The collection consists of photographs relating to Native Americans, which were submitted to the copyright office of the Library of Congress in and around the early 20th century. Many of the photographs are studio portraits as well as photographs made as part of expeditions and railroad surveys. It includes images of people, dwellings and other structures, agriculture, arts and crafts, burials, ceremonies and dances, games, food preparation, transportation, and scenic views. Some of the photographs were posed to illustrate literary works, including Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's Hiawatha, while others depict paintings or other artwork.
Collection is organized alphabetically by copyright claimant.
Biographical/Historical note:
The collection was formed from submissions made to the Library of Congress as part of the copyright registration process. In 1949, arrangements were made to allow the Bureau of American Ethnology to copy the collection and some negatives were made at that time, largely from the Heyn and Matzen photographs. The project was soon abandoned, however, as too large an undertaking for the facilities of the BAE. In 1957-1958, arrangements were begun by William C. Sturtevant of the BAE to transfer a set of the photographs from the Library of Congress to the BAE.
Local Call Number(s):
NAA Photo Lot 59
Provenance:
In 1965, the Bureau merged with the Smithsonian's Department of Anthropology to form the Smithsonian Office of Anthropology, and in 1968 the Office of Anthropology Archives transformed into the National Anthropological Archives.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research.
Access to the collection requires an appointment.
Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Genre/Form:
Photographs
Citation:
Photo Lot 59, Library of Congress Copyright Office photograph collection of Native Americans, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
This collection includes glass plate negatives, copy negatives and photographic prints taken and collected by Joseph Imhof, a lithographer and painter known for documenting Pueblo culture in New Mexico. These include images shot by Imhof in Acoma, Isleta, Santa Clara (K'apovi) and Taos Pueblos; glass plate negatives (copies) of Frank Rinehart portraits; original glass plate negatives made by Orlando Scott Goff among the Apsáalooke (Crow/Absaroke) in Montana circa 1894; photographic prints of Imhof artworks; and photographs of Joseph and Sarah Imhof and their home in Taos, New Mexico.
Scope and Contents:
Series 1: Glass plate negatives contains 89 glass plate negatives donated by Joseph Imhof to the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation in 1930. This includes—copies of Frank Rinehart portraits; Joseph Imhof photographs made in Acoma Pueblo and Isleta Pueblo in 1912; Orlando Scott Goff Apsáalooke (Crow/Absaroke) photographs from Montana; and Kwakwaka'wakw (Kwakiutl) photographs from Vancouver Island, British Columbia (photographer unknown). The majority of the Rinehart glass plate negatives include two portraits side by side on one 8x10 plate, though copy negatives were made of the individual portraits. The copy negatives were created by the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation (NMAI's predecessor museum) during a photo conservation project in the 1960s.
Series 2: Photographic Prints includes 89 cataloged and 38 uncatalogued photographic prints from 1900-1964. This includes Joseph Imhof photographs made in K'apovi (Santa Clara) Pueblo; images of Imhof's drawings, sketches and paintings; photographs in Taos of the Imhof home and studio; and portraits of Sarah and Joseph Imhof.
The negatives have catalog numbers N19283-N19371. The prints have catalog numbers P19480-P19484, P19532-P19591.
Arrangement:
Arranged in two series by photographic type. Series 1: Glass plate Negatives, circa 1894, 1898, 1912, undated and Series 2: Photographic Prints, 1900-1964. Within the series they are arranged by catalog number with the uncatalogued prints at the end of Series 2.
Biographical / Historical:
Joseph Adam Imhof was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1871. After teaching himself lithography, Imhof was hired by Currier and Ives and eventually earned enough money from this job to buy a bookstore. In 1891 he eventually quit his job and sold the bookstore to pursue a formal art education in Europe which led to four years in Paris, Brussels, Antwerp and Munich where he apprenticed with several artists.
During this time, Imhof met Buffalo Bill Cody and was invited to join him in Antwerp to sketch and paint members of his "Wild West Show". Returning to New York, Imhof rented a studio and began to study the Iroquois Indians in New York and Canada. He spent the next ten years painting and improving his lithography, photography and color printing innovations - which financed his early painting career. He also freelanced for Allen and Ginter, painting his Indian Head Series for insertion on cards in boxes of cigarettes.
In 1897 Joseph married Sarah "Sallie" Ann Elizabeth Russell. In 1905 they visited the Southwest for the first time to record the ceremonies of the Pueblo Indians. Joseph built a studio in Albuquerque in 1906, and the Imhofs spent the next few years traveling around the region, though they eventually returned to New York. In 1929, Joseph and Sarah moved to New Mexico permanently and built their new home and studio in Taos Pueblo. There, he would have Native Puebloan models to live in his home for a time before he painted them. He also collected many artifacts and had the first lithography press in Taos. His series of paintings called Kivas and Corn, which he gifted to the University of New Mexico, was his last and most famous work. The Koshare Indian Museum also houses one of the largest collections of his paintings. Joseph Imhof died in 1955 leaving the remainder of his collection in the care of his wife and daughter.
Bibliography: The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Artists of the American West, by Peggy and Harold Samuels; Joseph Imhof: Artist of the Pueblos, by Nancy Hopkins Reily and Lucille Enix, Koshare Indian Museum.
Related Materials:
A large collection of Joseph Imhof artwork and photographs can be found at the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology at the University of New Mexico.
The NMAI has a collection of Joseph Imhof artwork and lithographs donated by his wife Sarah in the 1960s.
For a bibliography on Joseph Imhof written by his wife, Sarah Imhof, see Box 255, Folder 7 in the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation records (NMAI.AC.001).
Separated Materials:
The uncataloged photographic prints in Series 2 were originally housed with documents in Box 255, Folder 7 in the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation records (NMAI.AC.001). They have been moved to be with the rest of the Joseph Imhof photographic collection.
Provenance:
The glass plate negatives were a Gift of Joseph Imhof in 1930. It is still unclear how/when the photographic prints were acquired by the museum, but they were likely donated by Sarah Imhof along with a collection of Imhof artwork in the 1960s.
Restrictions:
Access to NMAI Archives Center collections is by appointment only, Monday - Friday, 9:30 am - 4:30 pm. Please contact the archives to make an appointment (phone: 301-238-1400, email: nmaiarchives@si.edu).
Rights:
Permission to publish materials from the collection must be requested from National Museum of the American Indian Archives Center. Please submit a written request to nmaiphotos@si.edu. For personal or classroom use, users are invited to download, print, photocopy, and distribute the images that are available online without prior written permission, provided that the files are not modified in any way, the Smithsonian Institution copyright notice (where applicable) is included, and the source of the image is identified as the National Museum of the American Indian. For more information please see the Smithsonian's Terms of Use and NMAI Archive Center's Digital Image request website.
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Joseph A. Imhof photograph collection, image #, NMAI.AC.142; National Museum of the American Indian Archives Center, Smithsonian Institution.
50 Stereographs (circa 50 printed stereographs, halftone and color halftone)
1,000 Stereographs (circa, albumen and silver gelatin (some tinted))
239 Prints (circa 239 mounted and unmounted prints, albumen (including cartes de visite, imperial cards, cabinet cards, and one tinted print) and silver gelatin (some modern copies))
96 Prints (Album :, silver gelatin)
21 Postcards (silver gelatin, collotype, color halftone, and halftone)
Photographs relating to Native Americans or frontier themes, including portraits, expedition photographs, landscapes, and other images of dwellings, transportation, totem poles, ceremonies, infants and children in cradleboards, camps and towns, hunting and fishing, wild west shows, food preparation, funeral customs, the US Army and army posts, cliff dwellings, and grave mounds and excavations. The collection also includes images of prisoners at Fort Marion in 1875, Sioux Indians involved in the Great Sioux Uprising in Minnesota, the Fort Laramie Peace Commission of 1868, Sitting Bull and his followers after the Battle of the Little Bighorn, and the aftermath of the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890.
There are studio portraits of well-known Native Americans, including American Horse, Big Bow, Four Bears, Iron Bull, Ouray, Red Cloud, Red Dog, Red Shirt, Sitting Bull, Spotted Tail, Three Bears, and Two Guns White Calf. Depicted delegations include a Sauk and Fox meeting in Washington, DC, with Lewis V. Bogy and Charles E. Mix in 1867; Kiowas and Cheyennes at the White House in 1863; and Dakotas and Crows who visited President Warren G. Harding in 1921. Images of schools show Worcester Academy in Vinita, Oklahoma; Chilocco Indian School; Carlisle Indian Industrial School; Haskell Instittue, and Albuquerque Indian School.
Some photographs relate to the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, 1876; World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, 1893; Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, 1903; and Centennial Exposition of the Baltimore and Ohio Railraod, 1876. Expedition photographs show the Crook expedition of 1876, the Sanderson expedition to the Custer Battlefield in 1877, the Wheeler Survey of the 1870s, Powell's surveys of the Rocky Mountain region during the 1860s and 1870s, and the Hayden Surveys.
Outstanding single views include the party of Zuni group led to the sea by Frank Hamilton Cushing; Episcopal Church Rectory and School Building, Yankton Agency; Matilda Coxe Stevenson and a companion taking a photographs of a Zuni ceremony; John Moran sketching at Acoma; Ben H. Gurnsey's studio with Indian patrons; Quapaw Mission; baptism of a group of Paiutes at Coeur d'Alene Mission; court-martial commission involved in the trial of Colonel Joseph J. Reynolds, 1877; President Harding at Sitka, Alaska; Walter Hough at Hopi in 1902; and Mrs. Jesse Walter Fewkes at Hopi in 1897.
Biographical/Historical note:
George V. Allen was an attorney in Lawrence, Kansas and an early member of the National Stereoscope Association. Between the 1950s and 1980s, Allen made an extensive collection of photographs of the American West, mostly in stereographs, but also including cartes-de-visite and other styles of mounted prints, photogravures, lantern slides, autochromes, and glass negatives.
Photo Lot 90-1, George V. Allen collection of photographs of Native Americans and the American frontier, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Postcards, some postmarked, with images of Apache, Hopi, Seminole, Sioux, Minneconjou, and other Native Americans. They include images of Apache men at a powwow near a mud house in Yuma, Arizona; the Hopi House at the Grand Canyon; a blanket weaver at Hopi House; a street scene from Pueblo Acoma; a Seminole wedding in Fort Lauderdale, Florida; women with leatherwork, baskets, and blankets; a horse-drawn travois used in a parade at the Annual Crow Indian Fair; Sioux people and tipis at Frontier Days in Cheyenne, Wyoming; Apache chief James A. Garfield, Ute Chief Sevaro and his family; and Iron Hail (also known as Dewey Beard (Minneconjou).
Biographical/Historical note:
Thomas Howard Woody (1935-2011) was a professor of sculpture at the University of South Carolina, co-author of several books on South Carolina history and postcards, and an avid collector of postcards. He received his undergraduate degree from Richmond Professional Institute and a master's degree from East Carolina University. Retiring after a 46-year long career at the University of South Carolina, he was awarded the title Distinguished Professor Emeritus.
Local Call Number(s):
NAA Photo Lot 92-37
Location of Other Archival Materials:
The National Anthropological Archives holds the Albertype Company Native American and Hawaiian photographs (Photo Lot 25).
Additional E.C. Kropp Co., Curt Teich, Detroit Photographic Company, and Fred Harvey postcards held in National Museum of American History Archives Center in the Victor A. Blenkle Postcard Collection.
Additional Detroit Photographic Company photographs held in National Anthropological Archives Photo Lot 24, Photo Lot 59, MS 4510, and MS 4559.
Photographs documenting Native American Public Programs events, including images of Native American artists and examples of their work during demonstrations and lectures at the National Museum of Natural History. Photographs were mostly made by Smithsonian photographers, including Carl C. Hansen, Richard Strauss, Chip Clark, Laurie Minor-Penland, Eric Long, Alan Hart, Rick Vargas, Dane Penland, and Christina Taccone. Included are a large number of photographs of Don Tenoso (Hunkpapa), an artist-in-residence at the National Museum of Natural History, and performances by James Luna (Luiseno/Digueno), Guillermo Gomez-Pena (Chicano), and Coco Fusco. Crafts and arts depicted include beadwork, basket weaving, dollmaking, peyote fanmaking, weaving, hand games, quilting, clothing making, leatherwork, woodcarving, saddlemaking, sculpture, painting, story-telling, and performance art. There are also images of Dolores Lewis Garcia and Emma Lewis Garcia (daughters of Acoma potter Lucy M. Lewis) and their pottery, Joallyn Archambault with artists, and the 1990 American Indian Theater Company reception.
Other depicted artists include Maynard White Owl Lavadour (Cayuse/Nez Perce), Evangeline Talshaftewa (Hopi), Lisa Fritzler (Crow), Marian Hanssen, Vanessa Morgan (Kiowa/Pima), Marty Good Bear (Mandan/Hidatsa), Katie Henio and Sarah Adeky (Navajo), Geneva Lofton and Lee Dixon (Luiseno), Chris Devers (Luiseno), Mary Good Bear (Mandan), Robert and Alice Little Man (Kiowa), Lisa Watt (Seneca), Jay McGirt (Creek), Bill Crouse (Seneca), Kevin Johnny-John (Onondaga), Rose Anderson (Pomo), Francys Sherman and Margaret Hill (Mono), Thelene Albert and Annie Bourke (White Mountain Apache), Bob Tenequer (Laguna), Jimmy Abeyeta (Navajo), Lou Ann Reed (Acoma), Melissa Peterson (Makah), Jennifer and Kallie Keams Musial (Navajo), Joyce Growing Thunder-Fogarty and Juanita Fogarty (Assiniboine/Sioux), David Neel (Kwakiutal), Mervin Ringlero (Pima), Jhon Goes-In-Center (Oglala), D. Montour (Delaware/Mohawk), Rikki Francisco (Pima), Annie Antone (Papago), Angie Reano-Owen (Santo Domingo Pueblo), Carol Vigil (Jemez), Gregg Baurland (Miniconjou), Greg Colfax (Makah), Lydia Whirlwind-Soldier (Sicangu Dakota), Martin Red Bear (Oglala), Michael Rogers (Paiute), Alta Rogers (Yurok/Paiute), Dorothy Stanley (Miwok), Lisa Little Chief (Dakota), Tom Haukaas (Sicangu Dakota), Nora Navanjo-Morsie (Santa Clara Tewa), Seneca Women's Singing Society, Molly Blankenship and Martha Ross (Eastern Cherokee), Julia Parker (Miwok/Pomo), Candy and Claudia Cellicion (Zuni), Sally and Lorraine Black (Navajo), Carmen Quinto-Plunkett (Tlingit), Ina McNeil (Hunkpapa), and Ellen and Faye Quandelancy (Zuni), and Rikki Francisco (Pima).
Biographical/Historical note:
Native American Public Programs was founded in 1989 as a part of the Department of Education in the National Museum of Natural History. Under the directorship of Aleta Ringlero, its main activity was the arranging of demonstrations by Native American artists and craftsmen in the exhibition areas of the museum.
Local Call Number(s):
NAA Photo Lot 91-26
Location of Other Archival Materials:
Audio of James Luna's lecture for the Native American Public Programs office held in National Anthropological Archives in MS 7514.
Dolls made by Don Tenoso for the Native American Public Programs office held in Department of Anthropology collections in accession 390905.
Additional photographs of Tenoso held in the Smithsonian Institution Archives in SIA2009-2222 and 90-13726.
Photo Lot 91-26, Native American Public Programs photograph collection relating to Native American artists and art, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
The collection consists of photographs collected by the Albertype Company for their postcards and viewbooks, including portraits, scenery, camps, Native Americans schools, and some paintings and composites for postcard printing. Additional subjects include rock drawings in Maine; a statue in Kansas City, Missouri; Standing Rock Monument in North Dakota; people in Atlin, British Columbia; Carib rock drawings in the Virgin Islands; and totem poles in Vancouver.
Included are works of Charles Milton Bell, E. A. Benson, C. R. Bourne, H. E. Brown, William Bull, H. H. Clarke, George B. Cornish, Frank Bennett Fiske, H. Lee Flood, N. W. Halsey, Fred Harvey, H. R. Hazeltine, Kiser Photograph Company, W. H. Martin, C. W. Mathers, Frank Matsura, W. H. Matthewson, Charles E. Morris, Ernest Moses, J. S. Myers, M. OʹConnor, G. W. Parsons, Roland W. Reed, C. B. Robinson , J. E. Stimson, W. M. Stoltz, and H. H. Watkins. Clarke and Fiske, however, are the only photographers with more than a few images.
Biographical/Historical note:
The Albertype Company, headquartered in Brooklyn, New York, published viewbooks and postcards for national distribution. Founded by Adolph and Herman Witteman, the company began publishing souvenier photographic albums as early as 1867. The Wittemans established Witteman Brothers in 1885, and then the Albertype Company in 1890. From 1890 to 1950, the firm published collotypes made from the photographs of its agents (including Adolph Witteman), other companies, and independent photographers. The firm was purchased in 1952 by Art Vue Post Card Company.
Local Call Number(s):
NAA Photo Lot 25
Reproduction Note:
Modern copy negatives and prints made by Smithsonian Institution, circa 1972.
Location of Other Archival Materials:
The Library of Congress, Wisconsin Historical Society, and Historical Society of Pennsylvania also hold original Albertype Company prints and negatives.
Albertype Company views are also held in National Anthropological Archives Photo Lot 88-37, Photo Lot 92-37, and Photo Lot 92-3.
Restrictions:
Original nitrate negatives are in cold storage and require advanced notice for viewing. Modern copy prints and copy negatives for nearly all images are available.
Photographs made as part of Joseph C. Farber's project to document modern NAtive American everyday life. Represented tribes include the Acoma, Apache, Blackfoot, Chehalis, Cherokee, Cheyenne, Chippewa, Cocopa, Dakota, Eskimo, Haida, Kiowa, Kutenai, Lummi, Mohave, Mohawk, Navaho, Northern Athabascan, Onandaga, Pima, Pueblo, Quinalt, Seminole, Taos, Tlingit, and Zuni. Subject coverage is broad and varies from tribe to tribe. Included are portraits, as well as totem poles, carving, weaving, pottery, painitng, landscapes, boats and canoes, ceremonial regalia, camps, classes and vocational training, homes and traditional dwellings, construction projects, rodeos and powwows, dances, industries (including lumber), herding and ranching, agriculture, stores and storefronts, cliff dwellings, parades, crab cleaning, fishing, games, health care, legal processes, music, office work, sewing, vending, and a funeral. There are also photographs of R. C. Gorman (and a letter from Gorman to Farber) and Fritz Shoulder (some in color).
Farber's travels included Alaska (Point Barrow, Dead Horse, Glacier Bay, Haines, Hoona, Hydaberg, Ketchikan, Mount McKinley, Prudhoe Bay, Saxman, and Sitka); Alberta (Blackfeet Reservation); Arizona (Canyon de Chelly, Cocopa Reservation, Flagstaff, Kayenta, Monument Valley, Pima Reservation, Quechan Reservation, Mojave Reservation, and Yuma); California (Alcatraz, Oakland, and San Francisco); Florida (Big Cypress Reservation; Miccosukee Reservation); Minnesota (Minneapolis and Nett Lake); Montana (Northern Cheyenne Reservation); New Mexico (Acoma, Gallup, Navajo Forest, Picuris, Puye, San Ildefonso, Santa Clara, Santa Fe, Taos, San Ildefonso, Santa Clara, and Tesuque); New York (New York City and Onandaga Reservation); North Carolina (Cherokee Reservation); Oklahoma (Anadarko, Apache, Lawton, Stilwell, and Tahlequah); South Dakota (Rosebud and Wounded Knee); and Washington (Lummi Reservation, Nisqually River, Puyallup River, and Quinalt Reservation).
Biographical/Historical note:
Joseph C. Farber (1903-1994) was a successful New York businessman and professional photographer. He studied with Edward Steichen at the New York Camera Club in the 1920s. The prints in this collection resulted from a five-year project that involved travelling to Native communities throughout the United States to document modern Native American life. The project resulted in a book, Native Americans: 500 Years After (1975), as well as exhibits, including one in the National Museum of Natural History in 1976-1977.
Local Call Number(s):
NAA Photo Lot 78-1, NAA ACC 95-3
Location of Other Archival Materials:
Farber's photographs, previously located in Photo Lot 95-3 have been relocated and merged with Photo Lot 78-1. These photographs were also made by Joseph C. Farber and form part of this collection.
The National Museum of American History Archives Center holds the Joseph Farber Papers and Photographs, circa 1962-1990.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research.
Access to the collection requires an appointment.
Rights:
Photographs published in Farber's books still under copyright. Reproduction permission from artist's estate.
Lantern slides depicting the people and landscape of the American Southwest. Images include those of Puebloan people, dwellings, churches, dances and ceremonies, archaeological excavations (including Pueblo Bonito and Neil M. Judd with his excavation party), pictographs, and landscapes. Tribes represented include Acoma, White Mountain Apache, Hopi (Mishongnovi), Laguna, Navajo, Taos, and Santa Clara. The slides were largely commercially distributed by the George W. Bond, Chicago Slide Company, Chicago Transparency Company (for the Santa Fe Railroad), Detroit Slide Company, Edward H. Kemp, National Geographic Society, and United States Bureau of Reclamation. The collection was listed as the "Casey collection" by Father John Montgomery Cooper when it was brought to the museum.
Local Call Number(s):
NAA Photo Lot 32, USNM ACC 211312
Location of Other Archival Materials:
Artifacts donated by the Department of Anthropology, Catholic University of America in accession 211312 held in the anthropology collections of the National Museum of Natural History. Additional photographs donated by Catholic University of America can be found in Photo Lot 20 in the National Anthropological Archives.
The Lee Howard Marmon photographic prints and contact sheets contain 36 color and black and white photographic prints and two color contact sheets of 9 images each. Subjects include Laguna and Acoma elders (1950-1965), publicity images of celebrities (1967-1973), Native American portraiture (circa 1987), the New Mexico pueblos and landscape, and the potter Lucy M. Lewis, her daughters, and their pottery (1987).
Arrangement note:
Prints: organized in folders; arranged numerically by image number
Biographical/Historical note:
Lee Howard Marmon was born as the second son of Lily and Henry "Hank" Marmon on September 25, 1925 in Laguna, New Mexico. Marmon's interest in photography was sparked when he took his first photograph at the age of 11 of an automobile accident on Route 66. Initially planning to attend the University of New Mexico to study geology, Marmon dropped out after several semesters to begin his World War II career as a Sergeant-Major on Shemya Island, Alaska in 1943. Marmon's service to the United States in the Aleutian chain lasted until 1946, after which he returned to Laguna.
Marmon retained an interest in photography and purchased his first professional camera, a 2¼ x 2¾ Speed Graphic. Later in his career, he would use a 4x5 Speed Graphic, a Rolleiflex, a Hasselblad Superwide, and a Hasselblad C model. When Marmon began photographing, he favored Kodachrome sheet film (ASA 8) and super speed B&W (ASA 100). As Marmon was learning this new hobby, his civilian life included employment as the Laguna postmaster and as a worker in his father's store, The Laguna Trading Post. Photography escalated from a hobby to a more serious pursuit after Marmon's father suggested that his son bring a camera along while making store deliveries in order to take portraits of the Laguna elders. These early black and white photographs, taken using fixed-lens cameras and natural light, became some of Marmon's most well-known images.
While Marmon mainly focused on documenting the traditions and lifestyles of the Laguna and Acoma Pueblos, a departure from this theme occurred when he moved from New Mexico to Palm Springs, California in 1966. As the official photographer for the Bob Hope Desert Classic Golf Tournament from 1967 until 1973, Marmon took publicity photographs of golfers participating in the competition along with celebrity entertainers and guests at the accompanying Bob Hope Ball. Marmon also worked as a freelance photographer throughout this time, contributing to publications such as Time Magazine and The Saturday Evening Post, working as a still photographer for Columbia Pictures, and completing a commission from President and Mrs. Nixon to photograph a collection of New Mexican Puebloan pottery.
Marmon moved back to Laguna in 1982, and in the following years he showed his work in a variety of venues, opened a bookstore called The Blue-Eyed Indian, and won an ADDY award for his contribution to the PBS documentary series, Surviving Columbus: The Story of the Pueblo People. In 2003, Marmon published a book, The Pueblo Imagination: Landscape and Memory in the Photography of Lee Marmon, in collaboration with his daughter, author Leslie Marmon Silko, and poets Joy Harjo and Simon Ortiz. The book was heralded as a success, collecting first place awards from The Mountains and Plains Bookseller's Association and from Independent Publisher Online.
After the publication of his book, Marmon's photographic activity began to diminish. His final show, Pueblo Faces and Places, was held in 2007 at the Sky City Cultural Center in Acoma, New Mexico. In recognition for achievements in the photographic field, Marmon was honored as the 88th Annual Inter-Tribal Ceremonial's "Living Treasure" of 2009, the first photographer to be given the award. Throughout his life, Marmon produced a great volume of work. In May of 2009, he donated his personal papers and over 65,000 photographs to the Center for Southwest Research and Special Collections (CSWR) at the University of New Mexico. From a humble beginning of taking photographs of village elders, Marmon eventually built a career out of saving the memories of the Laguna and Acoma tribes and is now one of the country's best-known Native American photographers.
Restrictions:
Researchers must contact the NMAI Archives for an appointment to access the collection. Contact information below.
Lee Howard Marmon photographic prints and contact sheets, circa 1950-1987, National Museum of the American Indian Archives, Smithsonian Institution (negative, slide or catalog number).
Indians of North America -- Southwest, New Search this
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Portfolios
Date:
undated
Scope and Contents:
Songs sung by Philip Sanchez, translated by Wilbert Hunt, and recorded by Anthony Wilding for M. W. Stirling, Washington, D. C., October, 1928. Songs numbered 1A-24A. Three copies of list, as follows: original, in handwriting of M. W. Stirling, Anthony Wilding, and ; typescript, annotated by Leslie A. White; typescript carbon, edited in writing of M. W. Stirling.
The Anne Forbes collection includes documents and photographs pertaining to her research on Indian arts in the Southwest, United States conducted during 1948-1948 and revisited in 1958. The work culminated in the dissemination of a survey titled "Survey of American Indian Arts and Crafts, Southwest and Northern Plains." Forbes focused mostly on Pueblo paintings having developed personal relationships with several Pueblo painters including Joe Herrera (Cochiti Pueblo), Velino Herrera (Zia Pueblo) and Jose Rey Toledo (Jemez Pueblo).
Scope and Contents:
The bulk of the Anne Forbes collection consists of documentation concerning her survey on American Indian arts and crafts in the Southwest and Northern Plains conducted in 1948-1949 and then revisited in 1958. This includes biographical notes on individual Native artists from New Mexico, Arizona, Montana, Colorado, South Dakota and California as well as notes on museum collections and art dealers whose collections and purchases included Indian art from the Southwest. Forbes also visited Pueblo schools during the 1948-1948 trip in order to examine the status of arts education and collected drawings from students as well as took careful notes on each school. Also included in the Forbes papers are the draft and final reports of Forbes' survey as well as responses to the report from prominent institutions and individuals in the Indian art world such as friend and artist Joe H. Herrera. Supporting materials to Forbes' research includes a collection of Smoke Signals newsletters from 1951 to 1965, which was published by the Indian Arts and Crafts Board, brochures and pamphlets from the Bureau of Indian Affairs concerning education and the arts, and exhibition documents and catalogs from museums featuring Native artists' works from the Southwest and Northern Plains.
The photo albums titled "Indian Paintings, Pottery, Pictographs, Prehistoric Murals, Dances, Artists" and "Pueblo Indian Paintings" hold photographs collected and taken by Forbes during her research. The bulk of the photographs are of works of art and are arranged by culture group and artist. There are also a small amount of photographs of the artists themselves and their families.
Arrangement:
The Anne Forbes collection is arranged into two series. Series 1: Indian Arts Research and Supporting Documentation is arranged alphabetically by folder. Series 2: Photo Albums contains two photo albums that have been left in their original orders.
Biographical Note:
Miss Anne Forbes originated from Cambridge Massachusetts. After majoring in art from Bennington College in Vermont, Forbes pursued a Master's degree in social anthropology from Harvard University's Radcliffe College. Taking an interest in Southwest Indian Art, Forbes applied for a fellowship through the Indian Arts Fund for the summer of 1948 to study painting and other techniques used in Pueblo art. Although the fellowship lasted only a summer, Forbes spent the following year visiting various pueblos meeting native artists and purchasing original art works from them. It was at this time that Forbes befriended artists Joe Herrera (Cochiti Pueblo), Velino Herrera (Zia Pueblo) and Jose Rey Toledo (Jemez Pueblo). Forbes also spent time visiting Pueblo schools examining the state of arts education for native children as well as acquiring paintings and drawings made by the Pueblo schoolchildren. In 1958, Forbes sent out a first draft of her "Survey of American Indian Arts and Crafts, Southwest and Northern Plains" which was the culmination of her research on the state of native art at the time with a particular focus on Pueblo artists. Following the release of her report, Forbes did not continue professionally in the world of art instead moving into human relations. Forbes held onto the bulk of her art collection, exhibiting pieces here and there, until donating a large portion of the collection to the National Museum of the American Indian in 2003. A longtime member of the Self-Realization Fellowship, Forbes also donated some of her pieces to that organization.
Separated Materials:
This collection was part of a donation made by Anne Forbes that included 143 paintings and other works of art on paper that are now a part of the NMAI Modern and Contemporary Arts Collection with object numbers 26/3091 to 26/3227 and 26/3854, 26/3855. Artists include Harrison Begay, Theodore Edaaki, Luis Gonzales (Wo Peen), Joe Herrera, Velino Herrera, James Humetewa, Michael Kabotie, Richard Martinez, Theodore Suina, Beatien Yazz and others. For more information on these paintings please contact NMAI Collections at NMAICollections@si.edu.
Provenance:
This collection was donated by Anne Forbes in November of 2003.
Restrictions:
Access to NMAI Archive Center collections is by appointment only, Monday - Friday, 9:30 am - 4:30 pm. Please contact the archives to make an appointment (phone: 301-238-1400, email: nmaiarchives@si.edu).
Rights:
Single photocopies may be made for research purposes. Permission to publish or broadcast materials from the collection must be requested from National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center. Please submit a written request to nmaiarchives@si.edu.
Topic:
Indians of North America -- Education -- Southwest, New Search this
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Anne Forbes Collection, Box and Folder Number; National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center, Smithsonian Institution.
Caption on card: Acoma "The City in the Sky", is located in a beautiful valley 7000 feet above the sea, upon the top of a mesa which itself is 357 feet above the floor of the valley. It is the "home of half a thousand quaint lives and of half a thousand years romance." The pueblo is really three giant buildings running east and west a thousand feet and rising forty feet high. Each building is several hundred feet long but cut by cross walls into separate little homes.
Image: Reproduction, possibly of tinted photograph, of four persons in shawls and blankets walking through a street in the Acoma pueblo, with southwestern adobe style architecture. Verso: left side contains a description of the Acoma pueblo; right side of the card is an advertisement for the Indian and Mexican Trading Post at the Old De la Guerra House, El Paseo. The sale is for the benefit of the Indian Defense Association.
Local Numbers:
AC0200-0000081 (AC Scan)
General:
Fred Harvey symbol on verso with "Phostint" trademark and Detroit Publishing Co. credit.
Collection Restrictions:
The collection is open for research use.
Collection Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Color illustration of a Pueblo community in New Mexico. It depicts children standing next to a pool of water and in the background, rows of adobe style houses.
General:
Series I, Box 10, U.S.A.--New Mexico--General Mountain Views.
Collection Restrictions:
The collection is open for research use.
Collection Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
The Smithsonian Institution Festival of American Folklife, held annually since 1967 on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., was renamed the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in 1998. The materials collected here document the planning, production, and execution of the annual Festival, produced by the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage (1999-present) and its predecessor offices (1967-1999). An overview of the entire Festival records group is available here: Smithsonian Folklife Festival records.
Scope and Contents note:
This collection documents the planning, production, and execution of the 2001 Smithsonian Folklife Festival. Materials may include photographs, audio recordings, motion picture film and video recordings, notes, production drawings, contracts, memoranda, correspondence, informational materials, publications, and ephemera. Such materials were created during the Festival on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., as well as in the featured communities, before or after the Festival itself.
Arrangement note:
Arranged in 5 series.
Series 1: Program Books, Festival Publications, and Ephemera
Series 2: Bermuda Connections
Series 3: Masters of the Building Arts
Series 4: New York City at the Smithsonian
Series 5: Special Events
Historical note:
The Festival of American Folklife, held annually since 1967 on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., was renamed the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in 1998.
The 2001 Smithsonian Folklife Festival was produced by the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage and cosponsored by the National Park Service.
For more information, see Smithsonian Folklife Festival records.
Introduction:
More so than monuments, buildings, museum-quality artifacts, historical facts, or even valued performances, the Festival celebrates the people who make them, hold them in esteem, and debate their meaning. The Festival represents a wonderful range and diversity of voices and human experiences. The 2001 Festival featured programs on the building arts, New York City, and Bermuda.
The Masters of the Building Arts program brought together expert craftspeople in the building trades, including many who use traditional arts to restore our monuments and historic sites. Among them visitors could find many of the artisans who have worked on the Washington Monument, the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, Acoma Pueblo, historic Charleston, and Native Hawaiian sites - all important monuments protected by the National Park Service, the Smithsonian's partner in the Festival since 1973.
The New York City program highlighted the way in which that city has become the global village. Broadway, the fashion industry, the Apollo Theater, and Wall Street were all featured. So too was the vital cultural creativity that has come about as people from the world over have settled in New York. The Festival provided a contemporary look at immigration and its importance to our culture. The fact that so many people from every corner of the earth have come to our shores through New York in order to build their lives and our nation has inspired generations, and the Festival offered the opportunity to encounter those communities and experience their cultural heritage.
Bermuda, though separated from the United States by hundreds of miles of ocean, has long played a role in our history. Bermuda was settled by colonists on their way to Jamestown, Virginia, where they rescued starving survivors of that colony. ln the last century, Bermuda, always entrepreneurial and self-reliant, has developed tourism and financial industries in a symbiotic relationship with the United States. Bermudians foster strong community connections within their own island society, as well as those of commerce, culture, and cooperation with the people of nations whose shores touch the Atlantic Ocean. Festival visitors could transport themselves to a tiny island of Bermuda within the Festival site on the National Mall, experiencing its cultural traditions through interaction with Bermudian participants.
The Festival always depends on solid research. Several dozen Bermudian scholars, educators, and artists working with Smithsonian curator Diana Baird N'Diaye interviewed hundreds of tradition-bearers, documenting everything from gardening to house-building to music-making. That documentary archive of tapes, photographs, field notes, and videos constitutes a snapshot of Bermudian culture and provided the basis for the Festival program, as well as a resource for the future. A similar effort took place New York City, where folklorist Nancy Groce directed the curatorial work - selecting the traditions to feature at the Festival and the people to present them - aided by cultural organizations in the city, among them the Center for Traditional Music and Dance, City Lore, and the Museum of American Financial History, a Smithsonian affiliate. Masters of the Building Arts grew from the vision of the Smithsonian's Marjorie Hunt, guided by her own long-term research on the stone carvers of the National Cathedral.
The 2001 Festival took place during two five-day weeks (June 27-July 1 and July 4-8) between Madison Drive and Jefferson Drive and between 9th Street and 13th Street, south of the National Museum of American History and the National Museum of Natural History (see site plan). It featured three programs, with several special events including the Ralph Rinzler Memorial Concert.
The 2001 Program Book included schedules and participant lists for each program; keynote essays provided background on the Festival and on each of the programs.
The Festival was co-presented by the Smithsonian Institution and National Park Service and organized by the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage.
Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage
Richard Kurin, Director; Richard Kennedy, Deputy Director; Diana Parker, Festival Director; Daniel Sheehy, Director, Smithsonian Folkways Recordngs; James Early, Director, Cultural Heritage Policy; Olivia Cadaval, Chair, Research & Education; Jon Kertzer, Project Director, GlobalSound Network; D.A. Sonneborn, Assistant Director, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings; Thomas Vennum, Jr., Senior Ethnomusicologist Emeritus; Betty J. Belanus, Nancy Groce, Marjorie Hunt, Diana Baird N'Diaye, Peter Seitel, Cynthia Vidaurri, Curators, Folklorists, Education and Cultural Specialists; Frank Proschan, Project Director, Save Our Sounds; Carla M. Borden, Program/Publications Manager; John W. Franklin, Program Manager; Jeffrey Place, Archivist; Stephanie Smith, Assistant Archivist; Arlene L. Reiniger, Program Specialist; Charlie Weber, Media Specialist; Frank Bechter, Roland Freeman, Ivan Karp, Alan Lomax, Worth Long, Rene Lopez, Jemima Pierre, Kate Rinzler, Ana Patricia Rodriguez, Fellows & Research Associates
Folklife Advisory Council
Jane Beck, Kurt Dewhurst, Anthony Gittens, Pat Jasper, Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Judy Mitoma, Bernice Johnson Reagon, Gilbert Sprauve, Jack Tchen, Ricardo Trimillos
Folkways Advisory Board
Michael Asch, Phyllis Barney, Don DeVito, Ella Jenkins,
National Park Service
Denis P. Galvin, Acting Director; Jack Schamp, Director, National Capital Region
Forms Part Of:
Smithsonian Folklife Festival records: 2001 Smithsonian Folklife Festival forms part of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival records .
Smithsonian Folklife Festival records
Smithsonian Folklife Festival records: Papers
1967 Festival of American Folklife records - [Ongoing]
Related Archival Materials note:
Within the Rinzler Archives, related materials may be found in various collections such as the Ralph Rinzler papers and recordings, the Lily Spandorf drawings, the Diana Davies photographs, the Robert Yellin photographs, and the Curatorial Research, Programs, and Projects collection. Additional relevant materials may also be found in the Smithsonian Institution Archives concerning the Division of Performing Arts (1966-1983), Folklife Program (1977-1980), Office of Folklife Programs (1980-1991), Center for Folklife Programs and Cultural Studies (1991-1999), Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage (1999-present), and collaborating Smithsonian units, as well as in the administrative papers of key figures such as the Secretary and respective deputies. Users are encouraged to consult relevant finding aids and to contact Archives staff for further information.
Restrictions:
Access by appointment only. Where a listening copy or viewing copy has been created, this is indicated in the respective inventory; additional materials may be accessible with sufficient advance notice and, in some cases, payment of a processing fee. Older papers are housed at a remote location and may require a minimum of three weeks' advance notice and payment of a retrieval fee. Certain formats such as multi-track audio recordings and EIAJ-1 videoreels (1/2 inch) may not be accessible. Contact the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections at 202-633-7322 or rinzlerarchives@si.edu for additional information.
Rights:
Copyright and other restrictions may apply. Generally, materials created during a Festival are covered by a release signed by each participant permitting their use for personal and educational purposes; materials created as part of the fieldwork leading to a Festival may be more restricted. We permit and encourage such personal and educational use of those materials provided digitally here, without special permissions. Use of any materials for publication, commercial use, or distribution requires a license from the Archives. Licensing fees may apply in addition to any processing fees.
Photographs made by Nellie Mae Whitted in Paguote (1939) and Acomita, New Mexico. They include images of Acomita day school and its students and teachers, as well as houses and Eagle dancers. The collection also includes postcards and commercial prints relating to Navajo, Santo Domingo Pueblo, Santa Clara Pueblo, Ildefonso Pueblo, Taos Pueblo, and Laguna Pueblo. There are also Christmas cards with reproductions of paintings by Joni Falk and other artists and some correspondence to Whitted.
Biographical/Historical note:
Nellie Mae Whitted taught at the Acomita Day School set up by the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Pueblo of Acoma, New Mexico, circa 1938-1941.
Local Call Number(s):
NAA Photo Lot 98-75
Location of Other Archival Materials:
Pottery, dolls, baskets, and other artifacts given to Whitted by students in Acomita held in the Department of Anthropology collections in accession 390889.
Photo Lot 98-75, Nellie Mae Whitted photographs of Acomita and Native peoples of the American Southwest, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution.
Photographs depicting pueblos, dances, cliff dwellings, pottery, weaving, rock art, Matilda Coxe Stevenson, and other scenes in and around the pueblos in New Mexico and Arizona. Locations depicted include Moqui Pueblo, Acoma Pueblo, Zuni Pueblo, Fort Apache, and the Wood Yard in Arizona's Petrified Forest. The collection also includes one image of inscriptions on Pawnee Rock in Kansas, 1878. Most photographs in the collection were made by George Ben Wittick, with some by G. Steinberg of Juarez, Mexico.
Biographical/Historical note:
G. Ben Wittick (1845-1903) was official photographer for the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad and operated studios in Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Gallup, and Fort Wingate. The first to photograph the Hopi Snake Dance, his photographs mostly documented Southwest scenery and Navajo, Hopi and Zuni Pueblos.
Local Call Number(s):
NAA Photo Lot 89-19
Reproduction Note:
Copy prints made by Smithsonian Institution, 1989.
Location of Other Archival Materials:
Additional Wittick photographs can be found in the National Anthropological Archives in MS 4638, Photo Lot 24, Photo Lot 37, Photo Lot 59, Photo Lot 87-2P, Photo Lot 90-1, Herbert William Krieger's papers, and the BAE historical negatives.
Photo Lot 89-19, Sally V. Cooke photograph collection relating to Southwest Native Americans and scenery, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
MS 1150 Comparative list of equivalents for the numerals 1-10 in Zuni, Laguna and Acoma, Jemez, Isleta and Wemminutche Ute, plus equivalents for 11, 12, 20, 30, and 100 in Zuni
Indians of North America -- Southwest, New Search this
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Pages
Date:
May, 1869 ?
Biographical / Historical:
Letter of transmittal found in Manuscript Number 99, Navajo. Location given in that letter is the "present reservation" and the date of the letter is July 24, 1869.
Local Numbers:
NAA MS 1150
Local Note:
Name of author, date, and place supplied in J. O. Dorsey's hand.
Three photograph albums made by Victor Mindeleff documenting pueblo architecture, villages, and people. Some photographs, including those published in the Eighth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, were made by Hillers, according to notations on file prints in Bureau of American Ethnology.
Biographical/Historical note:
In the 1880s, Victor Mindeleff (1860-1948) was employed by the Bureau of American Ethnology to conduct studies of Pueblo architecture. He hired His brother, Cosmos Mindeleff (1863-1938), to be his assistant. They worked at Zuni, Acoma, and Hopi villages, as well as among the Navajo; at ruins at Kin Tiel, Canyon de Chelly, and Chaco Canyon; and at Etowah Mound in Georgia. Victor Mindeleff left the BAE in 1890 for a career in architecture.
Local Call Number(s):
NAA Photo Lot 4362
Location of Other Archival Materials:
Original negatives for some of these photographs held in National Anthropological Archives Photo Lot 14.
Additional Mindeleff photographs can be found in the National Anthropological Archives in Photo Lot 24, Photo Lot 28, Photo Lot 40, Photo Lot 78, and the BAE historical negatives.
Victor Mindeleff's manuscript, Origins of Pueblo Architecture (1887), and correspondence describing his fieldwork can be found in the National Anthropological Archives in the records of the Department of Anthropology.
Aditional Mindeleff sketches, plans, and drawings relating to Pueblo architecture held in MS 2138 and MS 2621] in the National Anthropological Archives.
Location of Other Archival Materials:
Sketches and ground plans, also made by Victor Mindeleff or his brother Cosmos, were sent to the Bureau of American Ethnology with these photograph albums. They now form MS 2926 in the National Anthropological Archives.
This collection contains 374 photographic prints and 38 copy negatives made by Grace Nicholson, a collector and dealer of Native American and Asian arts and crafts in Pasadena, California. The majority of the photographs were made between 1910 and 1930 among various native communities in California, though there are smaller amounts of photographs in Arizona and New Mexico. Communities photographed include—Hupa, Yurok, Pomo, Karuk (Karok), Tolowa, Yokayo Pomo, Achomawi (Pit River), Atsugewi (Hat Creek), Hopi Pueblo, Kumeyaay (Digueno), Mojave (Mohave), Paiute, Taos Pueblo, Wintu, Acoma Pueblo, Maidu, Chukchansi Yokuts, Yokuts.
Scope and Contents:
The Grace Nicholson photograph collection contains 374 black and white photographic prints (38 copy negatives) made by Grace Nicholson between 1905 and 1930 however many of the photographs are undated. The majority of the photographs were shot within various native communities in California, including Hupa, Yurok, Pomo, Karuk (Karok), Tolowa, Yokayo Pomo, Achomawi (Pit River), Atsugewi (Hat Creek), Maidu, Chukchansi Yokuts, Yokuts, Kumeyaay (Digueno), Wintu. There are smaller amounts of photographs from Arizona and New Mexico which include photographs within Hopi Pueblo, Taos Pueblo, Acoma Pueblo, Mojave (Mohave) and Paiute communities.
A large number of these photographs include portraits of Native men and women posed with baskets, either made by themselves or other community members. There are also posed portraits of families in front of their homes and going about their daily activities. Nicholson was often close with the families she photographed and took care to include their names with the images, though there are many photographs where the sitters are still unidentified. Some photographs of certain dances and ceremonies have been restricted due to cultural sensitivity.
The majority of the prints are silver gelatin (DOP) and the copy negatives (acetate) were made by the Museum of the American Indian sometime in the 1960s as part of a large photograph conservation project. There were also a number of photographic prints found within the Grace Nicholson manuscript materials (NMAI.AC.001) that were transferred to the photo archives in the early 2000s.
Prints from Grace Nicholson: P05451-P05497, P05505, P08339-P08368, P08469-P08479, P09400-P09453, P09463-P09464, P09836-P09838. Prints from Thyra Maxwell: P18316-P18317, P18932-P19107, P20830-P20836, P20999-P21075. Prints pulled from the MAI records (NMAI.AC.001): P28169, P28170, P28443-P28445. Copy Negatives: N35814-N35844, N36250, N41439, N41551-N41556.
Arrangement:
Arranged by catalog number.
Biographical / Historical:
Grace Nicholson was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on December 31, 1877. She moved to California following her parents and grandparents death, in 1901 and was soon purchasing Native American baskets and other artifacts in association with Carrol S. Hartman, an old family friend from the East. Traveling north through California, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and south and east through Arizona and New Mexico, she collected, not only for herself, but also for such institutions as the Smithsonian, the Field Columbian Museum of Chicago, University of Pennsylvania Department of Archeology and later the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation. Nicholson kept extensive diaries and notes on her buying trips through Native American territory, especially of the Karok, Klamath, and Pomo Indians. Her subjects included Native American legends, folklore, vocabulary, tribal festivals, basket making, the art trade, and living conditions. Native American artists with whom Nicholson established long-term business and personal connections included Pomo basket weaver Mary Benson (1878-1930) and her husband William Benson (1862-1937), as well as Elizabeth Hickox (1875-1947) of the Karuk tribe. By August of 1902 she was establishing a shop and studio at 41-143 Raymond Ave., Pasadena and she regularly paid higher prices than competitive buyers, thereby obtaining the finest pieces.
In 1909 Grace Nicholson was awarded a silver medal for her ethnological collection exhibited at the Alaska-Yukon- Pacific Exposition in Seattle. In 1924, Nicholson designed and opened a new building for her collections nicknamed the "Treasure House" where she also handled the work of a number of the outstanding artists among them, Joseph H. Sharp and Grace Carpenter Hudson. Throughout her collecting career, Nicholson maintained a correspondence with George Heye selling and donating collections to the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation from 1916 until her death in 1948.
Following Nicholson's death, her Native American Indian art collection was left to her assistants Thyra Maxwell and Estelle Bynum who became the executors of her estate. Her 12,000-item Asian art collection was auctioned by the Curtis Gallery in November 1950 and purchased by Los Angeles businessman Edker Pope. In 1968, Maxwell donated Nicholson's papers and photographs to The Huntington Library and sold Nicholson's collection of baskets made by the Bensons, as well as a large collection of correspondence and myths from William Benson, to the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, of New York City (now the National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution).
Related Materials:
The majority of Grace Nicholson's papers and photographs can be found at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California; Grace Nicholson Photograph Collection (photCL 56), Grace Nicholson Papers and Addenda (mssNicholson papers and addenda).
Additional Nicholson material can be found at the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley; Photographic negatives and prints of Calif. Indian baskets and other ethnographic items handled by Grace Nicholson from about 1912-1925 (Accession 2880), Grace Nicholson's ledger of Indian baskets from about 1912-1925 in Pasadena, California (Accession 2881).
Separated Materials:
Correspondence between Grace Nicholsan and George Heye as well as Pomo myths recorded from William Benson can be found in the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation records (NMAI.AC.001) in Boxes 262, 262A, 263. Baskets made by Mary and William Benson, as well also additional collections donated and sold by Nicholson to the Museum, can be found in NMAI's ethnographic collection.
Provenance:
The majority of the photographic prints were donated by Thyra Maxwell in 1968 and 1969. The rest of the photographs accompanied collections purchased by the Museum of the American Indian or presented to the Museum from Grace Nicholson in 1923.
Restrictions:
Access to NMAI Archive Center collections is by appointment only, Monday - Thursday, 9:30 am - 4:30 pm. Please contact the archives to make an appointment (phone: 301-238-1400, email: nmaiarchives@si.edu). Photographs with cultural sensitivity are restricted.
Rights:
Permission to publish materials from the collection must be requested from National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center. Please submit a written request to nmaiphotos@si.edu. For personal or classroom use, users are invited users to download, print, photocopy, and distribute the images that are available online without prior written permission, provided that the files are not changed, the Smithsonian Institution copyright notice (where applicable) is included, and the source of the image is identified as the National Museum of the American Indian.
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Grace Nicholson photograph collection, Item Number; National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center, Smithsonian Institution.
64 aerial photographs of Rio Grande Pueblos made circa 1967 from 60,000 feet by a U2 aircraft.
Scope and Contents:
Aerial photographs of Rio Grande Pueblos made circa 1967 from 60,000 feet by a U2 aircraft, commissioned by Ezra Zubrow. Pueblos photographed include Acoma, Cochiti, Ildefonso, Isleta, Jemez, Laguna, Nambe, Picuris, Pojoaque, Sandia, San Felipe, San Juan, Santa Ana, Santa Clara, Taos, Tesuque, Zia, and Zuni.
Arrangement:
The photographs are arranged alphabetically by Pueblo.
Historical Note:
Ezra Zubrow provides the following background:
"Here is a quick version of the story of the photographs. . . I was a graduate student at the University of Arizona and during the summer of 1967 or 1968. I was working at the Southwestern Archaeological Expedition run by Paul S. Martin of the Field Museum of Chicago at the Hay Hollow Valley. I was a field foreman.
One day a group of B52's came over the nearby mesas very very low. This was the time of Vietnam. The sound was deafening and it seemed as if the earth shook and that they were only a few hundred feet above us. I remember looking up and I would swear that the bomb doors were open and that I saw a light inside. It was clear that they were doing some kind of low level practice and I thought it was a practice bombing run. When my ears stopped ringing, I thought to myself those planes must have cameras to record the dropping of the bombs and if they happen to come by again maybe I could ask them to take pictures of our excavations. So I wrote a letter to the "commanding general of the air force". I did not have a name or an address so I just sent it to the Commanding General US Air Force, Pentagon, Washington DC. I explained how useful photographs from the air were for doing archaeology in my letter and drove some 20 miles to Showlow Arizona to send the letter. When I did not hear anything I promptly forgot about it realizing that it was a "silly thing to have done." Two and half months went by and just before I left Vernon I received a package from the US Air Force from a colonel who was with a "reconnaissance" wing. In it was a letter saying that my letter had been received at the pentagon and had wended its way through various offices with a request that if it was possible to help us please do and here were a set of pictures of your excavations and the nearby area. To say the least I was thunderstruck. I had no idea how they had done the photographs but there were a set of 9x18 negatives and prints.
When I returned to Tucson for the fall semester a few days later, I started to look at the photographs. I realized that I wanted to say thank you and sent a letter saying thank you to the air force. It then occurred to me that it would be a nice thing to do to call and say thank you in person. I called the Pentagon and after several calls they provided me a number to call. It had the same area code as Tucson and I realized that the colonel was probably stationed at Davis Monthan Air Force Base. So I called the base and asked if I could make an appointment to meet him and personally say thank you. I got an appointment the following week and went out to the base. At the guard house I told them I had an appointment with the colonel and they told me to wait at the gate house which I did. After about 15 minutes a soldier came out with a car and asked me to leave my car at the gatehouse and he would drive me into the base. The car actually had blacked out side and rear windows.
We went into a low lying building and there were several people there including Colonel Y and a Lieutenant X. I told them how appreciative I was and that all the other archaeologists at the Southwestern Archaeological Expedition appreciated their help as well.
I had no idea with whom I was dealing. They showed me around various rooms and laboratories for photography and finally came to a room with a large chalkboard in it. On the chalkboard was a listing of missions, plane numbers, and pilots. There were a range of missions scheduled for several weeks and when I realized that several of them were over Vietnam, Cambodia, China, and Russia I stopped in my tracks. I looked at my hosts and said what kind of planes were they flying. I still thought it was something like a B52. They said it was the U2. I was speechless and as I later learned my mouth dropped so wide that all the men in the room started laughing. They said that if I wanted to watch one land it was going to land in a few minutes and as I was leaving I could watch. Of course I wanted to.
So as I left, I said thank you again and the Colonel and the Lieutenant said if they could help more, they would be willing to do so.
It turned out that Lieutenant X and I were about the same age and that we each had just been married a short time. We both were in a "foreign town," Tucson. So the two couples began t to meet for dinner and joined some other young couples who were in Tucson for the first time. The following semester, I had the idea of photographing the Pueblos. I asked Lieutenant X and Colonel Y if it might be possible and they said yes. I went back to the base and we sat with maps and plotted out the exact flight plan.
And that's more or less how it happened. The Colonel, the Lieutenant, and I continued to be friends for many years."[1]
[1] Email from Ezra Zubrow to archivist Gina Rappaport, April 22, 2010.
Biographical Note:
Ezra Zubrow is an anthropologist who has served on the faculty of the University at Buffalo since 1977. His broad interests include archaeological and anthropological theory and method, social policy of heritage and disability, Nordic archaeology, and ecology.
Provenance:
The collection was donated by Ezra Zubrow in 2010.
