The bulk of the collection consists of portraits of identified Native Americans and some government officials and interpreters. It includes cabinet cards, other mounted prints, newspaper articles, illustrations, and a photographic postcard. Depicted individuals include American Horse, Oglala; Black Hawk, Sauk; Bob Tail, Cheyenne; Crowfoot, Hunkpapa; Gaul, Hunkpapa; Geronimo, Chiricahua; John Grass, Teton; Chief Joseph, Nez Perce; Little Wound, Oglala; Medicine Bull, Hunkpapa; Osceola, Seminole; Ouray, Ute; Litte Raven, Arapaho; Plenty Coups, Crow; Pocahontas, Powhatan; Rain in the Face, Hunkpapa; Red Cloud, Oglala; Red Iron, Dakota; Short Man, Piegan; Sitting Bull, Hunkpapa; Standing On Prairie, Siouan; Thayendanegea (Joseph Brant), Mohawk; Two Guns White Calf, Piegan; Two Moon, Cheyenne; and Washakie, Shoshoni.
Indians of North America -- Southern states Search this
Genre/Form:
Photographs
Citation:
Photo lot 87-2P, United States National Museum Department of Anthropology photograph collection relating to Native Americans, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
This collection consists of 168 glass lantern slides depicting Indigenous groups throughout North America. It also includes a small number of photographs, newspaper clippings, and publications written by and about Joseph K. Dixon, and his work as a photographer working with Native Americans during the early decades of the twentieth century.
Content Description:
The Joseph K. Dixon lantern slide collection consists of Lantern Slides, Photographs, and Printed Materials. Series 1: Lantern Slides, 1870s-1920s, includes 168 glass lantern slides, many hand-colored. The lantern slides were used by Dixon in lectures to promote his advocacy work on behalf of Native American citizenship. While Dixon himself was a photographer of many important photographs of Native peoples, the majority of the images for these glass lantern slides were not taken by Dixon, but rather collected by him for use in his lectures as he traveled around the country. Series 2: Photographs, 1870s-1920s, includes 8 photographs collected by Dixon and perhaps used in research for his lectures. Series 3: Printed Materials, 1905-1926, includes a small number of early twentieth-century publications and news clippings either written by Dixon or written about his work with the Indigenous peoples of North America.
Scope and Contents:
Please note that the language and terminology used in this collection reflects the context and culture of the time of its creation, and may include culturally sensitive information. As an historical document, its contents may be at odds with contemporary views and terminology. The information within this collection does not reflect the views of the Smithsonian Institution, but is available in its original form to facilitate research.
Arrangement:
This collection is arranged into three series. Series 1: Lantern Slides, 1870s-1920s, Series 2: Photographs, 1870s-1920s, and Series 3: Printed Materials, 1905-1926.
Biographical / Historical:
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 Philadelphia-based 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. His expedition work for Rodman Wanamaker resulted in the 1913 published book, The Vanishing Race. For the remainder of his life, Dixon frequently lectured on and continued to photograph the lives of Native Americans.
Related Materials:
The NMAI Archives Center collections include two related collections on Joseph K. Dixon: NMAI.AC.111 Joseph K. Dixon photographs from the 1909 Wanamaker Expedition, and NMAI.AC.309 Corcoran Gallery of Art collection of Joseph K. Dixon Wanamaker Expedition photographs. 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:
Gift from the family and descendants of Joseph Kossuth Dixon in 2022.
Restrictions:
Access to NMAI Archives Center collections is by appointment only, Monday - Friday, 9:30 am - 3:30 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.
Some photographs in this collection are restricted due to cultural sensitivity.
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Joseph K. Dixon lantern slide collection, NMAI.AC.419; National Museum of the American Indian Archives Center, Smithsonian Institution.
The Lantern Slides are arranged in numerical order, presumably following how Joseph K. Dixon would have presented the materials in his lectures and presentations. Possible thematic groupings created by Dixon include depictions of Native clothing, warfare, games, hunting, religious celebrations, weaving, and food production, among others.
Collection Restrictions:
Access to NMAI Archives Center collections is by appointment only, Monday - Friday, 9:30 am - 3:30 pm. Please contact the archives to make an appointment (phone: 301-238-1400, email: nmaiarchives@si.edu).
Collection 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.
Some photographs in this collection are restricted due to cultural sensitivity.
Collection Citation:
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Joseph K. Dixon lantern slide collection, NMAI.AC.419; National Museum of the American Indian Archives Center, Smithsonian Institution.
The photographs were collected by Joseph K. Dixon and may have been used to help facilitate his research on Native American communities. Photographs include depictions of a Hopi village, a Hopi woman grinding corn, a Havasupai (Coconino) mother and child, and a photograph of the church in Auburn, New York, where Dixon worked as a minister, among others.
Collection Restrictions:
Access to NMAI Archives Center collections is by appointment only, Monday - Friday, 9:30 am - 3:30 pm. Please contact the archives to make an appointment (phone: 301-238-1400, email: nmaiarchives@si.edu).
Collection 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.
Some photographs in this collection are restricted due to cultural sensitivity.
Collection Citation:
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Joseph K. Dixon lantern slide collection, NMAI.AC.419; National Museum of the American Indian Archives Center, Smithsonian Institution.
Army Medical Museum photographs prepared under the supervision of John Shaw Billings and Washington Matthews, and created by superimposing images of several skulls for comparative purposes. Each image has a caption that includes tribal or racial identification, number of skulls photographed, photograph number, negative number, and data on photographic technique.
The collection represents of Aleut, Apache, Arapaho, Cheyenne, Comanche, Dakota, Eskimo, Hidatsa, Navajo, Oglala, Ojibwa, Paiute, Piegan, Ponca, Wichita, African American, Hawaiian, people, and people of San Miguel and San Nicholas Islands (California).
Biographical/Historical note:
The United States Army Medical Museum (AMM, renamed the National Museum of Health and Medicine in 1989) was established by US Army Surgeon General William A. Hammond in 1862. Its initial focus was on collecting specimens of unusual pathology, mostly taken from victims of the American Civil War. By 1867, the museum had expanded to include medical, microsopical, anatomical, comparative anatomics, and other sections. The anatomical collection grew in part as a result of Circular No. 2 of 1867, which authorized military medical officers to collect cranial specimens from deceased Native Americans. Additionally, the AMM made an arrangement with the Smithsonian Institution, by which the Smithsonian transferred their collection of human remains in exchange for ethnological artifacts. AMM photographed and measured many of the specimens in its collection as part of the museum's anthropological research.
Local Call Number(s):
NAA Photo Lot 6A
Location of Other Archival Materials:
Additional Army Medical Museum photographs of skulls can be found in the National Anthropological Archives in Photo Lot 6B, Photo Lot 73-26C, Photo Lot 78-42, Photo Lot 83-41, and Photo Lot 97.
The National Anthropological Archives holds microfilm of the papers of Washington Matthews, circa 1864-1905, and records concerning skeletal material transferred to the Smithsonian Institution from the Army Medical Museum.
See others in:
United States Army Medical Museum composite photographs of skulls, circa 1884-1885
Photographs collected by Willis G. Tilton, a dealer in artifacts and photographs relating to Native Americans. Many of the photographs were made by Field Columbian Museum photographer Charles Carpenter at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in 1904; many others were created by various photographers for Field Museum publications. Notable subjects include Big Foot, dead in the snow at the Wounded Knee battlefield; Arapaho and Cheyenne social dances; Hopi ceremonies; a reenactment of the shooting of Sitting Bull; Sun Dances (Arapaho, Assiniboin, Gros Ventre, Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Ponca); and views of the United States Indian School Building and Pawnee people at the the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, Missouri. Other photographs include portraits and images of artifacts, basket weaving, cradles, dress, dwelling, tipis and other dwellings, and tree burials. There are also some photographs of Henry Field's expedition to Iraq in 1934 (Field museum anthropological expedition to the Near East), work elephants in Burma, Pipestone Quarry in Minnesota, a church in the Yucatan, and a rickshaw and cart in Ceylon.
Biographical/Historical note:
Willis G. Tilton was a dealer and owner of the store, Tilton Indian Relics, in Topeka, Kansas.
Local Call Number(s):
NAA Photo Lot 89-8, NAA Photo Lot 135
Location of Other Archival Materials:
Photographs in the Tilton Collection, previously filed in Photo Lot 135, have been relocated and merged with Photo Lot 89-8. These photographs were also purchased by the Bureau of American Ethnology from Willis G. Tilton and form part of this collection.
Associated photographs still held in the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago.
Most photographs included in the card catalog of copy negatives and in the reference file prints by tribe.
Additional photographs by Dorsey held in the National Anthropological Archives in MS 4721 and Photo Lot 24.
Correspondence from Dorsey held in the National Anthropological Archives in MS 4821, records of the Bureau of American Ethnology, the J.C. Pilling Papers, and the Ales Hrdlicka Papers.
Additional photographs by Nelson held in National Anthropological Archives Photo Lot 171, Photo Lot 133, Photo Lot 24, and the BAE historical negatives.
Additional Maude photographs held in National Anthropological Archives Photo Lot 90-1 and Photo Lot 24.
Additional E. E. Hall photographs held in National Anthropological Archives MS 4978 and Photo Lot 24.
The Smithsonian Institution Archives holds Nelson's field reports (SIA Acc. 97-123) and the Edward William Nelson and Edward Alphonso Goldman Collection (SIA RU007364).
See others in:
Willis G. Tilton photograph collection of American Indians, circa 1880-1930 (bulk 1899-1904)
Indians of North America -- Great Plains Search this
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Prints
Place:
Washington (D.C.)
Date:
1927
Scope and Contents note:
Panoramic photograph depicting Piegan men, women, and children with President Calvin Coolidge on the White House lawn on September 17, 1927. Two Guns White Calf, a Piegan chief who headed the delegation, is among those pictured. Most of the Piegan men and some of the women are depicted wearing headdresses.
Biographical/Historical note:
Frank R. Scherer (d. circa 1959) was a commercial photographer in Washington, DC who photographed government officials and government agencies and did some work for the White House. The Piegan group were passing through Washington, DC, on a trip to the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad's 100th anniversary exhibition and pageant at Halethorpe, Maryland.
Local Call Number(s):
NAA Photo Lot 92-42
Location of Other Archival Materials:
The Library of Congress holds additional photographs by Frank R. Scherer.
Photographs of Two Guns White Calf, made in Baltimore in 1927, held in National Anthropological Archives MS 4720.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research.
Access to the collection requires an appointment.
Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Citation:
Photo Lot 92-42, Frank R. Scherer photograph of President Calvin Coolidge and Piegan group, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Indians of North America -- Southwest, New Search this
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Date:
1934
Scope and Contents:
Much of this material is relevant to the Dakotas. Includes: miscellaneous notes on Dakota history, bands, and sign for "Dakota," Autograph Document. Approximately 100 pages. (Box 2); account of the Battle of Little Big Horn by He Dog, Red Feather, and Whirling, Autograph Document. 7 pages. (Box 3); "The Custer Battle with the Sioux, Autograph Document. 10 pages. (Box 3); notes on sign language in general, its history and distribution, Autograph and Typescript Document, 1 box (Box 4).
Contents: Words and lists of days, months and years and other time divisions, approximately 100 pages. (includes Maya, Aztec, etc.) Color adjectives, 8 pages. Totemic clans of all tribes, 37 pages. Personal names (Chiefs, etc.), 25 pages. (Personal names of "Knisteneaux or Crees, Shawnee, Crow, Dakota, Arikaras, Cheyennes, Blackfeet, Piegan, Menomoni, Peoria, Otawa, Sauk").
Portraits of Native Americans made by Charles Milton Bell in his Washington, DC studio. Depicted individuals include Red Cloud, Oglala; Spotted Tail, Brule; Quanah Parker, Comanche; Nawat, Arapaho; Scabby Bull, Arapaho; Wolf Robe, Cheyenne; D. W. Bushyhead, Cherokee; John Jumper, Seminole; Plenty Coups, Crow; Rushing Bear, Arikara; Gall, Hunkpapa; John Grass, Sihasapa; Lean Wolf, Hidatsa; Chief Joseph, Nez Perce; and Lone Wolf, Kiowa; as well as people associated with Pawnee Bill's Wild West Show. The collection also includes copies of some images by other photographers, including G. G. Rockwood and F. T. Cummins.
Biographical/Historical note:
Charles Milton Bell (circa 1849-1893) was the youngest member of a family of photographers that operated a studio in Washington, DC, from around 1860-1874. Bell established his own studio on Pennsylvania Avenue in 1873 and it rapidly became one of the leading photography studios in the city. Bell developed the patronage of Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden, who sent Native American visitors to the studio to have their portraits made. Bell also made photographs of Native Americans for the Department of the Interior and the Bureau of American Ethnology.
Local Call Number(s):
NAA Photo Lot 80, NAA MS 4661
Location of Other Archival Materials:
Copy prints previously filed in MS 4661 have been relocated and merged with Photo Lot 80. These are also copy prints of Bell negatives that were acquired from Boyce and form part of this collection.
Additional C. M. Bell photographs held in National Anthropological Archives Photo Lot 4420, Photo Lot 24, Photo Lot 60, Photo Lot 81-44, Photo lot 87-2P, and Photo Lot 90-1.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research.
Access to the collection requires an appointment.
Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Topic:
Indians of North America -- Southern states Search this
This series contains 21 postcards and 1 cabinet card. The images include depictions of Apache, Arapahoe, Dakota (Eastern Sioux), Kiowa, Niitsitapii (Blackfoot/Blackfeet), Oglala Lakota (Oglala Sioux), Pikuni Blackfeet (Piegan), and Tsitsistas/Suhtai (Cheyenne) communities. Individuals specifically identified are Buffalo Calf (Jicarilla Apache), James A. Garfield (Jicarilla Apache), Wenona Turkey Legs (Arapahoe), Kicking Bird (Kiowa), Henry Between Lodge [Niitsitapii (Blackfoot/Blackfeet)], Low Dog [Oglala Lakota (Oglala Sioux)], Nellie Old Man [Tsitsistas/Suhtai (Cheyenne)], Black Eagle, Black Hawk, and Holy Eagle.
Collection Restrictions:
Access to NMAI Archives Center collections is by appointment only, Monday - Friday, 9:30 am - 3:30 pm. Please contact the archives to make an appointment (phone: 301-238-1400, email: nmaiarchives@si.edu).
Collection 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 Archives Center's Digital Image request website.
Collection Citation:
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Dale Jenkins postcard and photograph collection, NMAI.AC.069, Box and Folder Number; National Museum of the American Indian Archives Center, Smithsonian Institution.
