This collection include souvenir photographs shot by producer Frank E. Moore of his 1906 outdoor stage production of "Hiawatha: The Indian Passion Play" based on Longfellow's epic poem The Song of Hiawatha. This production of Hiawatha was performed near the Cattaraugus Reservation, New York, and included Seneca [Cattaraugus] performers, possibly with Jesse Cornplanter in the role of Hiawatha.
Scope and Contents:
This collection includes 98 photographic prints from a souvenir book of a 1906 performance of "The Song of Hiawatha" produced by Frank E. Moore. The performance was held on the shore of Lake Chautauqua near the Cattaraugus Reservation. It is very likely that several of the performers photographed in this collection were also a part of the 1913 film production of Hiawatha, also produced by Frank E. Moore. This includes Jesse Cornplanter, in the role of Hiawatha, and his father Edward Cornplanter. The photographs show scenes from the theatrical production featuring characters such as Hiawatha, Minnehaha, Nokomis, and Pau-Puk-keewis. 18 copy negatives were later made from the photographic prints.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow first published the epic poem, Song of Hiawatha, in 1855. By 1900, the poem had been translated into 20 different European languages as well as back into the Ojibwe language at the turn of the century ushering in a "Hiawatha Revival" that captured American Imaginations. In 1901, Louis Oliver Armstrong, an amateur ethnologist and land agent for the Canadian Pacific Railroad, wrote a new libretto from the Longfellow poem in English and Ojibwe which was first prepared with Garden River Anishinaabeg community members as actors. His performances, or "Pageants," became regular events which led to additional versions and tours around the United States. Not long after Armstrong discontinued his show in 1905, Frank E. Moore created his own version. Originally from Middletown, Ohio, Moore gathered a large cast of Native performers from various tribal communities including many actors from the Seneca Nation on the Cattaraugus Reservation. Moore continued the tradition of large outdoor pageant performances of "Hiawatha" which were performed along a body of water and featured Native actors performing traditional dances and wearing "Native" costumes alongside narration of Longfellow's poem.
In 1913 Frank E. Moore produced the stage version of Hiawatha into a film, hiring Jesse Cornplanter (Seneca) to play Hiawatha. Jesse Cornplanter had previously accompanied his father, Edward Cornplanter, acting and singing in the Hiawatha pageant on tour through the United States and Europe. "Hiawatha" was shot in upstate New York and northern Michigan by Moore and was the first feature film to use an all-Native cast, with reportedly 150 actors from the Cattaraugus Reservation. A twenty-eight-minute cut is housed in the American Film Institute's collection in the Library of Congress.
Sources:
McNally, Michael D. "The Indian Passion Play: Contesting the Real Indian in "Song of Hiawatha" Pageants, 1901-1965," American Quarterly Vol. 58, No. 1 (March 2006), pp. 105-136.
Evans, Katy Young. "The People's Pageant: The Stage as Native Space in Anishinaabe Dramatic Interpretations of "Hiawatha"," Melus Vol. 41, No. 2 (Summer 2016), pp. 124-146.
Related Materials:
Library of Congress, Lot 8218, "Scenes from theatrical production of Hiawatha, Lake Chautauqua, New York."
Provenance:
Gift of Reginald P. Bolton, 1918.
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); "Hiawatha: the Indian Passion Play" performance photographs, image #, NMAI.AC.162; National Museum of the American Indian Archives Center, Smithsonian Institution.
Disc is labeled, "Sasser Collection LF Paintings 2005"
Collection Restrictions:
This collection is open for research. Access to original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Researchers interested in accessing born-digital records in this collection must use access copies. Contact References Services for more information.
Collection Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
The donor has retained all intellectual property rights, including copyright, that they may own in the following material: artwork created by Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
Collection Citation:
Lawrence Ferlinghetti papers, 1980-2020. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Disc is labeled, "Drawings done in Milan 9/05 Gift to Luigi Majno, Galleria M'arte Milan"
Collection Restrictions:
This collection is open for research. Access to original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Researchers interested in accessing born-digital records in this collection must use access copies. Contact References Services for more information.
Collection Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
The donor has retained all intellectual property rights, including copyright, that they may own in the following material: artwork created by Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
Collection Citation:
Lawrence Ferlinghetti papers, 1980-2020. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Professional files include one folder of correspondence, sales records, donations and gift records, inventories and price lists, exhibition files, and consignments. Also included are two CDs of artwork.
Collection Restrictions:
This collection is open for research. Access to original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Researchers interested in accessing born-digital records in this collection must use access copies. Contact References Services for more information.
Collection Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
The donor has retained all intellectual property rights, including copyright, that they may own in the following material: artwork created by Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
Collection Citation:
Lawrence Ferlinghetti papers, 1980-2020. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; partial gift of Lynda Lanker and a museum purchase made possible with generous support from Robert E. Meyerhoff and Rheda Becker, Agnes Gund, Kate Kelly and George Schweitzer, Lyndon J. Barrois Sr. and Janine Sherman Barrois, and Mark and Cindy Aron
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; partial gift of Lynda Lanker and a museum purchase made possible with generous support from Robert E. Meyerhoff and Rheda Becker, Agnes Gund, Kate Kelly and George Schweitzer, Lyndon J. Barrois Sr. and Janine Sherman Barrois, and Mark and Cindy Aron
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; partial gift of Lynda Lanker and a museum purchase made possible with generous support from Robert E. Meyerhoff and Rheda Becker, Agnes Gund, Kate Kelly and George Schweitzer, Lyndon J. Barrois Sr. and Janine Sherman Barrois, and Mark and Cindy Aron
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; partial gift of Lynda Lanker and a museum purchase made possible with generous support from Robert E. Meyerhoff and Rheda Becker, Agnes Gund, Kate Kelly and George Schweitzer, Lyndon J. Barrois Sr. and Janine Sherman Barrois, and Mark and Cindy Aron
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; partial gift of Lynda Lanker and a museum purchase made possible with generous support from Robert E. Meyerhoff and Rheda Becker, Agnes Gund, Kate Kelly and George Schweitzer, Lyndon J. Barrois Sr. and Janine Sherman Barrois, and Mark and Cindy Aron
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; partial gift of Lynda Lanker and a museum purchase made possible with generous support from Robert E. Meyerhoff and Rheda Becker, Agnes Gund, Kate Kelly and George Schweitzer, Lyndon J. Barrois Sr. and Janine Sherman Barrois, and Mark and Cindy Aron
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; partial gift of Lynda Lanker and a museum purchase made possible with generous support from Robert E. Meyerhoff and Rheda Becker, Agnes Gund, Kate Kelly and George Schweitzer, Lyndon J. Barrois Sr. and Janine Sherman Barrois, and Mark and Cindy Aron
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; partial gift of Lynda Lanker and a museum purchase made possible with generous support from Robert E. Meyerhoff and Rheda Becker, Agnes Gund, Kate Kelly and George Schweitzer, Lyndon J. Barrois Sr. and Janine Sherman Barrois, and Mark and Cindy Aron
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; partial gift of Lynda Lanker and a museum purchase made possible with generous support from Robert E. Meyerhoff and Rheda Becker, Agnes Gund, Kate Kelly and George Schweitzer, Lyndon J. Barrois Sr. and Janine Sherman Barrois, and Mark and Cindy Aron
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; partial gift of Lynda Lanker and a museum purchase made possible with generous support from Robert E. Meyerhoff and Rheda Becker, Agnes Gund, Kate Kelly and George Schweitzer, Lyndon J. Barrois Sr. and Janine Sherman Barrois, and Mark and Cindy Aron
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; partial gift of Lynda Lanker and a museum purchase made possible with generous support from Robert E. Meyerhoff and Rheda Becker, Agnes Gund, Kate Kelly and George Schweitzer, Lyndon J. Barrois Sr. and Janine Sherman Barrois, and Mark and Cindy Aron
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; partial gift of Lynda Lanker and a museum purchase made possible with generous support from Robert E. Meyerhoff and Rheda Becker, Agnes Gund, Kate Kelly and George Schweitzer, Lyndon J. Barrois Sr. and Janine Sherman Barrois, and Mark and Cindy Aron
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; partial gift of Lynda Lanker and a museum purchase made possible with generous support from Robert E. Meyerhoff and Rheda Becker, Agnes Gund, Kate Kelly and George Schweitzer, Lyndon J. Barrois Sr. and Janine Sherman Barrois, and Mark and Cindy Aron
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; partial gift of Lynda Lanker and a museum purchase made possible with generous support from Robert E. Meyerhoff and Rheda Becker, Agnes Gund, Kate Kelly and George Schweitzer, Lyndon J. Barrois Sr. and Janine Sherman Barrois, and Mark and Cindy Aron
