Inventory No. 10-13
Accession No. 63-2
Date: 1872-1876
Contents: Sepia prints
Photographer: John K. Hillers (1843-1925)
Collector: John Wesley Powell Expedition (1872-1876) for the Bureau
of American Ethnology and Geological Survey, Smithsonian Institution
Inventory Nos. 10-14 and 10-53
Accession No. 975-63
Contents: Albumen prints
Inventory No. 10-59
Accession No. NA
Date: 1870-1900
Photographers: John K. Hillers, Timothy O'Sullivan (1840-1882),
George M. Wheeler, and B. F. Childs
Contents: Stereographs
Related Collections:
Photographs: Historic Print Collections: 34-120, 63-02.
Artifacts: 74-20, 77-36, 88-51, 95-21, 44-18.
Paper Archives: 77-36, 88-51, 95-21, 34-120, 63-02.
As photographer for John Wesley Powell's expeditions to the Southwest sponsored by the Bureau of American Ethnology and Geological Survey, John K. Hillers documented field research findings. However, because of his brilliant sense of light, shadow, composition, and balance, his photographs are also recognized for their uncommon aesthetic qualities. The inventoried collections include sepia prints and numerous albumen prints at Canyon de Chelly, the Walpi and Jemez Pueblos, and of various scenes taken between 1872 and 1882 along the route of the Atchison, Topeka and Sante Fe Railroad. A set of stereographs by Hillers and other expedition photographers such as Timothy O'Sullivan contain scenes from everyday life, cliff dwellings, and identified portraits of Navajo, Mohave, Zuni, and Paiute. Some of the prints provide a context for the artifacts collected during the Powell expeditions and housed at the Peabody Museum.
Inventory No. 10-84
Accession No. 63-22
Date: Prior to 1897
Photographer: Charles F. Lummis (1859-1928)
Collector: Charles F. Lummis
Related Collection: Paper Archives: 63-22.
Two albums of pre-1897 cyanotypes by journalist, Charles F. Lummis record landscapes, pueblo settlements, portraits, and ceremonial dances of the tribes of Arizona and New Mexico. The rugged environment and intimate portraits captured in Lummis' work reflect his gritty personality and legendary relationship with the people of the Southwest.
Alice Cunningham Fletcher and Francis La
Flesche
Inventory No. NA
Accession No. NA
Date: Possibly 1862-1911
Contents: Historic Print Collection: Plains Tribes
Photographer: Unknown
Collector: Alice Cunningham Fletcher (1838-1923) and Francis La
Flesche
Related Collections:
Artifacts: 82-45, 84-75, 85-8, 87-15, 88-61, 89-32, 95-37, 98-12,
975-05.
Paper Archives: 82-45, 84-75, 87-15, 88-61, 89-32, 95-37, 975-05.
Publication: Alice Fletcher and Francis La Flesche, The Omaha Tribe. Bureau of American Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution, 1911.
Alice Cunningham Fletcher was one of the first ethnologists to live among the people whom she studied, the Omaha. Fletcher advocated the assimilation of Native Americans and played a role in the passage of the Dawes Act in 1887, an attempt to transfer ownership of tribal lands to individuals. The photographs in the collection are of portraits, tribal lifeways, ceremonies, and rituals. The Omaha Tribe (1911) represents the culmination of 29 years of research done by Fletcher and her adopted son, Francis La Flesche, the first Omaha to become an ethnologist. Some of the objects they collected, including ritual and ceremonial material, have been repatriated.
Inventory No. 10-30
Accession No. NA
Date: 1908
Photographers: Grace Nicholson and Emry Kopta
Collector: Grace Nicholson (1877-1948)
Related Collections:
Photographs: Historic Print Collection: 975-66 dated 1912 and 1924.
Artifacts: 04-10, 05-07, 05-08, 06-05, 06-24, 07-22, 08-04, 09-08,
10-21, 10-36, 11-60, 12-29, 12-50, 12-51, 13-09, 13-34, 14-11, 15-14,
17-56, 18- 04, 20-10, 30-09, 46-21.
Paper Archives: 04-10, 05-07, 06-05, 07-22, 08-04, 09-08, 10-21,
10-36, 11-60, 12-29, 15-14, 18-04, 30-09, 46-21.
In the early 1900s, Grace Nicholson, a dealer who had a shop and studio in Pasadena, California, collected Native American objects from the West and Southwest for private collectors and museums. Nicholson and her associate, Emry Kopta, photographed the landscapes, tribal festivals, settlements, and people they encountered to provide information on the original use of the objects.
Native American Studio
Portraits
Inventory No. 10-9
Accession No. NA
Dates: 1857, 1858, 1867
Photographer: Julian Vannerson
Contents: Salt prints
Collector: In part from F. H. Kenard (or M.P.?)
Inventory No. 10-57
Accession No. NA
Dates: 1857, 1858, 1867
Photographer: Julian Vannerson
Contents: Albumen prints
Collector: In part from H. J. Winn (or Wim?)
Related Collections:
Photographs: Inventory No. 10-44 contains photographs of prints and
drawings from the
David
Bushnell Collection. Inventory 10-22 includes a William H.
Jackson (1843-1942) photograph from the Northwest Coast.
Artifacts: 41-72, part of the Bushnell Collection, comprises sketches
and paintings by Jackson and six rare daguerreotypes from the
1840s-1852 with inscriptions.
Paper Archives: 41-72.
Inventory No. 10-41
Accession No. 44-40
Date: 1889-1894
Photographers: Various
Contents: Albumen prints
Collector: Daniel Dorchester (1827-1907)
Related Collections:
Artifacts: 44-40.
Paper Archives: 44-40
Inventory No. 10-54
Accession No. NA
Date: 1898-1899
Photographer: Frank A. Rinehart (1861-1928)
Contents: Albumen prints
Collector: Frederick A. Delano
Related Collections:
Artifacts: 99-23.
Paper Archives: 99-23.
Inventory No. 10-34
Accession No. NA
Date: Late 19th century
Photographer: NA
Contents: 2 albumen prints: Chief Wedge of the Cayuga and
Kanankuezotek of the Onondagas
Inventory No. 10-90
Accession No. 43-34
Date: 19th century
Photographer: D. F. Barry
Contents: 2 prints of Algonquins: Brave Bear and Curley, General
Custer's Scout
Related Collection: Paper Archives: 43-34.
Several collections contain identified studio portraits of Native Americans. Between 1857 and 1858 many tribal delegations visited Washington, D. C., where they became the subjects of portraits. The salt prints are attributed to Julian Vannerson, studio manager and photographic artist, and Samuel A. Cohner, studio operator, of the McClees Studio. Cross references are noted to the Smithsonian Institution catalogue prints reproduced for exhibition purposes by Antonio Zeno Shindler and William H. Jackson from the McClees negatives. The remaining albumen prints are from the same series, the majority of which are identified as coming from the Addis Gallery. The cultures represented include: Algonquin/Ottawa, Choctaw, Dakota Santee, Dakota Yankton, Dakota, Dakota Sioux, Dakota Teton, Mdewakanton Sioux, Pawnee, Ponca, Pottawattomie, Sacs and Foxes, Tote, Utter, and Wahpeton Sioux.
Daniel Dorchester, U.S. Superintendent of Indian Schools from 1889-1894, documented his visits to over 105 reservations throughout the plains and plateau states by collecting artifacts and over 50 albumen prints of the people he met. Some prints are formal portraits by different commercial studios while others show informal scenes from everyday life among the Havasupai, Osage, Nez Perce, Pima, Pawnee, Papago, Apache, Arapahoe, Kansas(Caw), Jicarrilla, Isleta Pueblo, Navajo, Mohave, Zuni, and Taos Pueblo.
Another series of portraits was made by Frank A. Rinehart in 1898 while he was official photographer for the Trans-Mississippi International Exposition in Omaha, Nebraska. He photographed participants in the Indian Congress representing the Apache, Chiricahua, Arapaho, Assiboine, Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Crow, Iowa, Kiowa, Omaha, Oto, Pottawattomie, Salish, Kootenai, Sioux, Santa Clara Pueblo, Wichita, and Winnebago.
Other Cultural Anthropology
Collections
The changing lifeways of Native American people are illustrated in some secondary collections. An early perspective on tourism to California and the Southwest is represented by an album of prints by J. W. Davis and the commercial studio of J. W. White. Views of Yosemite, Yellowstone, and settlements of the Dakota, Omaha, Ponca, and Isleta cultures were taken in the late 1880s (Inventory No. 10-21). Photographs of the Northwest Coast and Arctic dating from the late 1800s range in subject from totem poles at the settlements of Kasa-an, Klinkwan, Fort Wrangle, and Sitka, Alaska, by commercial photographers (Inventory Nos. 10-6 , 10-52) to views of geographic features and camp sites along rivers taken in the Northwest by early explorers (Inventory Nos. 10-12, 10-86).
Many field studies have focused on the evolution of traditions. During her first fieldwork experience in the 1930s, Cora Dubois (1903-1991), an anthropologist known for her psychological approach and interdisciplinary methodologies, photographed the Wintu and possibly the Chumash of California. Images show headdresses, a structure used for winter bathing, and daily activities such as acorn grinding (Inventory No. 10-71). Vladimir J. Fewkes documented Cherokee and Catawba pottery techniques at reservations in North and South Carolina between 1929 and 1940 (Inventory No. 10-72). Maude Welch, Eliza Gordon, and Lillie Beck, accomplished potters, are shown scraping and polishing pottery. An extensively annotated album of photographs taken in 1938 and 1939 by Patricia Dyett contains prints of people from various pueblos involved in drum, pottery, and bread-making, plastering pueblos, selling items to tourists, and other everyday activities (Inventory No. 10-49). Elmer T. Forsling photographed Inuit life at Point Barrow, Alaska in the 1930s. Scenes include school, church, and hospital facilities provided by the U.S. Department of the Interior and Presbyterian missions, annual reindeer round-up, sealing, whaling, dog sledding, a sports festival, and different types of dwellings and boats (Accession No. 48-43). Another group of photographs shows Inuit building igloos, ice fishing, and other daily activities near Hudson Bay during the 1950s (Inventory No. 10-43). Slides and prints taken in Canada's Northwest Territory in 1984 record the remains of Chipeywan and Dogrib log house settlements built between 1910 and 1920 and abandoned in 1944. Details of construction techniques and material culture are supplemented by a corresponding floorplan survey, topographical maps, and descriptive notes about the photographs (Inventory No. 10-7). A small group of photographs taken of the Rosebud Sioux by Skip Schiel depict conditions at Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota in the early 1980s (Inventory No. 10-8).
Related Collections: Paper Archives: 48-43, 60-07, 969-34, 975-65, 985-26, 988-09, 995-26.