Pikuni (Piegan) [Blackfeet Nation, Browning, Montana] Search this
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Gelatin silver prints
Photographs
Place:
Glacier National Park (Mont.)
Date:
1916
Summary:
This collection contains 107 gelatin silver photographs depicting mystery novelist Mary Roberts Rinehart and her family's travels around Glacier National Park in Montana during the summer of 1916.
Scope and Contents:
P20639- P20762, P21187-P21191
This collection contains 107 gelatin silver photographs depicting mystery novelist Mary Roberts Rinehart and her family's travels around Glacier National Park in Montana during the summer of 1916. The bulk of the photographs were shot by Mary herself. Rinehart wrote about this trip in her 1917 book, Through Glacier Park.
The photographs in the collection depict candid and staged outdoor portraits of Pikuni (Piegan) [Blackfeet Nation, Browning, Montana] peoples and scenes of community gatherings. Chief Eagle Child and Chief Two Guns White Calf are included in photographs. Other chiefs and leaders that may also be depicted include Medicine Owl; Curly Bear; Big Spring; Bird Plume; Wolf Plume; Bird Rattler; Bill Schute; Stabs-By-Mistake; Mad Plume; and Many Tail-Feathers. Mary Roberts Rinehart was adopted by the Blackfeet tribe and given the name Pi-ta-mak-an (Running Eagle).
Rinehart's family are featured in the photographs including her husband Dr. Stanley Marshall Rinehart, her eldest son Stanley Marshall Rinehart, Jr. (b. 1897), her middle son Alan Gillespie Rinehart (1900-1982) and her youngest son Frederick "Ted" Roberts Rinehart (b. 1902).
The collection also includes depictions of Ralph Radnor Earle (1875-1958) during his trip through National Parks. According to February 3, 1917 issue of Moving Image Picture World, Earle traveled via automobile in the summer of 1916 filming moving image footage of the National Parks, including Glacier National Park. Ernest Thompson Seton (1860-1946)- a founding member of Boy Scouts of America and author of the Boy Scout Handbook- is featured in some photographs as well.
Arrangement:
Arranged by catalog number.
Biographical / Historical:
Mary Roberts Rinehart (née Mary Ella Roberts) was born in 1876 and raised in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, now the North Side of Pittsburgh. Mary and her parents, Thomas (Tom) and Cornelia Roberts, lived with Tom's mother and siblings until Mary's sister Olive was born. At 17, Rinehart enrolled in the Pittsburgh Homeopathic School for Nurses. She drew on her experiences nursing patients in the Pittsburgh Homeopathic Hospital in some of her writing. In 1896, shortly after her graduation from nursing school, she married Stanley Marshall Rinehart, a young doctor. In their house in Allegheny City, Mary Roberts Rinehart managed the household, assisted with Dr. Rinehart's medical practice, and began raising their family of three sons: Stanley Marshall Rinehart Jr., born 1897, Alan Gillespie Rinehart, born 1900, and Frederick "Ted" Roberts Rinehart, born 1902.
In the early 1900's, Rinehart began writing in earnest as a way to contribute to the family's income. The poems and short stories of her early career were published in magazines such as Munsey's Magazine and The All-Story. Her first book, The Circular Staircase, was published in 1908. As her popularity grew so did the family's income, and they moved to a large house in Glen Osborne, Pennsylvania around 1912. In early 1915, Rinehart asked her Saturday Evening Post editor to send her to Europe to report on World War I prior to U.S. involvement. Rinehart toured the Belgian front and interviewed Albert I, King of the Belgians, and Queen Mary of England at a time when very few journalists were granted such access. Rinehart returned to Europe in 1918 to report on the war to the War Department and was in Paris on November 11 when the armistice ended the war.
The Rineharts moved to Washington, D.C. during the winter of 1921-22 when Dr. Rinehart accepted a position with the Veterans' Bureau. There, Rinehart continued to write and also became involved in Washington society, hosting and being hosted by presidents, senators, and ambassadors. In summer the family traveled to their cabin at Eatons' Ranch in Wyoming, a part of the country that Mary fell in love with after being invited to join a horse packing expedition out west in 1916. In 1929 her sons Stan and Ted, along with John Farrar, launched Farrar & Rinehart Publishing Company, which would publish many of her works. Dr. Rinehart died in 1931 after a period of poor health. A few years later, Rinehart relocated to New York City, where she would be closer to her sons and their growing families. In 1937 she purchased a large house in Bar Harbor, Maine, and spent summers there until 1947 when her house burned down in a large fire. Rinehart died in 1958 in New York City at the age of 83. She experienced several episodes of poor health during her life, including breast cancer and coronary thrombosis. Despite this, she lived an active, busy life filled with writing, travel, family, and other pursuits.
More detailed information about Mary Roberts Rinehart's life can be found in her autobiography My Story, published in 1931, and My Story: A New Edition and Seventeen New Years (1948), as well as in Improbable Fiction: The Life of Mary Roberts Rinehart by Jan Cohn (1980).
[Biographical note written by the University of Pittsburgh]
Related Materials:
The University of Pittsburgh holds a collection of Mary Robers Rinehart Papers.
Separated Materials:
The Rinehart family also donated a set of Diné (Navajo) jewelry to NMAI: Object catalog numbers 230710 – 230715.
Provenance:
Gift of Mr. Stanley Rinehart, Jr., 1961.
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.
Genre/Form:
Photographs
Citation:
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Mary Roberts Rinehart photographs of Glacier National Park, image #, NMAI.AC.329; National Museum of the American Indian Archives Center, Smithsonian Institution.
This collection contains 195 slides that were taken by photographer Luther A. Douglas on the Navajo (Diné) Reservation in April of 1964.
Scope and Contents:
Catalog numbers: S03663 - S03686 and S07774 - S07945
This collection contains 195 color slides which were taken in April of 1964 on the Navajo Reservation in New Mexico by photographer Luther A. Douglas. The photographs depict Diné (Navajo) everyday scenes (portraits/ landscapes) including images of trading posts, Hogans or Diné (Navajo) houses, schools, hospitals, churches, sheep corrals, performances for tourists, and ceremonies. Douglas used both a Yashica and a Rollei, which worked best for his field expeditions. He may have used these cameras during this visit to the Navajo Reservation.
Arrangement note:
This collection is arranged according to catalog number.
Biographical/Historical note:
Luther A. Douglas was born in Idaho in 1919 and died in 1976. Douglas had a rough childhood and at the age of 8 was left without parents. His father passed away before he was born, and his mother was on the run with her then boyfriend after robbing a bank. Douglas was abandoned by his mother on the Navajo reservation and he walked to the nearest trading post where he was then noticed by a Diné (Navajo) family who took him home and cared for him. He lived with this family for just under a year until a social worker visited and took him back to Idaho where he was put into foster care. Since then he had an admiration for Diné (Navajo) culture, as he experienced daily life and some ceremonies while living with the Diné (Navajo) family. This was the first time he was able to experience being part of a family and he believed that they saved his life in many ways.
In his adult life, Douglas pursued independent studies for more than four decades traveling to the Navajo reservation many times and recording knowledge of the Navajo culture, focusing on the preservation of sand paintings. He was a craftsman and an ethnographer with lifelong interests in the Diné (Navajo) culture, and even experimented and mimicked sand paintings but it was noted by his wife they were altered in various and minimal ways in order to alter the ceremonial paintings. His wife, Conda Elisabeth (Betsy) Douglas worked closely with him and often accompanied him during lectures and slide programs.
In 1954 Douglas was elected as a Fellow of the International Explorers Clubs in recognition of his studies of Diné (Navajo) culture. In 1960s Douglas worked as a Research Associate or Field Agent for the Museum of the American Indian and traveled out to the Diné (Navajo) Reservation during this time. In 1976 he received recognition as an outstanding Idaho citizen since the time of Idaho's formation as a Territory at the Idaho Bicentennial celebration.
Separated Materials:
NMAI also holds the following reports written by Luther Douglas: Storytelling Among the Navajo , 1965 and Survey Report on Navajo Ceremonial Practices , undated. These are held in the Museum of the American Indian/Heye Foundation Records, NMAI.AC.001, Box 213, folders 15 and 16.
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.
Genre/Form:
Color slides -- 20th century
Citation:
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Luther Douglas Diné (Navajo) slides, image #, Collection NMAI.AC.393; National Museum of the American Indian Archives Center, Smithsonian Institution.
