Tribes covered in the photographs are: Arapaho, Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Chippewa, Iowa, Iroquois, Mahican, Menomini, Ojibwa, Oto, Plains Cree, Potawatomi, Seminole, Seri, Shinnecock, Sioux, Winnebago, Zuni Pueblo. The majority of photographs (552) have Skinner listed as the photographer and presumably are photographs he took on his expeditions. However, 104 photos are of the Seminole in Florida. According to Dennis P. Carey's biography of Skinner (Unpublished? 1980) Julian Q. Dimock, a well-known photographer, accompanied him on his expedition to the Seminole in Florida; how many of the photos were taken by Dimock is unknown, but he is listed as the photographer for 23 of them. Skinner's other photographs are of the Seneca Iroquois in New York; the Zuni Pueblo and Hawikku site; several tribes in Wisconsin; the Chippewa in Minnesota; and miscellaneous shots taken in Canada, Costa Rica, Florida and New York. Two photographs of the Mahican were taken by Huron H. Smith (1923) and two of the Winnebago were taken by C.J. Van Schaick (c. 1870). The remaining photographs have no photographer listed but were in Skinner's collection of photographs and are of varying tribes with dates ranging from 1909 to 1923.
Arrangement note:
Collection arranged by item number.
Biographical/Historical note:
Alanson Buck Skinner was born in Buffalo, New York, on September 7, 1886. His parents moved to Staten Island, New York, when Alanson was still very young. There Alanson met W.T. Davis who taught him to find arrowheads and other traces of ancient Indian life. When he was older he consulted with Prof. F.W. Putnam and George H. Pepper at the American Museum of Natural History about his interest. In the summer of 1902 Skinner went on his first fieldwork expedition near Shinnecock Hills, Long Island, for the American Museum of Natural History with Arthur C. Parker and Mark R. Harrington. Two years later Skinner and Harrington went on another archeological expedition in western New York State for the Peabody Museum and while there he attended his first Native ceremony on the Cattaraugus reservation. After high school Skinner joined the staff of the AMNH as an assistant in anthropology. In 1908 he led an expedition to Hudson Bay to study the Cree Indians. In 1910 he went to Wisconsin where he met John V. Satterlee, part Menomini, and Judge Sabatis Perote, a full-blooded Menomini, who adopted him into the tribe under the Thunder clan name of Sekosa or "Little Weasel." He later went on expeditions to collect from the Seminoles in the Florida Everglades, and other tribes in Wisconsin, Oklahoma, and other states. During these years he was also studying anthropology at Columbia under Boas, Farrand, Saville, and Bandelier, and at Harvard under Dixon, Tozzer, and Farrabee. In 1916 Skinner joined the Museum of the American Indian and remained there until 1920, when he took a position as curator of anthropology at the Public Museum of Milwaukee. He returned to the MAI in 1924 where he remained until his untimely death on August 17, 1925 in a car accident in North Dakota. He was a member of the American Anthropological Association, the Wisconsin Archeological Society, the Explorer's Club, a York Rite Mason and a Shriner. A more detailed biography by Dennis P. Carey (1980) can be found in the vertical file. A complete bibliography of Skinner's writings can be found in Indian Notes, Vol. II, No. 4 (October 1925).
Restrictions:
Access restricted. Researchers should contact the staff of the NMAI Archives for an appointment to access the collection.
This collection consists of 2 tintypes collected by Charles G. Schoewe that depict Potawatomi men from Wisconsin.
Scope and Contents:
This collection consists of 2 tintypes collected by Charles G. Schoewe that depict Potawatomi men from Wisconsin. One tintype depicts Bill Shopodock (1845-1925) circa 1875-1885. The other tintype depicts two men possibly Jim Anishinaba and John Sanko circa 1880-1895. The photographers for these images are unknown.
Arrangement:
Arranged by catalog number. The tintypes are stored in 2 archival phase boxes.
Biographical / Historical:
Charles Gustav Schoewe was born on September 13, 1887 in Milwaukee, Wisconson. He worked for Middleton Manufacturing Company where he served as a salesman and later a manager. His family included his wife Blanche and his children Jean and William. Schoewe died on November 14, 1970.
Provenance:
Gift of Charles Schoewe to the Museum of the American Indian in 1933.
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); Charles G. Schoewe collection of Potawatomi tintypes, image #, NMAI.AC.406; National Museum of the American Indian Archives Center, Smithsonian Institution.
This tintype shot circa 1875-1885 depicts Bill Shopodock (Potawatomi) sitting for his portrait wearing a jacket with fur trim and a bowler hat with two feathers. The 1910 census for Wabeno, Forest, Wisconsin lists Shopodock's birth date as circa 1840 and his occupation as a foreman on a farm. It also notes that he was married for 45 years. According to the 1926 Indian Census Rolls for Potawatomi at the Laona Agency, William Shopodock was born in 1845 and died on August 22, 1925. The 1880 census for Waupaca, Wisconsin, the family name is spelled Chabodoc. The original museum catalog records for the tintype listed his last name as Schobedock, which may be another alternate spelling.
According to the publication The Shopodocks: a Potawatomi Indian story by Delores Zillmer Miller, Bill Shopodock also went by the name Soc-qua. His father was Che-pau-dack (Sam Wapuka or Chief Waupaca) and his siblings were Kik-a-pa, Che-wan, Joseph and John. They lived in Dupont Township, Waupaca County, Wisconsin in the 1870s, where this tintype may have been shot.
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); Charles G. Schoewe collection of Potawatomi tintypes, image #, NMAI.AC.406; National Museum of the American Indian Archives Center, Smithsonian Institution.
Tintype circa 1880-1895 depicting two men posing in front of a studio backdrop. One man is listed as Jim Ohneshnabia from Blackwell in the museum's catalog record. This may possibly be Jim Anishinaba who as listed in the 1921 Indian Census Rolls for Potowatomi Indians at Laona Agency in Wisconsin. According to that census, Jim was born 1845 and had a wife Miaotinock (born 1860) and son Charles (born 1892). The 1927 Indian Census Roll indicates that Jim died on October 6, 1926.
The other man depicted in the tintype is listed in the museum's catalog records as John Sanko of Stone Lake. An alternate spelling may be John Sonco. There was a Kansas Potawatomi individual with this name listed in the 1937 Indian Census Rolls for Potawatomi at Laona Agency in Wisconsin, however given his birth date of 1899, it is most likely too late to be the individual depicted in this image. Sonco may however be an alternative spelling for the family name.
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); Charles G. Schoewe collection of Potawatomi tintypes, image #, NMAI.AC.406; National Museum of the American Indian Archives Center, Smithsonian Institution.
