The material consists mostly of photographic prints. A few negatives, photomechanical prints, tintypes, drawings, newspaper clippings, notes, and letters are also included. Much of the material is annotated. In part, the file was assembled for or relates to many accessions and cataloging units of the division.
The material was received from professionals and amateurs, mostly working in North America. The images are of artifactual and skeletal specimens, fradulent specimens, collections of specimens, sites, excavations, site features, ruins, petroglyphs, and field parties. A few are reproductions of maps and portraits of native people. Some of the specimens are in the Smithsonianʹs collections, but many are not.
Included among the many subjects are photographs of Dighton Rock in Massachusetts; many ruins of the 1931 Moundville, Alabama, excavation; Tlingit burial boxes; excavations, specimens, and Aleut portraits taken by Waldemar I. Jochelsonʹs Ethnological Section of the Riaboushinsky Expedition, 1909-1912; Richard Wetherillʹs party in Mancos Canyon, Colorado, and F. S. Hempsteadʹs Archaeological and Topographic Map of Portsmouth," [Ohio].
Some of the material relates to the work of Charles L. Bernheimer in Utah, Burnham S. Colburn in Georgia and North Carolina, Thomas Featherstonehaugh in Florida, Otto William Geist in Alaska, A. T. Hill in Nebraska, Walter Hough in Arizona (for the Gates-United States National Museum Expedition, 1901), George Langford in Illinois, Henry Montgomery in North Dakota, Clarence B. Moore in Florida, Henri F. Pittier in Costa Rica, and F. B. Stebbins in Tennessee. Collections are those of Charles Artes (filed Indiana), Thomas Beckwith (filed Missouri), C. W. Branch (filed West Indies), Burham S. Colburn Cherokee relics (filed North Carolina), James Pillars (filed Ohio), Governor Price (frauds from New Mexico), Ephraim George Squier and Edwin Hamilton Davis (filed Ohio).
The material is from Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas Utah, Virginia, Washington, Costa Rica, British Columbia, Canada, New Zealand, Nova Scotia, South Pacific, and West Indies.
The works of many photographers are included. Among them are John K. Hillers, William Henry Jackson, Sumner W. Matteson, Edgar A. Mearns, Victor Mindeleff, and Timothy H. OʹSullivan.
This collection contains glass lantern slides shot by rancher and explorer John Wetherill (1866-1944). The photographs depict Ancestral Puebloan sites in southwestern U.S., as well as photos of Diné (Navajo) and Ute men and women.
Scope and Contents:
This collection consists of 42 glass lantern slides that were shot by John Wetherill (1866-1944) circa 1892. The bulk of the photographs depict Ancestral Puebloan sites at Mesa Verde and Hovenweep in southwest Colorado. Wetherill may have been escorting the H. Jay Smith Exploring Company around the region as they collected objects for a Mesa Verde exhibit at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago.
The glass lantern slides depict cliff dwellings in a state of pre-archaeological preservation including the sites of Cliff Palace, Spruce Tree House, Square Tower House, Kodak House, Sandal House, and Spring House at Mesa Verde; and Square Tower at Hovenweep. The photographs also depict Oraibi Hopi Village, Montezuma Castle, and Casa Grande Ruins sites in Arizona.
A few photographs depict Ute and Diné (Navajo) men and women. One photograph of note depicts an outdoor group portrait photographed at a Ute wedding in Mancos, Colorado. The individuals depicted include George Bowles (Harvard student), Mancos Jim (Ute) and his wife, Herbert L. Cowing (1877-1956), Elmer Coston, Benjamin Kite Wetherill (1832-1898), and Richard Wetherill (1858-1910).
Several photographs in this collection also depict objects such as pottery, yucca baskets, stone axes, manos, and metates alongside Ancestral Puebloan human remains. These photographs are restricted.
John Wetherill is listed as the photographer, however, his brother Richard Wetherill (1858-1910) may have shot some of the photographs as well. The lantern slides feature handwritten labels that describe the photographs and were probably written by a Museum of the American Indian employee. Additionally, "Museum of the American Indian Heye Foundation, Broadway at 155th ST. N. Y. City" is printed on the back of the masking paper, which indicates that the lantern slides were most likely assembled by MAI staff.
Some lantern slides may be the reverse or mirror images of the actual scenes.
Arrangement:
This collection is arranged in photo number order.
Biographical / Historical:
John Wetherill (1866-1944) was a cattle rancher, explorer, and amateur archaeologist in Colorado. Born in Kansas in 1866 to Benjamin Kite Wetherill and Marion Tompkins Wetherill, the family moved to Mancos in southwestern Colorado in 1879. In December 1888, Richard Wetherill (John's older brother) and Charles Mason (brother-in-law), were credited with having discovered Cliff Palace, Spruce Tree House, and Square Tower House sites at Mesa Verde, although the cliff dwellings were already known to some Native Puebloan communities in the southwest at the time. Additionally, several non-Native explorers had visited other Ancestral Puebloan sites in the region prior to the Wetherills' discoveries including Mexican-Spanish missionaries Francisco Atanasio Dominguez and Silvestre Velez de Escalante in 1776; prospector John Moss in 1873; and photographer William Henry Jackson for the Hayden U.S. Geological Survey in 1874.
After the discovery, Richard and his brothers John, Clayton, Winslow, and Benjamin continued exploring and found other Ancestral Puebloan sites in the region. In 1891, the Wetherill brothers worked with amateur Swedish archaeologist Gustaf Nordenskiöld excavating Cliff House. Nordenskiöld taught them the basics tenants of archaeological excavation and trained them to keep detailed provenance records and to label objects.
From 1888-1893, the Wetherills collected more objects from Mesa Verde and eventually sold many of their collections, including a large collection to the Colorado State Historical Society (History Colorado). By 1900 John Wetherill moved to New Mexico and then Utah with his wife Louise Wade Wetherill. John continued serving as a guide and trained archaeologists and anthropologists in the region. He died in 1944.
Agnes Cowing (1880-1965), the collector of the glass lantern slides, was a librarian in New York. She most likely obtained them from her brother Herbert L. Cowing (1877-1956) or her sister Julia R. Cowing (b. 1857) who were both friends of the Wetherill family and visited the Wetherill Ranch in Mancos, Colorado in the 1890s.
Related Materials:
History Colorado in Denver, Colo. holds a John and Richard Wetherill photographs collection (2000.129), a Richard Wetherill manuscripts collection (Mini-MSS #3035), and a large collection of objects collected by the Wetherills. The Smithsonian's National Anthropological Archives holds a collection of photographs collected by H. Jay Smith (NAA MS 2420).
Provenance:
Donated to the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation by Agnes Cowing in 1934.
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.
Some images restricted: Cultural Sensitivity
Topic:
Indians of North America -- Antiquities & archaeological sites -- Colorado Search this
cliff dwellings -- Colorado -- Mesa Verde National Park Search this
Genre/Form:
Lantern slides
Citation:
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); John Wetherill lantern slides, Box and Photo Number; National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center, Smithsonian Institution.
Archives Center, National Museum of American History Search this
Container:
Box 9
Type:
Archival materials
Date:
undated
Collection Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Collection Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Collection Citation:
Archives Center Postcard Collection, twentieth century, Archives Center, National Museum of American History.
Material is subject to Smithsonian Terms of Use. Should you wish to use NASM material in any medium, please submit an Application for Permission to Reproduce NASM Material, available at Permissions Requests.
Collection Citation:
Lee Ya-Ching Papers, NASM.2008.0009, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution.
The Structural Stabilization of Eight Sites in the Upper Reaches of Cow Canyon, Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, Southeastern Utah Report of the Year 3 Field Season, 1985
The Structural Stabilization of The Penthouse (42SA624) and Angry Ridge Ruin (42SA5485), Glen Canyon National Recreation Area: Report of the Year 2 and Year 3 Work, 1984-1985
