This collection contains photographs that were commissioned by Fred Harvey Co. and shot by Carl Moon circa 1907-1914. The photographs depict American Indian communities in the southwest including A:shiwi (Zuni), Acoma Pueblo, Diné (Navajo), Hopi, Laguna Pueblo, and Taos Pueblo among many others.
Scope and Contents:
This collection contains 203 glass transparencies, 2 nitrate negatives, and 1 autochrome (plus 228 copy negatives and copy transparencies) that were commissioned by Fred Harvey Co. and shot by Carl moon circa 1905-1914. The photographs depict the southwest American Indian communities of A:shiwi (Zuni), Acoma Pueblo, Dine (Navajo), Havasupai (Coconino), Hopi Pueblo, Isleta Pueblo, K'apovi (Santa Clara Pueblo), Kewa (Santo Domingo Pueblo), Laguna Pueblo, Nambe Pueblo, Ohkay Owingeh (San Juan Pueblo), San Felipe Pueblo, San Ildefonso Pueblo, Taos Pueblo, Tesuque Pueblo, and White Mountain Apache. Some images were also shot in Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona. The photographs are a mix of portraits, posed action shots, and architecture shots. Some of the photographs appear to have been staged by the photographer. There are a few photographs in this collection that may have been shot by Moon prior to his employment with the Fred Harvey Company.
The copy negatives and transparencies were created by the Museum of the American Indian (NMAI's predecessor museum). There are sometimes multiple copy negatives and copy transparencies per glass plate transparency.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into 17 series by culture group or location. Series 1: A:shiwi (Zuni), Series 2: Acoma Pueblo, Series 3: Diné (Navajo), Series 4: Havasupai (Coconino), Series 5: Hopi, Series 6: Isleta Pueblo, Series 7: K'apovi (Santa Clara Pueblo), Series 8: Kewa (Santa Domingo Pueblo), Series 9: Laguna Pueblo, Series 10: Nambe Pueblo, Series 11: Ohkay Owingeh (San Juan Pueblo), Series 12: San Felipe Pueblo, Series 13: San Ildefonso Pueblo, Series 14: Taos Pueblo, Series 15: Tesuque Pueblo, Series 16: White Mountain Apache, Series 17: Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona
The collection is physically arranged first by collection type (transparencies and negatives) and then in photo numeric order.
Biographical / Historical:
Born in 1878 in Wilmington, Ohio, Carl E. Moon (originally spelled Karl) took up photography after serving with the Ohio National Guard. He moved to Albuquerque, N.M. in 1903 and opened a photograph studio where he began photographing American Indians in the U.S. southwest region. After publishing and exhibiting many of his photographs nationally, he was commissioned by the Fred Harvey Company in 1907 to take photographs of American Indian communities in the southwest. The Fred Harvey Company was founded by Frederick Henry Harvey and consisted of a chain of successful gift shops, restaurants, and hotels know as Harvey Houses. Moon photographed individuals in his El Tovar Studio in the Grand Canyon, Ariz. and also traveled to communities in the region including A:shiwi (Zuni), Diné (Navajo), Hopi, and Laguna Pueblo, among many others. The Fred Harvey Company used these photographs in their postcards, brochures, and publications for the tourist industry. The Fred Harvey Company also partnered with the Sante Fe Railroad to help generate tourism to the southwest region and Moon became the official photographer for the railroad. Moon also took up drawing and painting and studied with American painter Thomas Moran. Moon stayed with the Fred Harvey Company until 1914.
After Moon left the Fred Harvey Company, he opened a studio in Pasadena, California and continued his career as a photographer and painter. During this period, Moon painted and donated 26 works depicting Southwest American Indians to the Smithsonian Institution (now in the Smithsonian American Art Museum's collection). He also sold 24 oil paintings and 293 photographic prints to Henry E. Huntington that are now part of the Huntington Library in San Marino California. With his wife Grace Purdie Moon, he also produced and illustrated children's books of collected Native American stories and legends. Moon died in San Francisco, Calif. in 1948.
Related Materials:
The Huntington Library in San Marino California holds a large collection of Carl Moon works, including oil paintings and photographic prints. The University of Arizona Libraries, Special Collections also holds photographs shot by Carl Moon and the Smithsonian American Art Museum holds 26 Carl Moon paintings.
Separated Materials:
Two nitrate negatives are stored at an offsite storage facility.
Provenance:
Donated to the Museum of the American Indian by the Fred Harvey Company in 1963.
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.
Indians of North America -- New Mexico Search this
Citation:
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Fred Harvey Company collection of Carl Moon Southwest photographs, Box and Photo Number; National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center, Smithsonian Institution.
64 aerial photographs of Rio Grande Pueblos made circa 1967 from 60,000 feet by a U2 aircraft.
Scope and Contents:
Aerial photographs of Rio Grande Pueblos made circa 1967 from 60,000 feet by a U2 aircraft, commissioned by Ezra Zubrow. Pueblos photographed include Acoma, Cochiti, Ildefonso, Isleta, Jemez, Laguna, Nambe, Picuris, Pojoaque, Sandia, San Felipe, San Juan, Santa Ana, Santa Clara, Taos, Tesuque, Zia, and Zuni.
Arrangement:
The photographs are arranged alphabetically by Pueblo.
Historical Note:
Ezra Zubrow provides the following background:
"Here is a quick version of the story of the photographs. . . I was a graduate student at the University of Arizona and during the summer of 1967 or 1968. I was working at the Southwestern Archaeological Expedition run by Paul S. Martin of the Field Museum of Chicago at the Hay Hollow Valley. I was a field foreman.
One day a group of B52's came over the nearby mesas very very low. This was the time of Vietnam. The sound was deafening and it seemed as if the earth shook and that they were only a few hundred feet above us. I remember looking up and I would swear that the bomb doors were open and that I saw a light inside. It was clear that they were doing some kind of low level practice and I thought it was a practice bombing run. When my ears stopped ringing, I thought to myself those planes must have cameras to record the dropping of the bombs and if they happen to come by again maybe I could ask them to take pictures of our excavations. So I wrote a letter to the "commanding general of the air force". I did not have a name or an address so I just sent it to the Commanding General US Air Force, Pentagon, Washington DC. I explained how useful photographs from the air were for doing archaeology in my letter and drove some 20 miles to Showlow Arizona to send the letter. When I did not hear anything I promptly forgot about it realizing that it was a "silly thing to have done." Two and half months went by and just before I left Vernon I received a package from the US Air Force from a colonel who was with a "reconnaissance" wing. In it was a letter saying that my letter had been received at the pentagon and had wended its way through various offices with a request that if it was possible to help us please do and here were a set of pictures of your excavations and the nearby area. To say the least I was thunderstruck. I had no idea how they had done the photographs but there were a set of 9x18 negatives and prints.
When I returned to Tucson for the fall semester a few days later, I started to look at the photographs. I realized that I wanted to say thank you and sent a letter saying thank you to the air force. It then occurred to me that it would be a nice thing to do to call and say thank you in person. I called the Pentagon and after several calls they provided me a number to call. It had the same area code as Tucson and I realized that the colonel was probably stationed at Davis Monthan Air Force Base. So I called the base and asked if I could make an appointment to meet him and personally say thank you. I got an appointment the following week and went out to the base. At the guard house I told them I had an appointment with the colonel and they told me to wait at the gate house which I did. After about 15 minutes a soldier came out with a car and asked me to leave my car at the gatehouse and he would drive me into the base. The car actually had blacked out side and rear windows.
We went into a low lying building and there were several people there including Colonel Y and a Lieutenant X. I told them how appreciative I was and that all the other archaeologists at the Southwestern Archaeological Expedition appreciated their help as well.
I had no idea with whom I was dealing. They showed me around various rooms and laboratories for photography and finally came to a room with a large chalkboard in it. On the chalkboard was a listing of missions, plane numbers, and pilots. There were a range of missions scheduled for several weeks and when I realized that several of them were over Vietnam, Cambodia, China, and Russia I stopped in my tracks. I looked at my hosts and said what kind of planes were they flying. I still thought it was something like a B52. They said it was the U2. I was speechless and as I later learned my mouth dropped so wide that all the men in the room started laughing. They said that if I wanted to watch one land it was going to land in a few minutes and as I was leaving I could watch. Of course I wanted to.
So as I left, I said thank you again and the Colonel and the Lieutenant said if they could help more, they would be willing to do so.
It turned out that Lieutenant X and I were about the same age and that we each had just been married a short time. We both were in a "foreign town," Tucson. So the two couples began t to meet for dinner and joined some other young couples who were in Tucson for the first time. The following semester, I had the idea of photographing the Pueblos. I asked Lieutenant X and Colonel Y if it might be possible and they said yes. I went back to the base and we sat with maps and plotted out the exact flight plan.
And that's more or less how it happened. The Colonel, the Lieutenant, and I continued to be friends for many years."[1]
[1] Email from Ezra Zubrow to archivist Gina Rappaport, April 22, 2010.
Biographical Note:
Ezra Zubrow is an anthropologist who has served on the faculty of the University at Buffalo since 1977. His broad interests include archaeological and anthropological theory and method, social policy of heritage and disability, Nordic archaeology, and ecology.
Provenance:
The collection was donated by Ezra Zubrow in 2010.
