The Septima Koehler collection includes photographic prints, correspondence and student papers that document Septima's work as a mission teacher for the Episcopal Church in South Dakota from around 1895 to 1905. Koehler taught Sicangu Lakota students at St. Mary's Mission School on the Rosebud Reservation and Hunkpapa Lakota students at St. Elizatbeth's Mission School on the Standing Rock Reservation.
Scope and Contents:
The Septima Koehler collection includes photographic prints, letters, essays and student papers that document Septima's work as a mission teacher for the Episcopal Church in South Dakota from around 1895 to 1905. The collection has been divided into two series, Series 1: St. Mary's Mission School, circa 1895 and Series 2: St. Elizabeth's Mission School, circa 1899-1905. Series 1 includes photographic prints shot at St. Mary's Mission School on the Rosebud Reservation, South Dakota. Septima Koehler taught there in the early to mid-1890s but it is unclear when the photographs were taken since the photographer is unknown. The majority of the photographs in the collection were shot at St. Elizabeth's Mission School in Wakpala on the Standing Rock Reservation, South Dakota which are a part of Series 2. These were taken between 1899 and 1902 and several include shots of Septima Koehler herself which suggest they were shot by someone who knew her. There are also a number of portraits of Lakota students who attended the school, some identified with names on the backs of the photographs, including members of the Deloria family among others. There is also a group portrait from the 1903 teacher institute held at Standing Rock organized by A.O. Wright, Supervisor of Indian Schools. In addition to the photographs, there are essays and lesson plans written by Koehler, a letter from Septima Koehler to her sister Aurora from 1902 describing the start of the school year and student papers and work sheets produced by the Native American students (mostly Hunkpapa Lakota) attending the school as well as a student roll book. There are also name and receipt books from Koehler's work with the "Babies' Branch", a missionary outfit that raised money specifically for children.
The majority of the photographic prints in this collection are silver gelatin and most of the St. Elizabeth's photographs are both circular and matted. The prints have catalog numbers P19485-P19523.
Arrangement:
Arranged in two series; Series 1: St. Mary's Mission School, circa 1895 and Series 2: St. Elizabeth's Mission School, circa 1899-1905.
Biographical / Historical:
Septima Koehler (1848-1918) was one of seven children born to Herman and Aurore Koehler in Indiana. Both Septima and her sister Aurora worked as schoolteachers in southeasters Indiana from 1867 to about 1890 when the sisters began their mission work for the Episcopal Church. Around 1895 Septima was appointed by Bishop William Hobart Hare to teach at St. Mary's Mission School on the Rosebud Reservation while Aurora took a job as a librarian in Aberdeen, South Dakota. Only a few years later, around 1899, she was appointed to St. Elizabeth's mission school on the Standing Rock reservation where she taught under Principal Mary E. Francis. In addition to her teaching duties, Koehler also lectured on the importance of health and hygiene at reservation boarding schools, participating in the 1903 Standing Rock Institute organizing by A.O. Wright, supervisor of Indian Schools for the department of the Interior.
Between 1906 and 1908, the Koehler sisters moved to Nashville Tennessee to work within the African American community and from 1908-1909 they worked in a mill in LaGrange, Georgia. Septima died in Hagerstown, Maryland in 1918 from pneumonia.
Related Materials:
The Hutchings-Koehler Family Papers, 1699–1916, can be found in the Manuscript and Visual Collections Department William Henry Smith Memorial Library Indiana Historical Society. This includes correspondence and notebooks from Septima Koehler during this same time period in South Dakota.
Separated Materials:
Archaeological and ethnographic plains materials collected by Septima Koehler and inherited by her great-niece Elizabeth Kelemen can be found in the NMAI ethnographic collections. They have catalog numbers 23/8260 – 23/8319. There are also 14 sketches from St. Mary's Mission students with catalog numbers 25/1093 – 25/1101.
Provenance:
Donated to the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation in 1970 by Pal and Elizabeth Zulauf Kelemen. Elizabeth Kelemen was the great-niece of Septima Koehler.
Restrictions:
Access to NMAI Archive Center collections is by appointment only, Monday - Thursday, 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 Archive Center. Please submit a written request to nmaiphotos@si.edu. For personal or classroom use, users are invited users to download, print, photocopy, and distribute the images that are available online without prior written permission, provided that the files are not changed, 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.
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Septima Koehler Collection (NMAI.AC.319), Item Number; National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center, 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.
This collection consists of fifteen photographic prints depicting individuals from Hunkpapa Lakota (Hunkpapa Sioux) and Yanktonnai Nakota (Yankton Sioux) communities, and dating from approximately the 1870s and 1880s.
Content Description:
The Arthur Billings Hunt photograph collection consists of fifteen photographic prints dating to the 1870s and 1880s. The bulk of the photographs are studio portraits and depict a number of Hunkpapa Lakota (Hunkpapa Sioux) and Yanktonnai Nakota (Yankton Sioux) community members and leaders. These photographs represent the work of various turn of the twentieth-century photographers of the American West including David F. Barry, Orlando Scott Goff, F. Jay Haynes, and Laton Alton Huffman. The photographs were later acquired by Arthur Billings Hunt, who subsequently donated them to the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation.
Arrangement:
This collection is arranged into folders by cultural group.
Biographical / Historical:
Arthur Billings Hunt was born in 1890. He attended schooling at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, receiving his undergraduate degree there in 1911, and later was awarded an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from the same institution in 1945. Moving to New York soon after graduation, Hunt had a lifelong career as a well-known soloist, musical director, broadcaster, and collector of Christian Americana. In addition to conducting a weekly broadcast of singing services for fourteen years with the New York Federation of Churches on radio station WEAF, Hunt also served as the Executive Director of the National Hymn Sing Association. While primarily interested in collecting Christian hymnals and sheet music himself, Hunt also inherited from his maternal grandfather, Newell B. Perkins, a number of material culture objects and photographic images related to different North American Plains Indian communities. These he subsequently donated to the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, in the mid-twentieth century. Arthur Billings Hunt died in 1971 at the age of 81.
Related Materials:
Other archival collections relating to the life and work of Arthur Billings Hunt include the Arthur Billings Hunt papers, located in the Columbia University Libraries Archival Collections.
Provenance:
This collection was donated by Arthur Billings Hunt in 1945.
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); Arthur Billings Hunt photograph collection, NMAI.AC.159; National Museum of the American Indian Archives Center, Smithsonian Institution.
This collection consists of seventeen photogravures from Joseph K. Dixon's 1913 published book, The Vanishing Race. These images are part of the larger work of Rodman Wanamaker in his expeditions (1908-1913) to document the lives and cultures of Native American peoples.
Scope and Contents:
This collection consists of seventeen photogravures from Joseph K. Dixon's 1913 book, The Vanishing Race. Although published in 1913, the 80 photogravures in Dixon's work were taken in 1909. These images are part of the larger work of Rodman Wanamaker in his expeditions (1908-1913) to document the lives and cultures of Native American peoples, whom he viewed as a "noble, though vanishing race." Wanamaker's first and second expeditions (1908 and 1909) both took place in the Valley of the Little Bighorn, Montana, portrayed Native American men and women from throughout the United States, and included extensive photographic and moving picture footage. Wanamaker's third expedition (1913) was broader in scope, visiting and symbolically granting citizenship to over 250 Native American communities across the country. As with the first two expeditions, the third expedition, known as the "Rodman Wanamaker Expedition of Citizenship to the North American Indian," was photographed and filmed by Dixon.
Among the seventeen photogravures in this collection, many of note include portraits of tribal leaders Chief Koon-Kah-Za-Chy (Kiowa-Apache), Chief Two Moons (Northern Tsitsistas/Suhtai [Cheyenne]), Chief Pretty Voice Eagle (Ihanktonwan Nakota [Yankton Sioux]), Chief Plenty Coups (Apsáalooke [Crow/Absaroke]), Chief Brave Bear (Southern Tsisistas/Suhtai [Cheyenne]), Chief Red Cloud (Oglala Lakota [Oglala Sioux]), and Chief Red Whip (A'aninin [Gros Ventre]). Other images include group portraits of the 1909 "Last Great Indian Council," as well as Native veterans of the 1876 Battle of Little Bighorn. Image titles created by Joseph K. Dixon.
Arrangement:
The photographs in this collection are organized into folders.
Biographical / Historical:
Rodman Wanamaker (1863-1928) was the sole surviving heir of Philadelphia-based department store magnate, John Wanamaker. Rodman, among his other philanthropic endeavors with the arts, believed that Native Americans were a "noble, though vanishing race," whose lives needed to be recorded before they disappeared. Because of this belief, he funded three expeditions (1908-1913) to "perpetuate the life stories of the first Americans." In addition, he also strove, and ultimately failed, to create a National Indian Memorial to be situated in New York City which would rival the Statue of Liberty.
Joseph K. Dixon (1858-1926) was born in New York, and received a bachelor of divinity degree from the Rochester Theological Seminary before becoming a lecturer for the Eastman Kodak photographic company in 1904. Two years later he was hired to work in Wanamaker's department store, and by 1908 he was chosen to lead the three Wanamaker expeditions (1908-1913) to document the lives and cultures of Native peoples of the United States. For the remainder of his life, Dixon frequently lectured on and continued to photograph the lives of Native Americans.
Related Materials:
Other photographic collections of Joseph K. Dixon's work and Rodman Wanamaker's expeditions exist in the Smithsonian Institution's National Anthropological Archives, and the Mathers Museum of World Cultures at Indiana University.
Provenance:
Museum Purchase, 2017.
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:
Permission to publish materials from the collection must be requested from National Museum of the American Indian Archive 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); Joseph K. Dixon photographs from the 1909 Wanamaker Expedition, Box and Folder Number; National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center, Smithsonian Institution.
