This collection consists of seventeen photogravures from Joseph K. Dixon's 1913 published book, The Vanishing Race. These images are part of the larger work of Rodman Wanamaker in his expeditions (1908-1913) to document the lives and cultures of Native American peoples.
Scope and Contents:
This collection consists of seventeen photogravures from Joseph K. Dixon's 1913 book, The Vanishing Race. Although published in 1913, the 80 photogravures in Dixon's work were taken in 1909. These images are part of the larger work of Rodman Wanamaker in his expeditions (1908-1913) to document the lives and cultures of Native American peoples, whom he viewed as a "noble, though vanishing race." Wanamaker's first and second expeditions (1908 and 1909) both took place in the Valley of the Little Bighorn, Montana, portrayed Native American men and women from throughout the United States, and included extensive photographic and moving picture footage. Wanamaker's third expedition (1913) was broader in scope, visiting and symbolically granting citizenship to over 250 Native American communities across the country. As with the first two expeditions, the third expedition, known as the "Rodman Wanamaker Expedition of Citizenship to the North American Indian," was photographed and filmed by Dixon.
Among the seventeen photogravures in this collection, many of note include portraits of tribal leaders Chief Koon-Kah-Za-Chy (Kiowa-Apache), Chief Two Moons (Northern Tsitsistas/Suhtai [Cheyenne]), Chief Pretty Voice Eagle (Ihanktonwan Nakota [Yankton Sioux]), Chief Plenty Coups (Apsáalooke [Crow/Absaroke]), Chief Brave Bear (Southern Tsisistas/Suhtai [Cheyenne]), Chief Red Cloud (Oglala Lakota [Oglala Sioux]), and Chief Red Whip (A'aninin [Gros Ventre]). Other images include group portraits of the 1909 "Last Great Indian Council," as well as Native veterans of the 1876 Battle of Little Bighorn. Image titles created by Joseph K. Dixon.
Arrangement:
The photographs in this collection are organized into folders.
Biographical / Historical:
Rodman Wanamaker (1863-1928) was the sole surviving heir of Philadelphia-based department store magnate, John Wanamaker. Rodman, among his other philanthropic endeavors with the arts, believed that Native Americans were a "noble, though vanishing race," whose lives needed to be recorded before they disappeared. Because of this belief, he funded three expeditions (1908-1913) to "perpetuate the life stories of the first Americans." In addition, he also strove, and ultimately failed, to create a National Indian Memorial to be situated in New York City which would rival the Statue of Liberty.
Joseph K. Dixon (1858-1926) was born in New York, and received a bachelor of divinity degree from the Rochester Theological Seminary before becoming a lecturer for the Eastman Kodak photographic company in 1904. Two years later he was hired to work in Wanamaker's department store, and by 1908 he was chosen to lead the three Wanamaker expeditions (1908-1913) to document the lives and cultures of Native peoples of the United States. For the remainder of his life, Dixon frequently lectured on and continued to photograph the lives of Native Americans.
Related Materials:
Other photographic collections of Joseph K. Dixon's work and Rodman Wanamaker's expeditions exist in the Smithsonian Institution's National Anthropological Archives, and the Mathers Museum of World Cultures at Indiana University.
Provenance:
Museum Purchase, 2017.
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:
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 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 K. Dixon photographs from the 1909 Wanamaker Expedition, Box and Folder Number; National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center, Smithsonian Institution.
Portrait of Chief Pretty Voice Eagle [Ihanktonwan Nakota (Yankton Sioux)], wearing war bonnet and fur pelt, holding coup stick. Valley of the Little Bighorn, Montana.
Collection 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).
Collection 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 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.
Collection Citation:
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Joseph K. Dixon photographs from the 1909 Wanamaker Expedition, Box and Folder Number; National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center, Smithsonian Institution.
This collection consists of fifteen photographic prints depicting individuals from Hunkpapa Lakota (Hunkpapa Sioux) and Yanktonnai Nakota (Yankton Sioux) communities, and dating from approximately the 1870s and 1880s.
Content Description:
The Arthur Billings Hunt photograph collection consists of fifteen photographic prints dating to the 1870s and 1880s. The bulk of the photographs are studio portraits and depict a number of Hunkpapa Lakota (Hunkpapa Sioux) and Yanktonnai Nakota (Yankton Sioux) community members and leaders. These photographs represent the work of various turn of the twentieth-century photographers of the American West including David F. Barry, Orlando Scott Goff, F. Jay Haynes, and Laton Alton Huffman. The photographs were later acquired by Arthur Billings Hunt, who subsequently donated them to the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation.
Arrangement:
This collection is arranged into folders by cultural group.
Biographical / Historical:
Arthur Billings Hunt was born in 1890. He attended schooling at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, receiving his undergraduate degree there in 1911, and later was awarded an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from the same institution in 1945. Moving to New York soon after graduation, Hunt had a lifelong career as a well-known soloist, musical director, broadcaster, and collector of Christian Americana. In addition to conducting a weekly broadcast of singing services for fourteen years with the New York Federation of Churches on radio station WEAF, Hunt also served as the Executive Director of the National Hymn Sing Association. While primarily interested in collecting Christian hymnals and sheet music himself, Hunt also inherited from his maternal grandfather, Newell B. Perkins, a number of material culture objects and photographic images related to different North American Plains Indian communities. These he subsequently donated to the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, in the mid-twentieth century. Arthur Billings Hunt died in 1971 at the age of 81.
Related Materials:
Other archival collections relating to the life and work of Arthur Billings Hunt include the Arthur Billings Hunt papers, located in the Columbia University Libraries Archival Collections.
Provenance:
This collection was donated by Arthur Billings Hunt in 1945.
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.
Citation:
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Arthur Billings Hunt photograph collection, NMAI.AC.159; National Museum of the American Indian Archives Center, Smithsonian Institution.
Portrait studio photograph of Wolf Necklace [Yanktonnai Nakota (Yankton Sioux)]. Photographed by Orlando Scott Goff.
Collection 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).
Collection 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.
Collection Citation:
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Arthur Billings Hunt photograph collection, NMAI.AC.159; National Museum of the American Indian Archives Center, Smithsonian Institution.
Portrait studio photograph of Goose (Goos) [Yanktonnai Nakota (Yankton Sioux)]. Photographed by Orlando Scott Goff.
Collection 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).
Collection 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.
Collection Citation:
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Arthur Billings Hunt photograph collection, NMAI.AC.159; National Museum of the American Indian Archives Center, Smithsonian Institution.
Portrait studio photograph of No Heart (Canté-wani'ca/Joseph No Heart/Medicine Joe) [Yanktonnai Nakota (Yankton Sioux)]. Photographer unknown.
Collection 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).
Collection 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.
Collection Citation:
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Arthur Billings Hunt photograph collection, NMAI.AC.159; National Museum of the American Indian Archives Center, Smithsonian Institution.
