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
The collection consists of three (3) paintings collected by Neil Judd in the mid to late 1930s. There are two paintings by Harrison Begay and one painting by Louis Naranjo.
Please note that the contents of the collection and the language and terminology used reflect the context and culture of the time of its creation. As an historical document, its contents may be at odds with contemporary views and terminology and considered offensive today. The information within this collection does not reflect the views of the Smithsonian Institution or National Anthropological Archives, but is available in its original form to facilitate research.
Biographical Note:
Louis Naranjo (1932-1997) was a Cochiti Pueblo artist best known for his figurative pottery.
Harrison Begay, also known as Haashké yah Níyá (meaning "Warrior Who Walked Up to His Enemy") (1914 or 1917-2012) was a Diné (Navajo) painter, printmaker, and illustrator specializing in watercolors, gouache, and silkscreen prints.
Provenance:
The collection was donated to the National Anthropological Archives by Neil Judd in 1974.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research.
Access to the collection requires an appointment.
Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Genre/Form:
Paintings
Works of art
Citation:
MS 1974-40 Harrison Begay and Louis Naranjo paintings
Photographs mostly commissioned and collected by personnel in the Bureau of American Ethnology. Most of the photographs are studio portraits of Native Americans made by the Bureau of American Ethnology and Smithsonian Institution, possibly for physical anthropologist Ales Hrdlicka. There are also photographs made by Truman Michelson among the Catawba tribe, copies of illustrations and drawings, and various images of archeological sites and artifacts.
Local Call Number(s):
NAA Photo Lot 87-2M, USNM ACC 42191
Location of Other Archival Materials:
Original negatives for many photographs in this collection held in the National Anthropological Archives in the BAE historical negatives.
Additional Michelson photographs held in National Anthropological Archives Photo Lot 13, Photo Lot 24, MS 2139, and MS 4365-c.
Additional Hillers photographs held in National Anthropological Archives Photo Lot 14, Photo Lot 24, Photo Lot 28, Photo Lot 40, Photo Lot 143, Photo Lot 83-18, Photo Lot 87-2N, Photo Lot 90-1, Photo Lot 92-46, and the BAE historical negatives.
Additional Jackson photographs held in National Anthropological Archives Photo Lot 24, Photo Lot 37, Photo Lot 40, Photo Lot 60, Photo Lot 93, Photo Lot 143, Photo Lot R82-10, Photo Lot 87-2P, Photo Lot 90-1, Photo Lot 92-3, the records of the Department of Anthropology, and the BAE historical negatives.
Additional Smillie photographs held in the National Museum of American History Archives Center in the Frances Benjamin Johnston and Thomas W. Smillie Glass Plate Negatives and in Smithsonian Institution Archives SIA Acc. 05-123.
Additional Gardner photographs held in National Anthropological Archives Photo Lot 24, Photo Lot 80-18, Photo Lot 87-2P, Photo Lot 90-1, and the BAE historical negatives.
Associated busts and molds held in the Department of Anthropology collections in accession 42191.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research.
Access to the collection requires an appointment.
Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Topic:
Indians of North America -- Southern states Search this
Photo lot 87-2M, Bureau of American Ethnology photograph collection relating to Native Americans, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
This collection contains 46 gelatin silver and albumen prints that depict the southwest Indigenous peoples and landscapes from around 1880-1914.
Scope and Contents:
This collection contains 46 gelatin/albumen silver prints that were in the collection of Douglas D. Graham. The photographs represent portraits and landscapes of the southwest around 1880-1914. Some photographs were taken by Ben Wittick (6), John K. Hillers (2), and Colonel Frank. C. Churchill (1).
Arrangement:
Arranged in folders by print catalog number.
Biographical / Historical:
Douglas D. Graham was born in New York in 1849 and died in 1914. Graham was a U.S. Indian Agent at Zuni, New Mexico from 1870 to about 1906. During this time, he was also a teacher and superintendent at a local school.
Provenance:
This collection was donated to the Museum of the American Indian (MAI) in 1959 by Graham's nieces: Evelyn Brinckerhoff Lent (Mrs. Ward S. Lent, 1890-1970); Heloise Graham Brinckerhoff Oman (Mrs. Charles M. Oman, 1885-1966); Beatrice Brinckerhoff Young (Mrs. Alexander M. Young, 1895-1973); and Mary Franklin Brinckerhoff Van Houten (Mrs. John M. Van Houten, 1894-1964).
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); Douglas D. Graham photographs of the Southwest, image #, NMAI.AC.313; National Museum of the American Indian Archives Center, Smithsonian Institution.
Indians of North America -- Southwest, New Search this
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Albumen prints
Photographs
Place:
Chelly, Canyon de (Ariz.)
Date:
1870s-1880s
bulk 1879-1879
Scope and Contents note:
The collection primarily consists of photographs made by John K. Hillers for the Bureau of American Ethnology documenting pueblos, cliff and rock dwellings, and people in Arizona and New Mexico. The photographs depict Navajo, Zuni, Taos, Oraibi, Walpi, Tesuque, Sichomovi, Cochiti, Mishongnavi, and Shipaulovi Pueblos. There are also pictures of mounds, possibly in West Virginia, and a Hobart Nichols drawing of the interior of a Pueblo dwelling. The bulk of the photographs are on BAE mounts, of which some are stamped "Compliments of J. W. Powell". Several of the images were made during the United States Geological Survey in 1885.
Biographical/Historical note:
John K. Hillers (1843-1925) immigrated to the United States from Germany in 1852. He spent almost twenty years photographing Native Americans, largely for the Bureau of American Ethnology and the United States Geological Survey. He began work on the Survey as a boatman on John Wesley Powell's second expedition down the Colorado River in 1871. He soon became the assistant, and then main photographer (1872) for the expedition. From 1879 to 1900, Hillers served as the first staff photographer of the Bureau of Ethnology, and in 1881 he took pictures for the United States Geological Survey.
Local Call Number(s):
NAA Photo Lot 143
Location of Other Archival Materials:
Additional Hillers photographs in the National Anthropological Archives can be found in Photo Lot 14, Photo Lot 24, Photo Lot 28, Photo Lot 40, Photo Lot 83-18, Photo Lot 87-2N, Photo Lot 90-1, Photo Lot 92-46, and the BAE historical negatives.
The National Anthropological Archives also holds Hillers's diary from 1871-1872 and 1874, 1875 (MS 4410).
This series contains 45 postcards and 6 photographic prints. The images include depictions of activities such as weaving, basket making, pottery making, bread-baking, and selling crafts. Communities represented include Acoma Pueblo, Akimel O'odham (Pima), A:shiwi (Zuni), Chimayo, Cochiti Pueblo, Diné (Navajo), Havasupai (Coconino), Hopi Pueblo, Hualapai (Walapai), K'apovi (Santa Clara Pueblo), Laguna Pueblo, Mojave (Mohave), Tesuque Pueblo, and Tohono O'odham (Papago). The only individual specifically identified is Elle of Ganado [Diné (Navajo)], a well-known and celebrated weaver of the time. A large number of these postcards were produced by the Fred Harvey Company which partnered with the Santa Fe Railroad in the early 20th century to generate tourism in the American Southwest.
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 Archives Center's Digital Image request website.
Collection Citation:
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Dale Jenkins postcard and photograph collection, NMAI.AC.069, Box and Folder Number; National Museum of the American Indian Archives Center, Smithsonian Institution.
Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians of North Carolina
Date:
1932-1958
Summary:
These are the papers of Washington, D.C. attorney James E. Curry, whose legal career included work both as a government attorney and in his own private practice. The bulk of the papers reflect his private practice in the area of Indian affairs.
Scope and Contents:
The material in the collection includes documents relating to many aspects of Curry's career but most of it relates to his work with Indian tribes and the National Congress of American Indians. For the most, the collection is made up of such materials as letters exchanged with government officials, Indians, and other attorneys; copies of legal documents; published government documents; notes; and clippings and other printed materials. Of particular significance is a subject file relating to Indian affairs. It includes material concerning affairs of Alaskan natives and the Aleut (Akutan, Pribilof Islands), Apache (including Fort Sill, Jicarilla, Mescalero, San Carlos White Mountain), Arapaho (Southern), Assiniboine (Fort Belknap, Fort Peck), Bannock (including Fort Hall), Blackfeet, Caddo, Catawba, Cherokee (Eastern), Cheyenne (Northern, Southern), Chickahominy, Chickasaw, Chippewa (including Lac Courte Oreilles), Choctaw, Cochiti, Cocopa, Coeur d'Alene, Colville, Comanche, Creek, Croatan, Crow, Dakota (Big Foot, Cheyenne River, Crow Creek, Devil's Lake, Flandreau, Fort Totten, Lower Brule, Mdewakanton, Oglala, Rosebud, Santee, Sisseton-Wahpeton, Standing Rock, Yankton), Delaware, Eskimo (including Gambell, Kiana), Flathead, Fox, Haida (including Kasaan), Havasupai, Hopi, Iroquois (Caughnawaga, Seneca, St. Regis), Isleta, Jemez, Kalilspel, Kansa (Kaw), Kickapoo, Kiowa, Klamath, Kutenai, Laguna, Lummi, Maricopa (Gila River, Salt River), Menominee, Missouria, Mohave (Fort Mohave), Mohave Apache (Fort McDowell), Muckleshoot, Navaho, Nez Perce, Niska, Nooksak, Omaha, Osage, Oto, Papago, Paiute (Fallon, Fort McDermitt), Moapa, Pyramid Lake, Shivwits, Walker River, Yerington), Pima (Gila River, Salt River), Potowatomi, Quinaielt, San Felipe, San Ildefonso, San Juan, Santa Ana, Santa Clara, Sandia, Sauk, Seminole (Florida, Oklahoma), Seneca, Seri, Shawnee (Eastern), Shoshoni (including Fort Hall), Sia, Spokan, Stockbridge, Taos (Pyote clan), Tesuque, Three Affiliated Tribes (Mandan, Arikara, and Hidatsa), Tillamook, Tlingit (including Angoon, Craig, Juneau, Kake, Ketchikan, Klawak, Klukwan, Taku, Wrangell), Tsimshian (Metlakatla), Umatilla, Ute (including Uintah-Ouray), Walapai, Washo, Wesort, Winnebago, Wyandot, Yakima, Yaqui, Yavapai, Yuma, and Zuni. There are also materials relating to Curry's work with the Bureau of Indian Affairs and National Congress of American Indians, and material that reflects his interest in conditions and events in given locations (often filed by state) and in organizations with interest in Indians. The material relating to Curry's work in Puerto Rico has been deposited in the Archivo General de Puerto Rico, Instituto de Cultura Puertorriquena, in San Juan.
Arrangement note:
The James E. Curry Papershave been arranged into 6 series: (1) Daily Chronological Files, 1941-1955; (2) Subject Files Regarding Indian Affairs, bulk 1935-1955; (3) Miscellaneous Files Regarding Indian Affairs, bulk 1947-1953; (4) Non-Indian Affairs, n.d.; (5) Puerto Rico Work, 1941-1947; (6) Miscellany, undated.
Biographical/Historical note:
James E. Curry was trained in law in Chicago and practiced in that city from 1930 until 1936, serving part of that time as secretary of the local branch of the American Civil Liberties Union. From 1936 to 1938, he was an attorney with the United States Department of the Interior Bureau of Indian Affairs, being largely involved with matters of credit affecting Indians. From 1938 to 1942, he continued service with the Interior Department but worked in several capacities involving the Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration, the department's Consumers' Counsel Division, and the Puerto Rico Water Resources Authority.
In 1945, Curry returned to Washington and set up private practice, also maintaining for a time an office in Puerto Rico. In Washington, he became the attorney for the National Congress of American Indians and from that time until the 1950s his practice increasingly involved representation of American Indian tribes, mostly in claims against the federal government. In this work, for a time, he was involved in business relations with a New York Law firm that included Henry Cohen, Felix Cohen, and Jonathan Bingham.
He also often worked closely with lawyers who lived near the tribes he represented, William L. Paul, Jr., of Alaska, for example. This aspect of his practice--representing Indian tribes--was largely broken up during the early 1950s when the Commissioner of Indian Affairs began to use his powers to disapprove contracts between Curry and the tribes. In 1952 and 1953, his official relationship with the National Congress of American Indians was also ended. After this, while Curry continued until his death to act as a consultant in Indian claims with which he had earlier been involved, his career and life developed in a different direction.
Related Materials:
Additional material relating to James E. Curry can be found in the records of the National Congress of American Indians, also located at the National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center.
Provenance:
The Curry papers were originally donated to the National Anthropological Archives by James E. Curry's daughter Mrs. Aileen Curry-Cloonan in December 1973. In 2007 The Curry papers were transferred from the National Anthropological Archives to the National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center along with several other records concerning American Indian law and political rights.
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 broadbast 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.
Genre/Form:
Notes
Letters
Clippings
Legal documents
Citation:
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); James E. Curry papers, Box and Folder Number; National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center, Smithsonian Institution.
Photographs depicting tribal delegates, probably made by Robert M. Farring during tribal group visits to the Bureau of Indian Affairs Washington office. Many of the photographs were originally mounted in notebooks with identification of pictured individuals and their affiliations.
Biographical/Historical note:
Robert M. Farring, Jr. is an employee in the Tribal Operations office of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington, DC.
Local Call Number(s):
NAA Photo Lot 85-21
Location of Other Archival Materials:
Additional photographs of Native American delegations can be found in the National Anthropological Archives in Photo Lot 4286, MS 4638, Photo Lot 87-2P, Photo Lot 90-1, and the BAE historical negatives.
For those who are searching for anthropologically substantive materials, special note should be made of the Manuscript and Pamphlet File. A potpourri of documents, the file includes correspondence, notes, drawings, maps, photographs, printed and processed materials, paper specimens, reports, writings, catalogs, motion picture film (now in the Smithsonian's Human Studies Film Archives), bibliographies, and other types of documents. Of concern is a wide variety of subjects such as anthropological specimens, museology and museums, Smithsonian history, archaeological and ethnological methods, exhibits, expeditions, history of anthropology, and so forth.
The file seems to have been maintained in the Division of Ethnology — in one document it was referred to as Herbert W. Krieger's morgue — and the subject matter is largely ethnological. Nevertheless, some documents relate to archeology and physical anthropology. The file also contains administrative materials, such as records relating to the Department of Anthropology's use of Work Projects Administration workers during the 1930s. In addition, the file is the main location of materials not generally accepted as being strictly anthropological in the modern sense. It includes, for example, material on period costumes, fish and fisheries, whaling, religions, armor, biblical studies, modern appliances, the seal industry, European music and musical instruments, lace, aeronautics, and other similar subjects. In addition, the file includes sets of papers of Edwin H. Hawley ,Walter Hough, Otis T. Mason, Talcott Williams and Thomas Wilson.
Some documents, both primary and secondary research materials, concern the following cultural groups and geographic areas: Arabs, Bannock, Baubi, Blackfoot, British Columbia, Caddo, Carib, Chinook, Cochiti, Comanche, Cossacks, Cuna, Delaware, Diegueño, District of Columbia, Dyak, Eskimo, Europe, Fox, Goajira, Haida, Hawaii, Hittites, Hupa, India, Innuit, Iran, Ireland, Jamomadi, Japan, Jivaro, Kabyles, Kiowa, Kirghese, Klamath, Korea, Luiseño, Madagascar, Madiera, Maidu, Makah, Maori, Mataco, Maya, Micmac, Micronesia, Mission, Modoc, Mohave, Mongolia, Moro, Morocco, Naltunnetunne, Nanticoke, Narragansett, Navaho, New Guinea, Nez Perce, Nubia, Omaha, Onandaga, Osage, Oto, Papua, Parsee, Pawnee, Peru, Philippines, Pomo, Pueblo, Puerto Rico, Pygmies, Quichua, Quinaielt, Samoa, Sauk, Seminole, Seri, Shoshoni, Spain, Tahiti, Tesuque, Thailand, Texas, Tolowa, Tonga, Tulalip, Utah, Virginia, Washo, Wichita, Wintun, Yavapai, and Zuni.
The manuscript and pamphlet file is virtually a potpourri of documents, including correspondence, notes, drawings, maps, photographs, printed and processed materials, paper specimens, reports, writings, catalogs, motion picture film, bibliographies, and other types of documents. Of concern is a wide variety of subjects such as anthropological specimens, museology and museums, Smithsonian history, archeological and ethnological methods, exhibits, expeditions, history of anthropology, and so forth. The file seems to have been maintained in the Division of Ethnology--in one document it was referred to as being Herbert W. Krieger's morgue--and the subject matter is largely ethnological.
Some documents, however, concern archeology and physical anthropology. The file also contains some administrative materials--records relating to the Department of Anthropology's use of Work Projects Administration workers, for example. In addition, it is the main location of materials not generally accepted as being strictly anthropological in the modern sense. It includes, for example, material on the First Ladies' Gown exhibit now in the National Museum of American History, fish and fisheries, whaling, religions, armour, biblical studies, modern appliances, the seal industry, European music and musical instruments, lace, aeronautics, and other similar subjects.
The file includes the papers of many different persons. The file also includes sets of papers of Otis Tufton Mason, Walter Hough, Talcott Williams, Edwin H. Hawley, and Thomas Wilson. It includes documents, sometimes of a secondary nature, about the following cultural groups and geographic areas; Arabs, Bannock, Baubi, Blackfoot, British Columbia, Caddo, Chinook, Cochiti, Comanche, Cossacks, Cuna, Delaware, Diegueno, District of Columbia, Dyak, Eskimo, Europe, Fox, Goajira, Haida, Hawaii, Hittites, Hupa, India, Innuit, Iran, Ireland, Jamomadi, Japan, Jivaro, Kabyles, Kiowa, Kirghese, Klamath, Korea, Luiseno, Madagascar, Madeira, Maidu, Makah, Maori, Mataco, Maya, Micmac, Micronesia, Mission, Modoc, Mohave, Mongolia, Moro, Morocco, Naltunnetunne, Nanticoke, Narragansett, Navaho,
View, from Roof-Top, of Pueblo, Showing Adobe House Clusters, Corn Drying on Roof-Tops, Beehive Ovens, Chimneys Topped With Pots, and Group in Partial Native Dress
The Peter Dechert photographs of Pueblo Artists collection contains 412 negatives, 33 contact sheets, and 70 photographs documenting many Native artists of the American Southwest circa 1970-1976.
Scope and Contents:
The Peter Dechert photographs of Pueblo Artists collection contains 412 negatives, 33 contact sheets, and 70 photographs documenting many Native artists of the American Southwest. The photographs were shot by photographer Peter Dechert, circa 1970-1976. The photographs depict artists working in their studios and homes, as well as portraits of them with finished artwork. The photographs offer a behind-the-scenes look at artists and their artistic practices.
Artists documented in this collection include:
Lois Gutierrez de la Cruz (Lois Gutierrez) [Pojoaque Pueblo/K'apovi (Santa Clara Pueblo)]
Derek de la Cruz [K'apovi (Santa Clara Pueblo)]
Gloria Garcia (Goldenrod) [K'apovi (Santa Clara Pueblo)/Pojoaque Pueblo]
John D. Garcia [K'apovi (Santa Clara Pueblo)]
Jason Garcia (Okuu Pin) [Santa Clara Pueblo]
Popovi Da (Tony Martinez) [San Ildefonso Pueblo]
Blue Corn (Crucita Gonzales Calabaza) [San Ildefonso Pueblo]
Ramoncita Sandoval (Ramoncita Cruz) [Ohkay Owingeh (San Juan Pueblo)]
Santiago Quintana (Cochiti Pueblo)
Minnie Vigil [K'apovi (Santa Clara Pueblo)]
Stella Shutiva (Acoma Pueblo)
Pula Gutierrez [K'apovi (Santa Clara Pueblo)]
Val Gutierrez [K'apovi (Santa Clara Pueblo)]
Arrangement:
Photographs arranged by artists and material type (negatives, contact sheets, and prints).
Biographical / Historical:
Biography from the Peter Dechert's obituary published in the Santa Fe New Mexican on Dec. 27, 2016. It has been edited to fit this finding aid:
Peter Dechert, photojournalist and jazz musician, was born in 1924 in Philadelphia, PA. He was a graduate of the Los Alamos Ranch School (1941) and the University of Pennsylvania (BA 1948, MA 1950, PhD 1955). He also attended the Lawrenceville School and Episcopal Academy. A veteran of World War II, Dechert served in the 69th Infantry Division in France, Belgium, and Germany. While he was Staff Sergeant, Chief of Division Artillery Survey Section, his section was cited as the best of its kind in the US Army (1944). He was later appointed to Division Artillery Headquarters Intelligence. Peter taught himself photographic and darkroom techniques in his pre-teen years, and published his first photograph in Leica Magazine at the age of 15. Peter's photographs have been shown in a variety of gallery settings as well, from the Museum of Modern Art in New York to his own Camera West gallery in Santa Fe. During his time with the School of American Research (now SAR) he studied innovative techniques for using photography in archaeological research, including oblique aerial photography. He contributed a section on Communication, Photography, and the Archaeologist to SAR's publication Photography in Archaeological Research. As founder of the Southwest Foundation for Audiovisual Resources, he documented many Indian artists at work. An internationally-renowned expert in camera history, he was best known for his books Canon Rangefinder Cameras 1933-68 and Olympus Pen Single Lens Reflex Cameras. In all, he wrote 5 books and several hundred articles on cameras and camera equipment. He loved poetry, taught modern American poetry at the University of Pennsylvania, and wrote many poems of his own. He served as the first President of the New Mexico Poetry Society. His poems have appeared in numerous anthologies and publications, including New Mexico Magazine, Sunstone Review, The American Pen, The American Bard, and more. Peter believed strongly in contributing to his community. During his years as President of the St. Vincent Hospital Foundation he raised funds for Santa Fe's first cancer treatment center. Peter passed away in Santa Fe, NM in 2016.
Related Materials:
Other collections of Peter Dechert photographs reside at the New Mexico History Museum.
Provenance:
Gift of Caroline Dechert, 2023.
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); Peter Dechert photographs of Pueblo Artists, image #, NMAI.AC.440; National Museum of the American Indian Archives Center, Smithsonian Institution.
The Esther Schiff Goldfrank papers, 1920-1980, document her professional life in anthropology. Much of the field material and reading notes relate to Goldfrank's work on the Pueblos, Navahos, Blood, and Teton Dakota. There is also considerable material of colleagues. Some of this seems to have been given to her directly. Other material, particularly that of Ruth Benedict's Blackfoot project, was acquired by Margaret Mead and then sent to Goldfrank. Included are field notes or manuscript articles concerning the Blackfoot Indians by Benedict, Harry D. Biele, Marjorie Lismer, Jane Richardson, and George D. Spindler. Most of the photographs in the collection concern Goldfrank's early travels with Franz Boas or Harvey Biele's work with the Bloods. Copies of illustrations used in her autobiography are also included.
Scope and Contents:
These papers document the professional life of anthropologist Esther Schiff Goldfrank (b. 1896) through correspondence, arranged both alphabetically and chronologically; correspondence specifically referencing the Isleta paintings; manuscripts by Goldfrank; field, reading and typescript notes; material from other anthropologists; miscellaneous printed material such as articles, reports, papers and invitations; transparencies of artwork from Isleta paintings; facsimiles of the Joe B. Lente letters; and, photographs, mostly concerning Goldfrank's early travels with Franz Boas and Harvey Biele's work with the Bloods. The collection dates from 1920 through 1980.
Among correspondents whose letters are included in the papers, are David F. ABERLE, John ADAIR, M. F. ASHLEY-MONTAGUE, Victor BARNOUW, Ruth F. BENEDICT, Franz BOAS, Charles E. BORDEN, Henry B. COLLINS, Carlton S. COON, George DEVEREUX, Rene d'HARNONCOURT, Edward P. DOZIER, Fred R. EGGAN, Ward H. GOODENOUGH, Alfred I. HALLOWELL, June HANKS, Byron HARVEY III, Florence M. HAWLEY, E. Adamson HOEBEL, Alfred V. KIDDER, Solon T. KIMBALL, Clyde KLUCKHOLN, R. Weston LABARRE, Oliver LAFARGE, Dorothea C. LEIGHTON, Oscar LEWIS, Edward M. LOEB, John P. LUCERO, Margaret MEAD, Robert MURPHY, Morris OPLER, Elsie Clews PARSONS, Herbert PARSONS, Jane RICHARDSON, M. Estellie SMITH, Frank G. SPECK, Leslie SPIER, Morris SWADESH, Sol TAX, Mischa TITIEV, Caroline TRUJILLO, Leslie A. WHITE, Nathalie F. S. WOODBURY, and Richard B. WOODBURY.
The bulk of the material concerns Goldfrank's work on the genesis and publication of the Isleta paintings and her research on and fieldwork with the Pueblo, Navaho, Blood and Teton Dakota. Additionally, there are field notes and manuscript articles by Ruth F. Benedict, Harry D. Biele, Marjorie Lismer, Jane Richardson, and George D. Spindler.
There is also a good deal of autobiographical material and information about her interaction with other anthropologists (Franz Boas and Ruth F. Benedict among others) in the various drafts of Goldfrank's privately published autobiography, "Notes on an Undirected Life" (1978).
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into the following series: (1) Correspondence arranged by correspondent or subject; (2) Correspondence arranged in chronological order, 1922-1950; (3) Correspondence arranged in chronological order, 1951-1980; (4) Manuscripts by Goldfrank; (5) Isleta paintings, 1949-1976, undated; (6) Blackfoot and Blood Indians; (7) Navajo and Pueblo Indians; (8) Teton Dakota (Sioux) Indians; (9) Miscellany; (10) Photographs.
Biographical Note:
Esther Schiff Goldfrank took an undergraduate course under Franz Boas when she was a student at Barnard College. This led to her becoming his secretary between 1919 and 1922 and, at the same time, taking graduate courses in anthropology at Columbia University. With the financial and intellectual assistance of Elsie Clews Parsons, she also traveled with Boas and his wife in the Southwest and carried out anthropological field work at Laguna and Cochiti Pueblos between 1920 and 1922. Out of this work came her Social and Ceremonial Organization of Chochiti, Memoirs of the American Anthropological Association, number 23, 1927.
Although she married Walter Goldfrank in 1922 and became a homemaker, her interest in Pueblo life continued. In 1924, she carried out field work at Isleta for the Southwest Society under arrangements made by Parsons.
After her husband's death in 1935, Goldfrank worked for Caroline Zachry's Study of Adolescents for the Commission on Secondary School Curriculum of the Progressive Education Association and, later, became a nondegree graduate student in anthropology, again at Columbia University, In 1939, she took part in a program of field studies of four Blackfoot tribes that was directed Ruth Fulton Benedict. The purpose of the program was to determine differences in the effects of American and Canadian policies on similar cultures.
Goldfrank's work was among the Blood Indians of Canada, and she reported it in her Changing Configurations in the Social Organization of a Blackfoot Tribe during the Reserve Period, J. J. Austin, 1945.
In 1940, Goldfrank married Karl A. Wittfogel and, in 1943, became staff anthropologist for the Chinese History Project, which her husband directed. Shortly after her marriage, she undertook work on historical aspects of Teton Dakota culture through library studies. Her interest in Pueblo cultures continued, however, and she contributed two major publications concerning them. In 1962, under her editorship, Elsie Clews Parsons' Isleta Paintings was published as Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 181. In 1967, her own The Artist of "Isleta Paintings" in Pueblo Society was issued as Smithsonian Contributions to Anthropology, volume 3.
Under the influence of her husband, she also became interested in the implications for southwestern cultures of the need to control water.
Goldfrank was active with several anthropological organizations but especially with the American Ethnological Society. She served as its secretary-treasurer in 1945-1947 and its president in 1948. In the latter position, she was particularly concerned with the constitution of the society and, especially, its anomolous relationship with the American Anthropological Association. She was also the society's editor from 1952 to 1956.
Chronology
1896 -- Born
1918 -- Bachelor of Arts, Barnard College
1919-1922 -- Took graduate courses in anthropology at Columbia University Became secretary to Franz Boas Conducted field work with Franz Boas among the Indians at Laguna and Cochiti
1922 -- Married Walter S. Goldfrank
1924 -- Pursued field work at Isleta for the Southwest Society
1927 -- Published Monograph, "The Social and Ceremonial Organization of Cochiti," Memoirs of the American Anthropological Association, number 23, 1927
1935 -- Death of Walter S. Goldfrank
1939 -- Took part in a study of four Blackfoot tribes directed by Ruth F. Benedict
1940 -- Married Karl A. Wittfogel
1943 -- Became staff anthropologist for Wittfogel's Chinese HistoryProject
1944 -- Published Monograph, "Changing Configurations in the Social Organization of a Blackfoot Tribe During the Reserve Period," J. J. Austin, 1945
1945-1947 -- Served as Secretary-Treasurer of the American Ethnological Society
1948 -- Served as President of the American Ethnological Society
1952-1956 -- Publication of "Isleta Paintings,"Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 181, with Introduction and Commentary by Elsie ClewsParsons and edited by Esther S. Goldfrank Served as editor for the American Ethnological Society
1967 -- Goldfrank's "Artist of 'Isleta Paintings' in Pueblo Society" was issued as Smithsonian Contributions to Anthropology, volume 3
1978 -- Publication of the Memoirs of Esther S. Goldfrank, entitled, "Notes on an Undirected Life," New York, Queens College, 1978
1988 -- Death of Karl A. Wittfogel
1997 April 23 -- Died
Provenance:
The papers were donated to the National Anthropological Archives by Esther Schiff Goldfrank in 1982. A small addition was made in 1984.
Restrictions:
The Esther Schiff Goldfrank papers are open for research.
Rights:
Restrictions on the use of the material specify that living informants are not to be mentioned in publications; no material is to be used to defame any individual; and, transparencies of the Isleta Paintings and copies of Joe B. Lente's letters cannot be reproduced (copies should be obtained from the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia).
Genre/Form:
Photographs
Manuscripts
Letters (correspondence)
Citation:
Esther Schiff Goldfrank papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
![view Eagle Dance Performed by Members of the Cochiti Pueblo [Live at Smithsonian Folklife Festival 2000] digital asset number 1](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ZErxZT9B5iE/default.jpg)
