This collection contains 44 photographs in a photo album and 12 loose prints that depict American Indian leaders circa 1898 to 1901. The bulk of the photographs were shot at the Indian Congress of the Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition, 1898 and the Greater America Exposition, 1899, both held in Omaha, Nebraska.
Scope and Contents:
This collection contains 44 photographs in a photo album and 12 loose prints that depict American Indian leaders circa 1898 to 1901. The bulk of the photographs depict photographic portraits and scenes of sham battles shot at the Indian Congress of the Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition in Omaha, Nebraska, from June 1 to October 31, 1898. Frank A. Rinehart (ca. 1862-1928) and his assistant Adolph F. Muhr were the official photographers. During the Indian Congress they photographed more than 500 individuals and groups representing the estimated thirty-six tribes represented at the Exposition. Rinehart shot the majority of the outdoor battles, dance scenes, and events, while Muhr photographed the majority of the delegate portraits. Rinehart copyrighted the photographs under his own name in 1899 and 1900.
Other photographs in this collection are photographic portraits of American Indian leaders that were photographed by Herman Heyn and James Matzen at the Greater America Exposition in Omaha in 1899. Heyn copyrighted the photographs under his own name in 1899.
Finally, the collection also contains 7 loose photomechanical prints depicting portraits by photographer William Henry Jackson. These prints were colorized and published under Jackson's company the Detroit Photographic Co. Other loose color photomechanical prints include portraits shot by photographer William H. Rau (1855-1920) for the Chicago Inter-Ocean Newspaper in 1901.
The photograph titles were assigned by the photographers.
Arrangement:
The photographs in the album are in original order. The loose prints are organized into 3 folders.
Biographical / Historical:
Byron Harvey, III (1932-2005) was an anthropologist and collector specializing in southwestern American Indian tribes. He was the great-grandson of Frederick Harvey, best known as the founder of the Fred Harvey Company that ran a successful chain of gift shops, restaurants, and hotels known as Harvey Houses. The Company also amassed a collection of American Indian art and sold many collections to museums including the Museum of the American Indian (NMAI's predecessor museum).
The Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition World's Fair was held in Omaha, Nebraska from June 1 to October 1898. Over 500 Indian delegates from over thirty-five different tribes were present at the Fair. James Mooney (Bureau of Ethnology) and Captain William A. Mercer organized and managed the Indian Congress in conjunction with the Exposition. It included "living exhibitions," with mock Indian villages and demonstrations of dances, daily activities, and sham battles.
The official photographer of the U.S. Indian Congress was Frank A. Rinehart (ca. 1862-1928) with his assistant Adolph F. Muhr (ca. 1858-1913). The Rinehart and Muhr photographs are considered one of the most comprehensive photo documentations of American Indian leaders at the turn of the century.
After the Trans-Mississippi Exposition ended, the Greater America Exposition opened on the same fair grounds from July 1, 1899 to October 31, 1899. Herman Heyn and James Matzen won the contract to be the official photographer of the new Exposition. This Exposition featured many of the same buildings and set up as the Trans-Mississippi Exposition of the previous year.
Related Materials:
The Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kansas has a large collection of Frank Rinehart photographs from U.S. Indian Congress of the Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition, including the original glass plate negatives.
The National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center also holds other photographs shot by Rinehart and Muhr at Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition, including collection NMAI.AC.118.
Provenance:
Donated by Byron Harvey, III in 1966.
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.
Topic:
Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition (1898 : Omaha, Neb.) -- Photographs Search this
Greater America Exposition (1899 : Omaha, Neb.) Search this
Genre/Form:
Photograph albums
Photographs
Citation:
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Byron Harvey, III Collection of Exposition and Portrait photographs, P#####; National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center, Smithsonian Institution.
Unbound album pages (labeled A through Q) with photographs documenting the people and culture of the Pocatello-Fort Hall area, including American Indians (particularly Shoshone-Bannock tribes), agency employees, and missionaries. Included are images of encampments, Sun Dance ceremonies, the Fort Hall Agency, Indian schools and churches, the Run for Fort Hall Lands on June 17, 1902, the War Bonnett Roundup at Idaho Falls, Shoshone Falls and other natural features and landscapes, a large number of street and aerial views of Pocatello, A. L. Cook's drug store in Pocatello, and members of the Cook family. In addition, there are photographs of Nez Perce, Hopi, San Juan, and Navaho Indians, and one image of the Lapps Indians at Port Townsend, Washington. A large number of the photographs were made by Benedicte Wrensted.
The albums were compiled by Robert Leonard, Eugene O. Leonard's son, who also made copy prints of many of the photographs and negatives. They include flyers, newspapers, envelopes, and other scraps collected by Leonard.
Biographical/Historical note:
Eugene O. Leonard (1884-1964) moved to Pocatello, Idaho, in 1893 to live with his aunt, the widow of A. L. Cook and owner of the Cook building and drugstore. Leonard attended Weiser College and Academy (now College of Idaho), Whitman College, and Northwestern University. He acquired degrees in phamacy and pharmaceutical chemistry from Northwestern University, and a degree in assaying studies from the Chicago College of Chemistry. After graduation from the College in 1908, Leonard returned to Pocatello to manage the Cook Drug Store until 1918. He worked as Pocatello City Chemist and set up the College of Pharmacy at Idaho State College, where he also taught and served as dean (1918-1954). In the 1930s, Leonard obtained a MS and PhD from Utah State University. Possibly encouraged by his collector aunt, Leonard established a collection of Indian material culture objects and documentations, including artifacts and these photograhs, based on his interest in the Shoshoni and Bannock Indians at nearby Fort Hall.
Local Call Number(s):
NAA Photo Lot 92-3
Location of Other Archival Materials:
The Idaho Museum of Natural History at Idaho State University holds artifacts collected by Eugene O. Leonard.
The Bannock County Historical Museum in Pocatello holds the Leonard Family Papers, 1893-1917.
Restrictions:
Original nitrate negatives are in cold storage and require advanced notice for viewing. Many have associated prints.
1,195 Prints (albumen, silver gelatin, and platinum)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Prints
Photomechanical prints
Photographs
Stereographs
Postcards
Place:
Wyoming
Virginia
New York
New Mexico
Vermont
South Carolina
Maine
Louisiana
Massachusetts
Maryland
Montana
Nebraska
Alaska
British Columbia
Arizona
Colorado
California
Date:
1871-1912
Scope and Contents note:
Photographs of geologic features and the natural environment of the American West, Alaska, and Mexico, most of which were created during government surveys and the expansion of railroads during the 1800s. There are also photographs collected and made by individuals who worked or traveled in the west. Depicted locales include Alaska, Arizona, British Columbia, California, Colorado, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, South Carolina, Vermont, Virginia, and Wyoming, and there are some additional images of artifacts, artwork, and portraits. Photographers represented include William Henry Jackson, John K. Hillers, Timothy H. O'Sullivan, E. O. Beaman, James Fennemore, William Bell, and other professional and amateur photographers.
Local Call Number(s):
NAA Photo Lot 37
Varying Form of Title:
Scenic Views of North America
Location of Other Archival Materials:
Charles Savage photographs previously filed in Photo Lot 37 have been relocated to National Anthropological Archives Photo Lot 156.
Bourne & May photographs previously filed in Photo Lot 37 have been relocated to National Anthropological Archives Photo Lot 159.
The National Anthropological Archives holds additional photographs by photographers or from accessions represented in this collection in Photo Lot 24, Photo Lot 40, and other photo lots.
See others in:
Photographs of North American geology and scenery, 1871-1912
The Edward S. Curtis photogravure plates and proofs for The North American Indian include photogravure printing plates and associated proofs made from Curtis photographs and used in the publication of The North American Indian volumes 1-9 and 12-19. The bulk of the images are portraits, though there are also images of everyday items, ceremonial artifacts, and camps.
Scope and Contents:
The collection comprises 183 photogravure plates (101 folio and 82 octavo) and 96 associated proofs used in the printing of The North American Indian volumes 1-9 and 12-19. The original photographs used to make the photogravures were made circa 1903-1926 and the photogravure plates were made in 1907-1930. The bulk are portraits, though there are also images of everyday items, ceremonial artifacts, and camps. About half of the proofs in the collection are originals used for Curtis's publication, though the collection also includes proofs made in the process of later publication by the Classic Gravure Company (circa 1980). Vintage proofs include handwritten notes, likely made by Curtis Studio employees in Seattle and Los Angeles. Many of the photogravure plates do not have matching proofs; in particular, there are no proofs for the octavo plates.
Arrangement:
The plates and proofs are arranged by the volume of The North American Indian in which they were published. They are described in this finding aid by the caption and plate number with which they were published.
Biographical / Historical:
Edward Sheriff Curtis (1868-1952) was an American photographer best known for his monumental and now-controversial project, the twenty-volume publication The North American Indian. Here he sought to document in words and pictures the "vanishing race" of American Indians.
Born in Wisconsin in 1868, Edward Curtis grew up on his family's farm in Le Sueur County, Minnesota, from 1874 to 1887. In 1887, he and his father Johnson Curtis settled on a plot near what is now Port Orchard, Washington, and the rest of the family joined them the following year. When Johnson Curtis died within a month of the family's arrival, the burden of providing for his mother and siblings fell to 20-year-old Edward, and Edward set out to do so through his photography. In 1891, Curtis moved to the booming city of Seattle and bought into a joint photo studio with Rasmus Rothi. Less than a year later, he formed "Curtis and Guptill, Photographers and Photoengravers" with Thomas Guptill; the enterprise quickly became a premier portrait studio for Seattle's elite. In 1895, Curtis made his first "Indian photograph" depicting Princess Angeline, daughter of the chief for whom Seattle had been named. The following year he earned his first medal from the National Photographic Convention for his "genre studies."
In 1899, Edward Curtis joined the Harriman Alaska Expedition as official photographer, a position which allowed him to learn from anthropologists C. Hart Merriam and George Bird Grinnell while documenting the landscapes and peoples of the Alaskan coast. This expedition and the resulting friendship with Grinnell helped to foster Curtis's ultimate goal to "form a comprehensive and permanent record of all the important tribes of the United States and Alaska that still retain to a considerable degree their primitive customs and traditions" (General Introduction, The North American Indian). Curtis made several trips to reservations from 1900 to 1904, including a trip with Grinnell to Montana in 1900 and multiple trips to the Southwest, including the Hopi Reservation. He also hired Adolph Muhr, former assistant to Omaha photographer Frank A. Rinehart, to manage the Curtis studio in his absence, a decision which would prove more and more fruitful as Curtis spent less and less time in Seattle.
In 1906, Curtis struck a deal with financier J. P. Morgan, whereby Morgan would support a company – The North American Indian, Inc. – with $15,000 for five years, by which time the project was expected to have ended. Systematic fieldwork for the publication began in earnest that summer season, with Curtis accompanied by a team of ethnological researchers and American Indian assistants. Arguably the most important member of Curtis' field team was William Myers, a former newspaperman who collected much of the ethnological data and completed most of the writing for the project. The first volume, covering Navajo and Apache peoples, was published at the end of 1907, but already Morgan's funding was incapable of meeting Curtis's needs. Despite heaping praise from society's elite, Curtis spent much of his time struggling to find people and institutions willing to subscribe to the expensive set of volumes. After the initial five years, only eight of the proposed twenty volumes had been completed. Fieldwork and publication continued with the support of J. P. Morgan, but Curtis's home life suffered because of his prolonged absences.
In 1919, Curtis's wife Clara was awarded a divorce settlement which included the entire Curtis studio in Seattle. Exhausted and bankrupt, Edward Curtis moved with his daughter Beth Magnuson to Los Angeles, where they operated a new Curtis Studio and continued work on the volumes; volume 12 was published
in 1922. The constant financial strain forced Myers to leave the North American Indian team after volume 18 (fieldwork in 1926) and Curtis made his last trip to photograph and gather data for volume 20 in 1927. After the final volumes were published in 1930, Curtis almost completely faded from public notice until his work was "rediscovered" and popularized in the 1970s.
Curtis's "salvage ethnology," as scholar Mick Gidley describes it, was mildly controversial even during his life and has become ever more so as his legacy deepens. In his quest to photograph pre-colonial Indian life through a twentieth-century lens, he often manipulated and constructed history as much as he recorded it: he staged reenactments, added props, and removed evidence of twentieth-century influences on "primitive" life. Curtis's work continues to shape popular conceptions of American Indians and so, while problematic, his legacy--his vision of American Indian life--continues to be relevant.
Related Materials:
NMAI also holds Edward Curtis photographs documenting the Harriman Expedition (1899) as well as platinum prints and photogravures of the images published in The North American Indian.
The Smithsonian Institution, National Anthropological Archives holds Edward Curtis prints submitted for copyright (Photo Lot 59) as well as many of his original negatives, photographs, and papers.
Steve Kern donated photogravure plates to the Center for Creative Photography and the Seattle Art Museum at the same time that he donated this set to MAI.
Provenance:
This collection was donated by Steven and Arlene Kern to the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, in 1984.
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:
Single photocopies may be made for research purposes. Permission to publish or broadcast materials from the collection must be requested from National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center. Please submit a written request to nmaiarchives@si.edu.
Topic:
Indians of North America -- Pictorial works Search this
Genre/Form:
Photogravures
Photographs
Citation:
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Edward S. Curtis photogravure plates and proofs for The North American Indian, Box and Folder Number; National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
This collection was processed with funding from the Smithsonian Women's Committee.
