Havre);
the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman; and Little Big Horn College in Crow Agency, Montana. The digital
collection was created in consultation with Native Americans, educators, librarians, and historians.
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