50 Stereographs (circa 50 printed stereographs, halftone and color halftone)
1,000 Stereographs (circa, albumen and silver gelatin (some tinted))
239 Prints (circa 239 mounted and unmounted prints, albumen (including cartes de visite, imperial cards, cabinet cards, and one tinted print) and silver gelatin (some modern copies))
96 Prints (Album :, silver gelatin)
21 Postcards (silver gelatin, collotype, color halftone, and halftone)
Photographs relating to Native Americans or frontier themes, including portraits, expedition photographs, landscapes, and other images of dwellings, transportation, totem poles, ceremonies, infants and children in cradleboards, camps and towns, hunting and fishing, wild west shows, food preparation, funeral customs, the US Army and army posts, cliff dwellings, and grave mounds and excavations. The collection also includes images of prisoners at Fort Marion in 1875, Sioux Indians involved in the Great Sioux Uprising in Minnesota, the Fort Laramie Peace Commission of 1868, Sitting Bull and his followers after the Battle of the Little Bighorn, and the aftermath of the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890.
There are studio portraits of well-known Native Americans, including American Horse, Big Bow, Four Bears, Iron Bull, Ouray, Red Cloud, Red Dog, Red Shirt, Sitting Bull, Spotted Tail, Three Bears, and Two Guns White Calf. Depicted delegations include a Sauk and Fox meeting in Washington, DC, with Lewis V. Bogy and Charles E. Mix in 1867; Kiowas and Cheyennes at the White House in 1863; and Dakotas and Crows who visited President Warren G. Harding in 1921. Images of schools show Worcester Academy in Vinita, Oklahoma; Chilocco Indian School; Carlisle Indian Industrial School; Haskell Instittue, and Albuquerque Indian School.
Some photographs relate to the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, 1876; World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, 1893; Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, 1903; and Centennial Exposition of the Baltimore and Ohio Railraod, 1876. Expedition photographs show the Crook expedition of 1876, the Sanderson expedition to the Custer Battlefield in 1877, the Wheeler Survey of the 1870s, Powell's surveys of the Rocky Mountain region during the 1860s and 1870s, and the Hayden Surveys.
Outstanding single views include the party of Zuni group led to the sea by Frank Hamilton Cushing; Episcopal Church Rectory and School Building, Yankton Agency; Matilda Coxe Stevenson and a companion taking a photographs of a Zuni ceremony; John Moran sketching at Acoma; Ben H. Gurnsey's studio with Indian patrons; Quapaw Mission; baptism of a group of Paiutes at Coeur d'Alene Mission; court-martial commission involved in the trial of Colonel Joseph J. Reynolds, 1877; President Harding at Sitka, Alaska; Walter Hough at Hopi in 1902; and Mrs. Jesse Walter Fewkes at Hopi in 1897.
Biographical/Historical note:
George V. Allen was an attorney in Lawrence, Kansas and an early member of the National Stereoscope Association. Between the 1950s and 1980s, Allen made an extensive collection of photographs of the American West, mostly in stereographs, but also including cartes-de-visite and other styles of mounted prints, photogravures, lantern slides, autochromes, and glass negatives.
Photo Lot 90-1, George V. Allen collection of photographs of Native Americans and the American frontier, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
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
