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.
The photographs primarily document ceremonies, people, and lands of Native Americans in the Plains and Southwest, taken during Mekeel's field research from 1929 to 1936. A large portion of the collection depicts Mekeel's research during the early 1930s among the Oglala of the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. Another large portion of the collection includes personal photos depicting Mekeel's homes and children.
Biographical/Historical note:
H. Scudder Mekeel (1902-1947) was an anthropologist who studied social and psychological aspects of Native American cultures. Educated at Harvard University (BA, 1928), the University of Chicago (MA, 1929), and Yale University (PhD, 1932), he was a member of the 1929 Laboratory of Anthropology (Santa Fe) ethnological field school led by Alfred L. Kroeber. In 1929-1932, he carried out three field expeditions to the Sioux communities of South Dakota, working mainly on the Pine Ridge Reservation. He joined the Bureau of Indian Affairs as Director of Applied Anthropology under Commissioner John Collier in 1935. Two years later, he was appointed Director of the Laboratory of Anthropology at Santa Fe and continued there until 1940, when he accepted a teaching position at the University of Wisconsin.
Local Call Number(s):
NAA Photo Lot 94-21
Location of Other Archival Materials:
The National Anthropological Archives holds copies of Mekeel's Field Notes from the summers of 1930 and 1931 in the White Clay District of the Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota (MS 7088). Originals of these field notes and Mekeel's population notes on the White Clay District are held by the American Museum of Natural History, Division of Anthropology Archives (.M454).
The Human Studies Film Archives holds Mekeel's film footage of a Lakota Sioux Sundance from 1930 (HSFA 92.8.1).
Correspondence from Mekeel held in the National Anthropological Archives in the William Duncan Strong papers, Raoul Weston LaBarre Papers, and Bureau of American Ethnology Administrative File.
Restrictions:
Original nitrate negatives are in cold storage and require special arrangements for viewing.
Photographs depicting camps and scenery during July 4th observances in 1912 at Bullhead, Standing Rock Reservation, South Dakota. Handwriting on the photographs' versos is probably that of Frances Densmore.
Biographical/Historical note:
Frances Densmore (1867-1957) was born in Red Wing, Minnesota, and educated at Oberlin College Conservatory of Music (1884-1886). She taught music in St. Paul until 1889, when she moved to Boston to study with composers at Harvard University. Soon thereafter, Densmore became interested in Native American music and she did her first field studies with the Ojibwa in Minnesota in 1905. She became associated with the Bureau of American Ethnology in 1907, which helped fund her trips to record music, collect musical insturments, and make photographs documenting tribes across the United States. Densmore stayed with the Bureau for fifty years until her death in Red Wing in 1957.
Local Call Number(s):
NAA Photo Lot 81L
Location of Other Archival Materials:
The National Anthropological Archives holds Frances Densmore papers (MS 4250) and material relating to her music research (MS 3370 and other numbered manuscript collections).
Densmore photographs held in National Anthropological Archives Photo Lot 24, MS 4250, MS 4635, MS 3261, MS 4690, MS 4877, Photo Lot 33, and the BAE historical negatives.
Correspondence from Densmore held in the National Anthropological Archives in MS 4846, MS 4821, Bureau of American Ethnology records, Science Service records, records of the Department of Anthropology, and collections of personal papers.
The Braun Research Library at Autry National Center and the Minnesota Historical Society also holds Frances Densmore papers.
Restrictions:
Original nitrate negatives are in cold storage and require advanced notice for viewing.
Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Genre/Form:
Photographs
Citation:
Photo lot 81L, Frances Densmore photographs of July 4 observances at Standing Rock Reservation, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Mni wiconi water is life : honoring the Water Protectors at Standing Rock and everywhere in the ongoing struggle for indigenous sovereignty John Willis ; with contributions from Lakota people and allies ; a foreword by Terry Tempest Williams ; afterword by Shaunna Oteka-McCovey
Standing Rock Indian Reservation (N.D. and S.D.) -- Photographs
Fort Yates (N.D.) -- Photographs
Indianapolis (Ind.) -- Photographs
Date:
1918-1930
Scope and Contents:
The Canisius family photograph album was primarily compiled by Elizabeth Canisius (1882-1977) of Indianapolis, Indiana, and contains photographs made from about 1918 to 1929 by her and various members of her immediate and extended family. Evidently not arranged in chronological order, the photographs document a burgeoning German-American family and their various pursuits. Among the photographs are depictions of unidentified men at work in a shipyard, among them Mrs. Canisius's husband Gustav (1872-1954); unidentified men playing polo or dressed for a game of basketball; men, women, and children posed in front of both urban and rural houses; and choice mid-West vacation spots, including the Great Lakes, Lincoln's tomb and home (Springfield, IL), Turkey Run State Park (IN), and Williams Bay (WI) and its famous Yerkes Observatory.
A good number of the photographs document the young adulthood of Kathryn (Dolly) L. Canisius (1906-1943), the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Canisius. These photographs depict Dolly, her classmates and friends, her teachers, her suitors, her leisure activities, her graduation from high school in 1924, and two years later her apparent graduation from a two-year college. Following her 1926 graduation, Dolly evidently served as an itinerant teacher-in-training and from several teaching posts sent photographs of her young pupils to her mother. These her mother dutifully added to the album, even though Dolly had annotated most of the photographs' versos. Among Dolly's photographs are depictions of her white pupils in a rural mid-West school and of her Native students at Standing Rock Agency in Fort Yates, North Dakota. The Standing Rock photographs consist of depictions of Dolly's female and male Native students posed in groups and on picnics, non-student Natives congregated in town, street scenes, landscape views (including the frozen Missouri River) presumably made just outside of Fort Yates, Agency buildings, and possibly the campus of Saint Bernard Mission School, established by Father Bernard in 1924. There are also several commercially produced photographs, including a studio portrait of Holy Horse distributed by the Northwest Photo Service of Mandan, ND, and a photographic postcard of the "rugged country on Standing Rock Reservation" by Frank B. Fiske. Dolly apparently also traveled as far as Medora, ND, and sent to her mother photographs of the Chateau de Mores, the former home of Medora's founder the Marquis de Mores, and of the Little Missouri River.
Arrangement:
The album arrived at NMAI disbound with some photographs missing from various album pages. The individual album pages were rehoused inside paper envelopes, however original order was maintained.
Biographical / Historical:
Elizabeth Canisius (1882-1977) was the daughter of Frederick Nimz (1845-1921) and Louise Longere (1848-1923). Frederick and Louise were married in 1872 and in 1873 emigrated from Germany to the United States. The couple settled in Indianapolis, IN, where Frederick worked as a carpenter and cabinet maker for a furniture company. They had seven children: Minna Nimz Stelzel (1873-1935), Wilhelm Nimz (1875-1932), Ernestine Nimz Walters (1876-1947), Emma Nimz Crane (1879-1911), Elizabeth Canisius, Katherine Nimz Lang (1885-1973; the donor's grandmother), and Louis Nimz (1887-1966). Elizabeth married Gustav Canisius (1872-1954) and the two lived in Indianapolis, Chicago, IL, and perhaps also Wisconsin. (Elizabeth compiled NMAI's album while living on Congress Street in Indianapolis.) While living in either Chicago or Wisconsin, Gustav worked as a shipfitter on Great Lakes steamers. Kathryn "Dolly" L. Canisius (1906-1943) was the only child of Elizabeth and Gustav. She never married and usually lived with her parents. In 1933, Dolly graduated from Pestalozzi Froebel Teachers College in Chicago.
Provenance:
Donald Kritsch and Barbara Baker;,Gift;,2012;,2012-0065.
Restrictions:
Access is by appointment only, Monday - Thurs., 9:30 am - 4:30 pm. Please contact the archives to make an appointment.
Topic:
Indians of North America -- Photographs -- Education -- North Dakota Search this
Citation:
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Canisius family photograph album; National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center, Smithsonian Institution.
The Florence Pulford collection includes both audio recordings and photographs that were made during the twenty years Pulford worked among Native American quilt makers in the 1970's and 1980's from Montana and the Dakotas. Quilt makers featured in this collection include; Ella First Kill Brown, Frances Weasel Woman Fox, Artie Crazy Bull, Almira Buffalo Bone Jackson and Regina Brave Bull.
Scope and Contents:
The Florence Pulford collection includes both audio recordings and photographs that were made during the twenty years Pulford worked among Native American quilt makers from Montana and the Dakotas. The bulk of the audio recordings, comprising of 65 audiocassettes, are interviews Pulford conducted with Native quilt makers on the Fort Peck and Fort Belknap reservations. Many of the interviews are with quiltmaker Almira Buffalo Bone Jackson and artisan Juanita Tucker. Topics range from the craft of quilt making to life and politics on the reservation. The photographs, which include negatives, slides and prints, contain images of quilts and quilt makers from the Fort Belknap, Fort Berthold, Fort Peck, Rocky Boys and Standing Rock reservations. Quilt makers include; Ella First Kill Brown, Frances Weasel Woman Fox, Artie Crazy Bull, Almira Buffalo Bone Jackson and Regina Brave Bull. Although the majority of the photographs depict quilts or quilt making, there are images of various landscapes and events Pulford visited as well as photographs of Pulford herself.
Arrangement:
This collection has been arranged into two series, Series 1:Audiocassettes, 1978-1985, and Series 2:Photographs, 1968-1989. Series 2 is then divided into six subseries; Subseries 2a: Fort Belknap Reservation, Subseries 2b: Fort Berthold Reservation, Subseries 2c: Fort Peck Reservation, Subseries 2d: Rocky Boys Reservation, Subseries 2e: Standing Rock (Fort Yates) Reservation, Subseries 2f: Unidentified and Other.
Biographical / Historical:
Florence Pulford, nee Atwood, was born in Idaho in 1923. Pulford eventually settled in California with her husband and daughters and frequented Bar 717, a camp and working ranch, located in the Trinity Mountains of Northern California. It was while working as the director of the arts and crafts program at the Bar 717 camp when she first became acquainted with Frank Ereaux (Gros Ventre) and his family in 1968. Ereaux who had been working with horses on the ranch, invited Pulford to visit his family on the Fort Belknap reservation in Montana. During this visit Pulford received a quilt as a gift which launched a life-long interest in the quilts of the Plains tribes. Pulford began buying fabric and materials in California to send back to Native artisans in Fort Belknap, Fort Peck and other Montana reservations. Eventually Pulford built relationships with quilters that spanned into North and South Dakota reservations including Fort Berthold and Standing Rock (Fort Yates). In addition to purchasing quilts, Pulford would often snap pictures and record audio interviews about life on the reservation. Pulford would also sell quilts, using the proceeds to buy more fabrics and sending the remaining profits to the quilters. Pulford became very friendly with several quilters but developed a particularly close relationship with Almira Buffalo Bone Jackson, a member of the Red Bottom band of the Fort Peck Assiniboine, and prolific quilter. Almira and Florence kept up a strong correspondence up until Florence's death in 1989 and the age of 65.
In addition to visiting and working with Native quilters, Pulford gave lectures and put together exhibitions on Native American quilt work in Montana and the Dakotas at major museums and universities. Pulford's book, Morning Star Quilts, was published in 1989 by Leone Publishing with assistance from Diana Leone. The book illustrates the work of individual quilt makers as well as highlights the cultural and ceremonial significance of quilts among the Plains peoples. Following Pulford's death, daughters Ann Wilson and Sarah Zweng offered their mothers quilt collection, as well as supporting photographs and audio recordings, to the National Museum of the American Indian. The collection was acquired by NMAI in 2007.
Separated Materials:
Florence Pulford's quilt collection is now a part of NMAI's Modern and Contemporary Arts collection with catalog numbers 26/6034-26/6391. For access and information about these quilts please contact NMAICollections@si.edu.
Provenance:
This collection was donated by Ann Pulford Wilson and Sarah Pulford Zweng, daughters to Florence Pulford, in 2007.
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).
Due to their fragile nature, the audio cassettes in this collection are closed to researchers until they have been digitized.
Rights:
Single photocopies may be made for research purposes. Permission to publish or broadbast 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 -- North Dakota -- Social life and customs. Search this
Genre/Form:
Photographs
Slides
Audiocassettes
Negatives
Citation:
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Florence Pulford collection, Box and Folder Number; National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center, Smithsonian Institution.
At Standing Rock and Wounded Knee : the journals and papers of Father Francis M. Craft, 1888-1890 / edited and annotated by Thomas W. Foley ; foreword by Michael F. Steltenkamp
