Photographs of Native Americans and Other Subjects
Creator:
Smithsonian Institution. Bureau of American Ethnology Search this
National Museum of Natural History (U.S.). Department of Anthropology Search this
Extent:
18,000 Items (ca. 18,000 items)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Photographs
Negatives
Prints
Works of art
Printed material
Date:
1840s-1960s
Scope and Contents:
The collections consists mostly of original and copy prints. There are also some negatives, artwork, photographs of artwork, and printed materials. Included is a large miscellany of ethnological, historical, and some archaeological subjects collected by the Bureau of American Ethnology from a wide variety of sources. To these have been added some photographs and other illustrative material acquired and sometimes accessioned by the Department of Anthropology of the United States National Museum/National Museum of Natural History. There are also prints of photographs from the archives' collection of glass negatives of Indians and the subject and geographic file. Although most of the material relates to North America, some images relating to historical events and to areas outside North America are included.
The relationship beween this collection and the National Anthropological Archives series of numbered manuscripts is close, for many of the accessions to the photographic collection were originally described in the catalog to the numbered manuscripts and are, hence, identified by a manuscript number. Today, the archives treat the two collections as separate entities, however, because there has been so much interfiling of uncatalog images among those with the manuscript numbers.
Arrangement:
The arrangement is complicated: (1) America north of Mexico, divided by geographic region and tribe based on George P. Murdock and Timothy J. O'Leary's scheme in Ethnographic Bilbiography of North America, 1975. The material is further subdivided by the organization that acted in the past as repository (Bureau of American Ethnology, United States National Museum [Department of Anthropology], National Museum of Natural History [Department of Anthropology], Smithsonian Office of Anthropology, and National Anthropological Archives). Thereunder it is divided into catalog unit or comparable categories generally based on provenance; (2) miscellany, historical and unidentified; (3) archaeology, arranged by geographic area; (4) Latin America; (5) material which did not lend itself to classification in categories given above and is identified by National Anthropological Archives catalog numbers.
Genre/Form:
Photographs
Negatives
Prints
Works of art
Printed material
Citation:
Photo lot 24, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
The collection consists of studio portraits and expedition photographs of anthropologists, administrators, scholars, and others. It includes some photographs of an Native American demonstrating sign language, possibly made during W J McGee's Seriland expedition.
Photographers represented in the collection are Charles Milton Bell, A. E. Dumbie; De Lancey W. Gill, Mme de Hermann, of Paris; Holland, of Trenton, New Jersey; Charles Lainer, J. Notman; Parker, George Prince, Macnabb, of New York; Moses P. Rice; Napolean Sarony; S. S. Teel; and A. Yasvoin, of St. Petersburg, Russia.
Local Call Number(s):
NAA Photo Lot 70
Location of Other Archival Materials:
Additional photograph collections of anthropologists held in the National Anthropological Archives are Photo Lot 4822, Photo Lot 33, Photo Lot 39, and Photo Lot 77-80.
See others in:
Department of Anthropology photograph collection of anthropologists, circa 1864-1921
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research.
Access to the collection requires an appointment.
Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Genre/Form:
Photographs
Citation:
Photo lot 70, Department of Anthropology collection of photographs of anthropologists, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
These are mostly nineteenth-century prints of some negatives in the glass negative collection. Included are a few images made from negatives that apparently have since been broken or lost. Some of the prints were acquired by the Department of Anthropology of the United States National Museum and have accession and/or catalog numbers. Others were apparently made for exhibit purposes. The collection has not been sufficiently studied to allow the positive identification of the print makers but many were probably prepared by Charles Milton Bell, De Lancey W. Gill, John K. Hillers, and Antonio Zeno Shindler. Some of the prints have been hand colored by Shindler.
Arrangement:
Roughly by tribe
Citation:
Prints of Indian Negatives, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Photographs depicting Smithsonian Institution Secretary Leonard Carmichael presenting awards, including the Sherd Medal, Certificates of Award, and Certificates of Achievement, to staff in the Department of Anthropology. Award recipients include Charles T. Terry Jr., Jeraldine M. Whitmore, Peter Paul Hilbert, Neil M. Judd, Carlos Angulo V, Robert C. Jenkins, Juan Munizaga, Mario Sanoja O., Jose Rafael Arboleda, Hsi-mei Yang, and Yoshio Onuki. The collection also includes group photographs of attendees at awards receptions and a photograph of Division of Archeology staff in the Archeology laboratory, 1955.
Local Call Number(s):
NAA Photo Lot 77-52
Location of Other Archival Materials:
Four photographs previously filed with MS 4822 (025-028) have been relocated and merged with Photo Lot 77-52. These photographs were made on the same occasion and form part of this collection.
Additional photographs of awards presented to Department of Anthropology staff can be found in the National Anthropological Archives in Photo Lot 76-127 and Photo Lot 79-51.
