Native American Photography at the Smithsonian: The Shindler Catalogue

Authors

Elizabeth Edwards, University of Oxford

Date of this Version

2004

Document Type

Article

Comments

Published in Great Plains Quarterly 24:1 (Winter 2004). Copyright © 2004 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln.

Abstract

This excellent volume is an illustrated reconstruction of what was probably the first exhibition of photographs at the Smithsonian. The subject matter was not the great politicians or celebrities of the times but Native Americans. Most of the photographs were of delegations that visited Washington - including numerous men from the Plains, especially representatives of the Souian peoples photographed in 1858, 1867, and 1868 - and reflected the turbulent inter-cultural politics of the period.