This collection consists of 105 photographic images of Native American peoples throughout the U.S., primarily in Arizona and New Mexico. A number of the postcards and photographs were sent back and forth between non-Native family members who worked in Indian Boarding Schools in Fort Defiance, AZ, among other locations.
Scope and Contents:
The Arizona and New Mexico postcard and photograph collection consists of postcards, photographic prints, and stereographs, totaling 105 photographic items. Many of the postcards and photographs date to between the early 1900s and the late 1920s and were sent between non-Native family members who worked in Indian Boarding Schools, including those at Fort Defiance and Chinle in Arizona, Chilocco in Oklahoma, Haskell in Kansas, and Lac du Flambeau in Wisconsin.
These items have been organized into three series. Series 1: Postcards, 1908-1916, includes 79 postcards. Approximately 10 postcards contain images taken by the photographer Simeon Schwemberger of Diné (Navajo) people on the Navajo Reservation, and were sold out of his studio in St. Michaels, Arizona. Series 2: Photographs, 1896-1926, includes 18 photographs. Several of these include depictions of Native and non-Native peoples in Fort Defiance in Arizona, Haskell in Kansas, and Lac du Flambeau in Wisconsin. Series 3: Stereographs, 1865-1875, includes 8 stereographic images. These stereographs contain images taken by the photographer William Stinson Soule (Will Soule) of Kiowa-Apache, Niuam (Comanche), and Southern Tsitsistas/Suhtai (Cheyenne) men near Fort Sill in Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma), between approximately 1865 and 1875.
Please note that the language and terminology used in this collection reflects the context and culture of the time of its creation, and may include culturally sensitive information. As an historical document, its contents may be at odds with contemporary views and terminology. The information within this collection does not reflect the views of the Smithsonian Institution, but is available in its original form to facilitate research.
Arrangement:
This collection is arranged into three series. Series 1: Postcards, 1908-1916, Series 2: Photographs, 1896-1926, and Series 3: Stereographs, 1865-1875.
Biographical / Historical:
Photographer William Stinson Soule (Will Soule) lived and worked in the region of Fort Sill, in the Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma), in the 1860s and 1870s, regularly photographing U.S. Army personnel and Southern Plains Indian communities.
Simeon Schwemberger was a photographer originally from Cincinnati, Ohio, who settled near the St. Michaels mission church in Arizona in 1901. There he took many photographs of the Native communities of the region, later selling the images as postcards.
Provenance:
Gift from Jenene Garey in 2018 and 2021.
Restrictions:
Access to NMAI Archives Center collections is by appointment only, Monday - Friday, 9:30 am - 3:30 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); Arizona and New Mexico postcard and photograph collection, NMAI.AC.127; National Museum of the American Indian Archives Center, Smithsonian Institution.
Lake Superior Chippewa [Lac du Flambeau, Wisconsin] Search this
Type:
Archival materials
Photographic prints
Date:
1896-1926
Scope and Contents:
Several of these photographs include depictions of Native and non-Native peoples in Fort Defiance in Arizona, Haskell in Kansas, and Lac du Flambeau in Wisconsin.
Collection Restrictions:
Access to NMAI Archives Center collections is by appointment only, Monday - Friday, 9:30 am - 3:30 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); Arizona and New Mexico postcard and photograph collection, NMAI.AC.127; 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.
Indians of North America -- Southern states Search this
Citation:
Photo Lot 90-1, George V. Allen collection of photographs of Native Americans and the American frontier, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Indians of North America -- Great Basin Search this
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Albums
Photographs
Date:
circa 1877
Scope and Contents note:
Albums probably assembled by William Henry Jackson, mostly containing portraits of Native American delegates in Washington, D.C. and photographs made on US Geological Surveys (including the Hayden and Powell surveys). Photographs from the field include John K. Hillers' photographs of the Southwest, photographs of Fort Laramie (possibly by Alexander Gardner), Orloff R. Westmann's photographs of Taos Pueblo, and Jackson's photographs of Crow, Shoshoni, Pawnee, and Nez Perce Tribes and related sites. Most of the photographs were made circa 1860s-1870s.
The albums were probably by Jackson while working under Ferdinand V. Hayden for the United States Geological Survey of the Territories. The reason for their creation is uncertain, though it may have been a project set up by Hayden or a continuation of William Henry Blackmore's tradition of publishing albums. Some of the albums include captions pasted from Jackson's Descriptive Catalogue of Photographs of North American Indians (1877) while others have handwritten captions.
Biographical/Historical note:
William Henry Jackson (1843-1942) was an American painter, photographer and explorer. Born in New York, he sold drawings and retouched photographs from an early age. After serving in the Civil War, he opened a photography studio in Omaha, Nebraska, with his brother Edward. As photographer for the US Geological and Geographical Surveys (1870-1878), he documented the American west and published the first photographs of Yellowstone. When the surveys lost funding in 1879, Jackson opened a studio in Denver, Colorado, and also worked for various railroad companies. Many of Jackson's photographs were displayed at the World's Columbian Exhibition in Chicago (1893), for which he was the official photographer.
Local Call Number(s):
NAA Photo Lot 4420
Location of Other Archival Materials:
Original negatives for many of the photographs in this collection can be found in the National Anthropological Archives in the BAE historical negatives.
The National Museum of the American Indian Archives holds William Henry Jackson photographs and negatives.
Additional Jackson photographs held in National Anthropological Archives Photo Lot 4605, MS 4801, Photo Lot 14, Photo Lot 24, Photo Lot 29, Photo Lot 37, Photo Lot 40, Photo Lot 60, Photo Lot 93, Photo lot 143, Photo Lot 87-2P, Photo Lot 87-20, and Photo Lot 90-1.
Correspondence from Jackson held in the National Anthropological Archives in MS 4517, MS 4881, MS 4821, and collections of personal papers.
Indians of North America -- Southern states Search this
Genre/Form:
Photographs
Citation:
Photo Lot 4420, William Henry Jackson photograph albums based on his Descriptive Catalogue of Photographs of North American Indians, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
