Edward S. Curtis and the North American Indian, Incorporated

Description

For almost four decades from the 1890s onwards| Edward S. Curtis took thousands of photographs of Native Americans all over the West and his assistants collected masses of other data – myths| recordings of music and ceremonies| folk tales| language vocabularies| and histories. This material was published in “The North American Indian” (1907-30)| in 20 volumes of illustrated text and 20 portfolios of photographs; the project was supported by Theodore Roosevelt and funded in part by J. Pierpont Morgan| and spawned exhibitions| postcards| magazine articles| lecture series| a “musicale| ” and the very first narrative documentary film. While not unique| the project was bigger| better funded| and more famous than any of its time| and its images still retain their influence today. Neither a eulogy to Curtis’s achievement nor a debunking of it| this book is an honest study of the project as a collective whole: what it was| who was involved| and what it meant. Mick Gidley examines the historical documentation such as letters and field memoirs of Curtis and other participants in the project – including Native American assistants and informants – and synthesizes the ideological| governmental| aesthetic| economic| and anthropological forces in the project.