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.
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 Plains Search this
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Prints
Date:
1874-189-
Scope and Contents:
Catalog Number 4503: Tribe: 1)Dakota Description: Three men, standing, 2 women and 2 children, seated Photographer: Charles Eisenmann, 229 Bowery, New York Date: [ca. 189-?]. See Negative Number 44,928. 2) Dakota Spotted Tail, Iron Bull, Pawnee Killer, and Julius Meyer, interpreter filed-(stereo.) [ca. 189-?] See Negative Number 44,928-B. 3) Dakota Yellow Bear ("Was killed by Rushaw, May, 1873".) filed-(Stereo.) ?-(Printed "ad" for J. Meyer's Curio Shop on back of print) Prior to 5/1873 See Negative Number 44,928-A. 4) [Omaha ?] Man seated. [Grey Wolf ? Cf. BAE negative 3983-a-c made much later.] (stereo.) Hamilton & Hoyt, Pearl Street, Sioux City, Iowa November 6, 1874 or earlier See BAE Negative Number 44,928-D. 5) Omaha "Ge-he-ge, Omaha Chief" (Stereo., Original Number 79) [ca. 187-?] See BAE negative Number 44,928-C.
Local Numbers:
NAA MS 4503
Local Note:
Filed: Original prints by tribe. Copy negatives for all prints; therefore indexed in negative catalog only.
Photo Lot 90-1, George V. Allen collection of photographs of Native Americans and the American frontier, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
9 Items (photoprints, Silver albumen on paper, mounted on cards, approx. 4-1/4" x 2-1/2" (some smaller))
Container:
Box 1, Folder 14
Type:
Archival materials
Photographs
Tax stamps
Albumen prints
Cartes-de-visite
Date:
[ca. 1860-1871]
Scope and Contents:
Includes: "midgets" such as Tom Thumb (Charles S. Stratton) and "Tom Thumb Wedding Group" by Brady (3 items); "Charles W. Nestel, known as Commodore Foote"; "fat lady" published by Anthony (with 2-cent tax stamp on verso); a fat lady with family photographed by Fred. J. Mix; a midget woman by Chas. Eisenmann; an armless woman, photographer unidentified, but with handwritten note on verso: "So you perceive it's / really true / When hands are / lacking toes will do. / Ann E. Leak, / Born without arms, / Oct. 24, 1871. Georgia."
Series Restrictions:
Collection is open for research. Some items may be restricted due to fragile condition.
Series Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Warshaw Collection of Business Americana, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution
Sponsor:
Funding for partial processing of the collection was supported by a grant from the Smithsonian Institution's Collections Care and Preservation Fund (CCPF).
