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
Microfilm of the Benjamin Stone collection of photographs relating to Britain and Europe, North America, South America, Africa, India, and Australasia. Prints made from the microfilm are mostly of portraits of American Indians and some field images relating to delegations, expeditions, dwellings, and the 1862 Sioux uprising in Minnesota. They include depictions of Arikara, Ojibwa, Miniconjou, Dakota, Pawnee, Winnebago, Iroquois, Ute, Blackfoot, Cree, Crow, Salish, and Kootenai Indians. There are also images of buildings, boats, railroads, and scenic views from around America, as well as the Smithsonian Castle in 1871 and Chicago after the Great Fire. Photographers represented include B. H. Gurnsey, Joel Emmons Whitney, and Adrian J. Ebell.
Biographical note:
Sir John Benjamin Stone (1838-1914) was born in Birmingham, England, to a glass-making family, a profession he briefly joined before starting a career in politics. He was elected representative of the Duddlestone Ward on the Birmingham Town Coucil in 1869, later becoming Mayor Cutton (1886-1891) and Member of Parliament for East Birmingham (1895-1910). Inspired by a love of antiquities, Stone began to collect and then make photographs during his international travels to East Asia, the West Indies, Africa, and North and South America. As the first president of the Birmingham Photographic Society, he encouraged the development of the Warwickshire Photographic Survey. Additionally, he helped found the National Photographic Record Association, and served as President of the organization. During his time in Parliament, Stone made a photographic survey of the Palace of Westminster and was official photographer for the Coronation of King Geroge V in 1910. His photographs were published in the two-volume Sir Benjamin Stone's Pictures (1905).
Local Call Number(s):
NAA Photo Lot R4859
Reproduction Note:
Prints made by the Smithsonian Institution, 1969.
Location of Other Archival Materials:
Some photographs have been separated into Photo Lot 24. These photographs are represented by item-level descriptions linked to this record.
Contained in:
Numbered manuscripts 1850s-1980s (some earlier)
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research.
Access to the collection requires an appointment.
Rights:
Copy prints of photographs in the Birmingham Public Library in Birmngham, England. Reference copies can be made for Smithsonian Institution staff only. Permission to publish and other prints can be obtained from the Birmingham Public Library.
Photo Lot 90-1, George V. Allen collection of photographs of Native Americans and the American frontier, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
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 -- Southwest, New Search this
Type:
Archival materials
Stereographs
Scope and Contents:
The item is number 200 in the series Rocky Mountain Views.
Local Numbers:
NAA INV.09825200
Other Title:
Rocky Mountain Views
Collection Restrictions:
The collection is open for research.
Access to the collection requires an appointment.
Collection Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Collection Citation:
Photo Lot 90-1, George V. Allen collection of photographs of Native Americans and the American frontier, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Photo Lot 90-1, George V. Allen collection of photographs of Native Americans and the American frontier, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
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:
Archival materials
Stereographs
Scope and Contents:
The item is number 78 in the series Rocky Mountain Views. Pictured is a group of nine men posed in front of Gurnsey' studio.
Local Numbers:
NAA INV.09826400
Other Title:
Rocky Mountain Views
Collection Restrictions:
The collection is open for research.
Access to the collection requires an appointment.
Collection Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Collection Citation:
Photo Lot 90-1, George V. Allen collection of photographs of Native Americans and the American frontier, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Photo Lot 90-1, George V. Allen collection of photographs of Native Americans and the American frontier, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
B. H. (Byron H.) Gurnsey. The exterior of True & Sutton Grocers in Colorado Springs, between 1869 and 1879. Allen Tupper True and True family papers, 1841-1987. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
This collection consists of nine stereographic images depicting individuals from Ho-Chunk (Winnebago), Nakota (Yankton Sioux), and Wahpetonwan Dakota (Wahpeton Sioux) communities in the vicinity of Sioux City, Iowa, between approximately 1865 and 1870.
Scope and Contents:
The Byron H. Gurnsey stereograph collection consists of nine stereographic images taken between approximately 1865 and 1870 near Sioux City, Iowa. The stereographic photos depict men and women from Ho-Chunk (Winnebago), Nakota (Yankton Sioux), and Wahpetonwan Dakota (Wahpeton Sioux) communities, and include studio portraits as well as less formalized photographs shot outside of the studio on Native reservations. Some of the more notable photographs include images of Ho-Chunk (Winnebago) leaders Gray Wolf and Standing Buffalo.
While several of the images in this collection lack attribution or even list Charles L. Hamilton or his brother James H. Hamilton as the possible creators of these photographs, evidence points to Byron H. Gurnsey as the original photographer. The Hamilton brothers operated a photo studio in Sioux City at this time, as did Gurnsey, and after Gurnsey sold his studio in 1871 and relocated to Colorado, the Hamilton brothers continued to reproduce many of Gurnsey's photos with their own imprint.
Arrangement:
This collection is arranged into folders by cultural group.
Biographical / Historical:
Byron H. Gurnsey was born in New York state in 1833. After serving with the Union Army from 1861 until 1866, Gurnsey set up a photo studio in Sioux City, Iowa, primarily photographing non-Native soldiers at local forts and Native communities living in the area around Sioux City. Partnering with W.H. Illingworth in Sioux City, Gurnsey shot studio portrait photographs of Native community members and delegations passing through the area on their way to and from Washington, DC. During this time Gurnsey reportedly advertised his photo studio as Sioux City's "Headquarters for Stereoscopic Views and Indian Pictures." On at least one occasion he also traveled to the Winnebago Reservation in Nebraska to document the Ho-Chunk (Winnebago) peoples living there.
In 1871 Gurnsey decided to sell his Sioux City photo studio along with many of his previous Native American portraiture shots to the brothers Charles L., James H., and Grant Hamilton, who also operated a photo studio in Sioux City. By the following year Gurnsey and his family were living in Colorado, where he set up photo studios first in Pueblo and then later in Colorado Springs. While living in Colorado for the remainder of his days, Gurnsey continued to take stereographic views of the local scenery and neighboring Native communities, much as he had done earlier in Iowa. Byron H. Gurnsey died in 1880, and his widow, Delilah Simpson Gurnsey, thereafter briefly operated his studio until approximately 1882.
Related Materials:
Byron H. Gurnsey, Charles L. Hamilton, and James H. Hamilton images of Native American communities photographed between approximately 1865 and 1870 in the vicinity of Sioux City, Iowa, exist in many archival collections throughout the U.S. and Europe, including in the Smithsonian Institution's National Anthropological Archives, Newberry Library, the Library of Congress, and the British Museum in London.
Provenance:
Gift from the Historical Society of Washington, DC, in 2003.
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.
Genre/Form:
Stereographs
Citation:
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Byron H. Gurnsey stereograph collection, NMAI.AC.359; National Museum of the American Indian Archives Center, Smithsonian Institution.
