A NATIONAL TREASURE

WILLIAM HENRY BLACKMORE AND FERDINAND V. HAYDEN’S, ILLUSTRATED GUIDE TO THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN, ORGANIZED AND ASSEMBLED BY WILLIAM HENRY JACKSON AND THOMAS SMILLIE

(1877 - 1879)

Description of albums:

Two Bound Volumes containing 995 albumen or carbon prints, photographs of Indians and Delegations, views in the West and Mexico from negatives made between 1847 and 1876.  The sequence of prints and tribes is arranged according to the linguistic relationships with the text of the 1877 Descriptive Catalog (noted below) attached as the text descriptions.  Each language group has separate tribal delegate members identified and generally contains individual and group portraits or field views.  There are from 1 to 15 photographs per page, generally 6.  There are 8 mammoth plate prints of Indian delegations and 3 mammoth prints of individual Indians.

Each volume app. 13 x 19” with 100 pages. Volume 1 has 100 pages with photographs, volume 2 has 77 pages with photographs. Volumes are bound in the original 1/2 leather bindings, restored.  Text includes pages from the Department of the Interior.  United States Geological Survey of the Territories.  F. V. Hayden, U.S. Geologist.  Miscellaneous Publications, No. 9.  Descriptive Catalogue of The Photographs of the North American Indian by, W.H. Jackson, Photographer of the Survey. Washington: Government Print Office 1877

This collection came from the Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland.  It was first officially noted as being in the collection in 1899, but as this was the beginning of their record keeping, the albums had probably been there for a number of years prior to this.  The physical condition of the prints is excellent and the tones of the prints are remarkably rich, perhaps the best of any set in existence.  The albums bindings were restored and each page was surface cleaned to remove soot and dirt which had accumulated over a century.

The set of 2 large volumes offered here is one of seven large 2 volume sets known to exist (see census below).  The others are all in private institutions.

Primarily the albums contain portraits of American Indian diplomats or delegates involved in negotiating treaties and claims with the United States Government.  Thus it is a who’s who of 19th American Indian leaders from this period.  Also included are views taken in the field, both of treaty delegations (as of the Ft. Laramie Treaty of 1868) as well as views of Indian encampments, settlements and some ethnographic activities recorded by Geologic Survey photographers of this time. 

About 100 views are described in a catalog William Henry Jackson compiled: Department of the Interior.  United States Geological Survey of the Territories.  F. V. Hayden, U.S. Geologist-in-Charge.  Miscellaneous Publications-No. 5.  Descriptive Catalogue of The Photographs of the United States Geological Survey of The Territories for the Years 1869 to 1875, Inclusive. Second Edition.  W.H. Jackson, Photographer. Washington: Government Print Office 1875. 

Additionally a small group of photographs of ruins in Mexico, with negatives by Desire Charney, and a handful of reproductions of scientific illustrations about the American Indian, made by Jackson and others for expositions.

William Henry Blackmore:

One of the lesser known but most influential patrons of Western American visual imagery in the 19th century, Blackmore was a colorful and energetic venture capitalist.  Born to an upper middle class family in Salisbury, Wiltshire, England in 1827, he was a talented business man who became a powerful middle man between banks and investors in Europe and capitalists and developers in various countries.  He was involved in financing ventures in railroads in Tunis, India, South America as well as the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad.  He also financed gold and silver mines in Colorado, Arizona and Utah, sulphur production in Texas, diamond mines in Africa, telegraph and cable projects in Wales.  He was involved in land ventures throughout Europe and the United States.  He was alleged to have been the largest landowner in the United States if the land claimed in Spanish and Mexican land grants he acquired in New Mexico and Colorado had been confirmed.  He gave the name Manitou Springs to the town of that name in Colorado.  He actively recruited European farmers and herders to settle along the proposed railroad lines he and others were developing, and was constantly involved in schemes to bring European financing to these projects.  His wife is buried in Bozeman, Montana, dying there in 1872 while on a tour of the West with her husband and others.  He died by his own hand in 1878, either from the distress of defaults, which occurred when the land grants were not confirmed or confirmed for small percentages of the amount claimed as well as from a belief that he had lived his life by the age of 50.

Chronology of cataloging the collection:

Historically, private patrons financed the expenses for Karl Bodmer, George Catlin, Thomas McKinney, Charles Bird King, Seth Eastman, and John Mix Stanley.   Most of the Stanley and King paintings were destroyed in a fire at the Gallery of Art in Washington in 1865.  Joseph Henry, the founding Director of the Smithsonian first considered gathering photographic likenesses of Indians in 1859.  After the fire he redoubled his efforts in collecting and gathering photographs and he approached Ferdinand V. Hayden, head of the Hayden Geologic Survey.  He also approached Britisher William Henry Blackmore a patron of his namesake Blackmore Museum in Salisbury, England, land speculator in Colorado and New Mexico, and an amateur ethnographer (Blackmore also arranged a Catlin exhibition at the Smithsonian in 1870).   Blackmore had been gathering photographs and artifacts in his travels west beginning in 1863. The Geologic Survey already had some negatives of Indians from the delegation visits and field visits dating as early as 1847.

Blackmore agreed to fund, collect and commission photographs both in Washington and in the West.  In 1867, he first exhibited a small group of photographs at his Salisbury Museum.  He also engaged Antonio Zeno Shindler, a Washington photographer and owner of many early delegation photographs, to make prints for him and make copies and prints from other negatives and prints collected by Blackmore and the Smithsonian.

In 1869, Shindler published a catalog under the Hayden Survey auspices, which listed 304 prints and was published as the first Descriptive Catalog of Photographs of the American Indian the government was collecting.

In 1874, the Hayden Survey published a second updated descriptive catalog of the North American Indian edited by William Henry Jackson of slightly over 1000 individual and delegation groups. This included most of the entries from Shindler's catalog as well as substantial additions by Jackson, Alexander Gardner and work by Orloff Westmann and others commissioned by Blackmore as well as work from the Powell, Wheeler and Hayden Surveys.

Jackson’s final revision of the Indian catalogue was published in 1877 adding from 1874 only the delegation photographs of Washington photographer Charles Milton Bell. 

Other Grand Projects and estimated editions:

1) Karl Bodmer,  Travels in the Interior of North America , hand colored engravings (less than 300 of which about 75 were fully colored),

2) George Catlin, North American Indian Portfolio (a few hundred original sets of which 50 may be from the deluxe edition),

3) Edward Curtis, The North American Indian (1906 - 1930) (300 original sets)

4) John J. Audobon's elephant folio set, Birds of America (about 270 sets originally issued).

Census of similar collections:

 Anecdotal consultations with scholars, historians and other experts who have examined them and reveal that each set of two volumes and each of the larger Smithsonian albums have different content.  The information is derived primarily from notes by Paula Fleming, the leading scholar and historian in this area.

Large 2 volume sets such as this one (900 or more prints):

1.  Chicago Historical Society - one 2-volume set (Rudisill)

2.  Harvard - one 2-volume set (Fleming)

3.  Princeton University (Firestone Library)- one 2 volume set (discovered about two months ago) unbound, lighter albumen, (Smith/Fleming/ Shannon)

4 - 5) Smithsonian (NAA) - 5 1/2 app. 100 page albums (Fleming)

6) Royal Anthropology Archives (British Museum, London), one 2 volume set (Fleming)

Large 1 volume sets (400 or more prints) include:

1) Yale (Beneicke Library) PHOTOGRAPHS OF INDIANS SELECTED FROM THE COLLECTION IN THE POSSESSION OF THE U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES, PROF. F.V. HAYDEN IN CHARGE; REPRESENTING 70 DIFFERENT TRIBES, 1876, 100 pages, lighter albumen prints, handwritten notes with variant or additional identifications. Generally 6 to page, some 7 or 8. (Smith)

2) Musee de l’Homme - Large 1 volume set (Fleming)

3) Univ. of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology & Anthropology - Large 1 volume set or a large group of Jackson Catalog prints (Fleming)

4) University of Iowa Museum of Art - large group of loose prints (Fleming)

5) Wisconsin Historical Society - 1 volume (Fleming)

6) Princeton - 1 volume (Fleming) separate from the two above

7) Autry Museum, Los Angeles - Large 1 volume set, many prints missing, light albumen (Smith)

8) Amon Carter Museum, Ft. Worth - large group of loose prints (Rohrbach)

9) National Museum of American Indian - large group of unbound prints, Jackson Catalog (Fleming)

Smaller groups and sets:

1) British Museum (Oxford) - 2 smaller volumes of Blackmore sets, pre Jackson Catalog (Fleming)

2) Museum fur Volkerkeende, Berlin - 1 volume? (Fleming)

3) Cambridge Univ. (UK) - group of Jackson catalog photos (Fleming)

4) Smithsonian (NAA) - 4 smaller volumes (Fleming)

5) Gilder Lehrman Collection (New York) 2 volumes with 125 prints (Smith)

6) Michael Wilson (UK) 75 print album (Smith)

7) Cowen’s Auction (Ohio) 3 small Blackmore sets, of app. 16 to 32 prints (Smith)

Tribes included in the 1977 catalog:

Algonkins:  Cheyenne, Chippewas, Delawares, Menomenees, Miamis, Ottawas, Pottawatomies, Sacs and             Foxes, Shawnees.  Pequods.

Athabascas:  Apaches, Navajos.

Dakotas:  Crows, Dakotas (Sioux), Iowas, Kaws or Kansas, Mandans, Missourias, Omahas, Osages, Otoes,             Poncas, Winnebagoes.

Pawnees:   Arickarees or Rees, Keechies, Pawnies, Wacos, Wichitas.

Shoshones:  Bannacks, Comanches, Kiowas, Shoshones, Utahs.

Sahaptins:  Nez-Perces, Warm Springs, Wascos.

Klamaths:  Klamaths, Modocs, Rogue River.

Pimas:  Papagos, Pimas.

Iroquois:  Senecas, Wyandots or Hurans.

Muskogees: Creeks, Seminoles, Chichasaws, Choctaws.

Independent tribes: Arapahoes, Caddos, Cherokees, Moquis, Pueblos, Tawacanies, Tonkaways.

Photographers Fleming has identified in the Shindler catalog of 1869 include:

Nicholas Brown & son (Santa Fe ca. 1866)

Charles W. Carter (Salt Lake City, ca. 1866)

William G. Chamberlain, Denver (1861-1869)

Samuel Cohner (Washington, McClees Studio, 1866)

Thomas M. Easterly (St. Louis, 1847)

Edric L. Eaton (Omaha, ca. 1869)

John H. Fitzgibbon (St. Louis, 1851-1852)

T.M. Galey (Independence, Ks. 1865 ca.)

Alexander Gardner (Washington, 1867, many other prints appear taken by Gardner at Ft. Laramie, WY 1868, and later in Washington)

J. D. Hutton (headwaters of Missouri and Yellowstone rivers 1859-1860)

William Henry Jackson (Omaha, 1867.)  Jackson became the official Hayden survey photographer, made the prints in these albums and authored many other Indian and archeological views while in the field with Hayden, including the first series done at McElmo Canyon or Mesa Verde in 1874

E. Lovejoy (Chicago, 1867 ca.)

McClees Studio (Washington, 1858 - 1869) Julian Vannerson original photographic artist.  The studio changed hands several times during this period, becoming the Addis Studio, with Vannerson, Cohner, Shindler making prints and negatives.

William Notman (Montreal 1868)

Mr. Parleer (Ft. Bridger, Utah Territory, 1857) 

Charles R. Savage and James M. Ottinger (Salt Lake City 1860s)

Antonio Zeno Shindler (Washington 1865 - 1869)

C.S. Stobie (Chicago, 1867), Benjamin F. Upton (St. Paul, MN, 1860s)

Julian Vannerson (Washington, McClees Studio 1857 - 1858)

J. Warner (Sag Harbor, N.Y. 1867)

Joel Emmons Whitney (St. Paul. 1860s, also in partnership with Zimmerman).

Research conducted on this collection:

These two volumes are the most thoroughly researched group of prints in any collection.

Paula Richardson Fleming, who was also the longtime senior photography archivist at the Smithsonian's National Anthropological Archives, has offered amended titles and identifications of many delegates and amended attributions for many of the negatives.  Richard Rudisill the retired photo-historian at the Museum of New Mexico has added identifications and Arthur Olivas, the retired photo-archivist at the Museum of New Mexico and current registrar at the Andrew Smith Gallery have added countless additional identifications and comparisons of the Indian subjects as well as of comparisons with prints in other collections and publications.

Scholarly work on the albums is proceeding with cataloging and correcting identification entries.  Paula Richard Fleming who has examined this set and noted that the condition of the prints in this set is among the best of any that she has viewed.

By Andrew Smith,

President

Andrew Smith Gallery, Inc.

            Department of the Interior / United States / Geological Survey / of the / Territories / F. V. Hayden in Charge / Photographs [Illustrated Catalog of the]Descriptive Catalog of Photographs of North American Indians, printed by William Henry Jackson and Thomas Smillie, Washington, D.C., 1877 Title on spine:  “Department of the Interior / United States / Geological Survey / of the / Territories / F. V. Hayden in Charge / Photographs”  two volumes.            995 albumen photographs of Indians, delegations and views in the West and Mexico.              Photographers include:  Alexander Gardner, William Henry Jackson, Jeremiah Gurney, the James E. McClees Studio, A. Zeno Shindler, the Ulke Brothers, Julian Vannerson, Orloff R. Westmann, and including vintage copies of daguerreotypes by Thomas M. Easterly and John H. Fitzgibbon.  Also included are images of artifacts and ruins of the American Southwest, photographic copies of Native American art, paintings of prehistoric scenes, and Mayan structures in Mexico by Desiré Charnay.

INTRODUCTION TO THE ALBUMS

by Paula Richardson Fleming copyright 2005

The American West has long held a fascination for Anglo Americans and Europeans alike.  Its vast untold riches, and unlimited possibilities were an irresistible magnet to the settlers from their first landing on the continent.  Fired with a firm belief that their destiny was to control the continent and to further the progress of civilization, westward expansion was inevitable as was the eventual clash of cultures with the Native Americans.  Perceived as exotic people, the Indians were both fascinating and horrifying.  Combined with the attractions of the West, they provided a perfect subject for artists.   The resulting genre of painting reached its height of popularity in the 1830s-1850s. 

George Catlin traveled the American West painting the Indians in the 1830s-40s and then toured his gallery, accompanied by some of the Natives, around the United States and Europe.  In doing so he not only helped to popularize the genre but also greatly feed the interest in Western topics.  Similarly, Carl Bodmer, a Swiss artist, accompanied Prince Maximilian of Wied-Newwied on a scientific expedition in 1833 up the Missouri River, the illustrated results of which were published in 1839.  Other artists, however, were associated with United States government activities.  For example, John Mix Stanley joined a number of expeditions in the 1840s with the specific intention of making paintings of the Native Americans, while other artists recorded delegations.

The United States government had learned from its British predecessors that Westward expansion was easier if diplomatic relations were established with the Indians.  Delegations of leading chiefs were invited to the seat of government where they were entertained and hopefully impressed with both the “civilization” and military strength of the American government.   Treaties were then negotiated with the visiting tribal representatives.  Colonel Thomas L. McKenney, Superintendent of Indian Trade and later Commissioner of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, believed, as did many others, that the native races could only be saved by assimilation and leaving behind their way of life.  Thus he instituted a government collection of artifacts to document their culture for future generations and portraits of the delegates, as representatives of their race.  During the winter of 1821-2 at his behest, Charles Bird King began painting the delegates, eventually producing a total of one-hundred and forty-three portraits.  McKenney also commissioned James Otto Lewis to attend and paint government sponsored councils in the Upper Great Lakes.  Lewis published his portfolio as lithographs in a series of ten volumes in 1835-1836, but production was expensive and few sets were produced.   McKenney, however, had many of Lewis’s paintings, and along with King’s portraits, he published these between 1836-44 as hand-colored lithographs in a series of twenty volumes.  This was the first successful, grand scale endeavor of its type in the United States.  It would not be the last.

Seth Eastman, a military man turned artist, painted the Indians near his posting at Fort Snelling in the 1840s.  In 1849 he started a collaboration with the U.S. government’s Office of Indian Affairs to produce an exhaustive study of the Indian tribes.  These were published in 1851-1857 in a series of volumes with text by Henry Rowe Schoolcraft on the Indian tribes. 

Art would soon give way, however, to photography as a mean of documenting the Native peoples.  The advent of photography in the 19th-century coincided with the rise of anthropological studies, at the same time scholarly trends were towards applying evolutionist theories to organize and categorize knowledge.  The perceived “total truthfulness” of the new photographic technology was quickly adopted by researchers and travelers alike to delineate and codify the exotic foreign races.  As early as 1846-1848 Chief Yeoman of Signals, Vernet, made daguerreotypes of Africans during the voyages of the brig Ducouëdic which were published as 55 lithographs.                           

The industrial revolution added further technological advancements to Victorian inquisitiveness and desire to categorize the world.  It also produced a burgeoning business class with a need to showcase its advances and products.  Expositions proved the perfect showcase, bringing together the newly developing worlds of technology, photography and ethnology.

Eleven “ethnographical models” were exhibited at the first Crystal Palace exposition in London in 1851.  “These, apart from their excellence as works of art, possessed a very high interest, as conveying through the eye, a vivid representation of the customs, occupations, and habits of the natives of distant countries, not so easily apprehended from any written description, however well illustrated by drawings”. Stereoscopic daguerreotypes which were also exhibited, captured Queen Victoria’s fancy and further fueled the popularity of photography.  By the time the Crystal Palace was relocated and reopened a few years later, photography was firmly entrenched in both public and scholarly spheres.  Ethnographic models as well as exhibitions of the people themselves became a standard feature of future fairs.¹   

Louis Rousseau exhibited ethnographic photographs at the Paris Exhibition in1855.  Ernest Lacan noted that they were “an important tool in the comparative study of the races of mankind, with portraits of Hottentot, Chinese and Russian types gathered together for analysis and instruction.”²  

Professional photographers found that, fueled by expositions, expeditions, newspapers and stories of the “Wild West”, images of other cultures were commercially profitable.   James E. McClees of Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. promoted his studio’s photographs of Native Americans in 1858 by noting, “The gallery of portraits includes those of some of the principal Chiefs, Braves, and Councilors [sic]…Some of them are since dead—killed in battle.  To the student of our history, as additions to libraries and historical collections, and as mementoes of the race of red men, now rapidly fading away, this series if of great value and interest.”³ 

Whether produced by professionals or amateurs, photography gradually replaced various forms of artwork as a means of providing visual information about other cultures.   Frequently driven by an urgency of documenting disappearing cultures, ethnological concern in some cases even led to governmental decrees.  Organizations such as the Société Ethnologique de Paris (founded 1839), the Ethnological Society of London (1843) and the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain (1871) were created to study and document native peoples.  In 1860-61 the Royal Engineers in Western Canada recorded the native inhabitants, and in 1869 the British Colonial Office issued circulars requesting photographs of the residents of its dependencies.  

India, however, with its vast range of races and tribes combined with a strong British presence, was at the forefront in the early use of photography in ethnographic studies.  In 1856 the Rev. Joseph Mullins read a paper at a meeting of the Photographic Society of Bengal wherein he suggested that photographers should address themselves not only to supporting the work of various sciences, but particularly to the vast variety of Subcontinent Indian life.⁴    That same year Merwanjee Bomongee endeavored to publish the Indian amateurs photographic album under the patronage of the Bombay Photographic Society (eventually published by Johnson and Henderson).  Running for twenty-four issues from December 1856 to October 1858, it was the precursor of an important ethnographic milestone.       

Published between 1868 and 1875, The People of India, edited by John Forbes Watson and John William Kaye, was an eight-volume series containing 479 tipped-in photographs.  At least fifteen different photographers contributed images documenting people of various castes and social status.  This became the seminal ethnographic work based on photography and contributed heavily to the trend for illustrated atlases of human types.             

While Watson and Kaye were producing their work, the portraits painted by Charles Bird King of the Indian delegations and the Western paintings by Seth Eastman, were destroyed by a fire in 1865 at the Smithsonian Institution while on display.   The Commissioner of Indian Affairs lamented their loss but recognized that it provided an opportunity to start over taking advantage of photography to more quickly and accurately record the Indian delegations. The Secretary of the Smithsonian, Joseph Henry, requested funds from the Commissioner for the project, but none where forthcoming. 

William Henry Blackmore (1827-78), a friend of Joseph Henry’s was, however, happy to fund the project.  Blackmore, an English solicitor, speculator and generous philanthropist, was greatly interested in the American West, especially the Native Americans.  Blackmore and other English and European capitalists helped to finance the Denver and Rio Grande railroad and purchased Spanish and Mexican land grants in both New Mexico and Colorado.  His love of the American West, however, was the driving force behind his interest in the Indians, and it is due to his foresight and financial support that many important early photographs of the Native peoples exist.  His own plans for producing a photographic record of the Indians was already underway.  In the same year as the fire, the trustees of his museum in England published a series of thirty photographic portraits by McClees’s studio of the Indian delegations in 1857-58.  McClees’s choice of subject and reasons noted in his circular for documenting the Indian delegates had clearly struck a chord with Blackmore.  He gained access to the negatives through his contact with Antonio Zeno Shindler, an artist-turned photographer, who had taken over management of the McClees’s D.C. studio.   

As well as financing his own English museum of American ethnology, Blackmore also contributed heavily to the United States Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories, under the leadership of Ferdinand H. Hayden.  Blackmore’s diaries for the year 1868 give an insight into his vast collecting activities and research references, as well as his grand publication plans from original conception to final distribution.  Fortunately he had the ability, desire and means to give substance to his projects.  On Oct. 30, 1868 he recorded payment to John Fitzgibbon’s Gallery in St. Louis where he obtained ten photographs of Indians.⁵   The same day he gave another order to Brown Brothers and Co. for more photographs.⁶  On pages twenty-two and twenty-three he summarized the images he had by tribe as well as format, e.g., stereoscopes of Indian chiefs and views, daguerreotypes, etc.⁷  Of special note are the daguerreotypes that he acquired in St. Louis.   The city was well developed and a major stopping point for travelers, making it an ideal place for photographers including John Fitzgibbon and Thomas Easterly, both master daguerreotypists.  Their images of Native Americans taken in the late 1840s have never been surpassed for quality or composition.  While the original daguerreotypes collected by Blackmore have deteriorated, the copy glass negatives made by Shindler in the 1860s have survived.  In total, Blackmore’s diaries reference at least 156 photographs which can be accounted for.

Upon Blackmore’s return to Washington, D.C. at the end of his 1868 trip, he generously loaned the original prints he had collected to Shindler so that he could make copy negatives for the Hayden Survey and the Smithsonian.  The results of which were displayed in the museum’s first photography exhibit in 1869 and documented by a pamphlet commonly referred to as the Shindler Catalogue.      

At this same time, Blackmore’s vision of a comprehensive photographic record come into focus when he obtained several volumes of The People of India.  He recorded in his diary a vision of a similar publication on the American Indians.⁸ He proposed a project to Hayden which consisted of six to ten volumes, each containing fifty photographs with six to eight photographs per tribe.  An expensive endeavor, Blackmore suggested that the Smithsonian undertake the work, but while the idea gained supported, the proposal was not accepted, likely for the same financial reasons that precluded the museum’s earlier attempt.  

For such an extensive project, more photographs as well as funding were required and Blackmore again provided both.  While on another trip to America in 1871, he commissioned Orloff R. Westmann, a photographer of Elizabeth Town, New Mexico, to take a series of photographs documenting the Feast of San Geronimo at Taos on September 30.   The next year he further commissioned Alexander Gardner to photograph Indian delegates in 1872-1873, a time of intense treaty negotiations between the U.S. government and the native peoples resulting from the rapid Westward expansion after the Civil War.  Once again Blackmore’s own museum published over two-hundred portraits in a series of ten volumes.  While still not the ultimate publication Blackmore had envisioned, he was closer to his goal.  The negatives he acquired from Westmann and Gardner were added to the collection of negatives used to produce the Smithsonian’s exhibit.  All of the negatives were under the control of Hayden’s Survey, including those made on the survey by William Henry Jackson.⁹        

As the collection of negatives grew, there was an increasing need to control access and record information for the images.  At best, the Shindler Catalogue covered only 304 negatives, and now there were over 1,000.  Thus in 1874 Jackson undertook a preliminary listing of the collection in order to bring the collection under a minimum of control.  The 1874 listing, more of an in-house reference tool, was subsequently followed by a far more comprehensive version in 1877 which was widely circulated.   The images were arranged by linguistic family and there under by tribe, and included biographical and even physical anthropological measurements for some of the subjects.  To more easily associate images with catalogue records, Jackson marked the new catalogue numbers on the negatives, positioned so that they would be visible in the prints.

In his Preface to the 1877 Catalogue, Hayden underscored the imperative for recording these cultures in change and emphasized the importance of the photographs: 

“Now that the tribal relations of these Indians are fast being successively sundered by the process of removal to reservations, which so greatly modifies the habits and particularly the style of dress of the aborigines, the value of such a graphic record of the past increases year by year; and there will remain no more trustworthy evidence of whatthe Indians have been than that afforded by these faithful sun-pictures.”¹⁰

Hayden also took particular care to acknowledge the contributions made by Blackmore:

“The greater portion of the whole collection is derived from the munificent liberality of William Blackmore, esq., of London, England, the eminent anthropologist who has for many years studied closely the history, habits, and manners of the North American Indians.  The Blackmore portion of the collection consists of a number of smaller lots from various sources; and it is Mr. Blackmore’s intention to enlarge it to include, if possible, all the tribes of the North American continent.”¹¹

 Hayden, perhaps more of a realist, added that because of various problems involved in recording the Native Americans, “If, therefore, the collection fails to meet the full requirements of the anthropologist, it must be remembered that the obstacles in the way of realizing his ideal of a perfect collection are insurmountable.”¹²

Blackmore continued to be extremely keen on his grand publication scheme and on Oct. 13, 1877 he wrote to Hayden reminding him of his idea for a monograph on the North American Indians.¹³  Hayden had two volumes of photographs printed, mounted and sent to Blackmore.  On Nov. 9th Blackmore replied that he would like to see a proof of Jackson’s new catalogue, but stated,

“I find that I cannot properly utilize the two large volumes of Indian photographs which you sent me and I shall be glad if you will forward me as soon as you can have them printed copies of  all  the Indian photographs which you have in your collection, and I should like to have them in duplicate as I can then make such selections as I consider desirable for our monograph, and return one set to you.  I will, with your permission, send the two vols. which you let me have to some anthropological Institute or Society in your name.”¹⁴

Clearly Blackmore had specific ideas about the format of both the Catalogue and the photographically illustrated version.  Unfortunately his land speculations in the United States collapsed and he committed suicide in 1878.  Whether or not he had a chance to make comments on the Jackson Catalogue is not known, but the final version follows his plan.  Although his benefactor was gone, Hayden proceeded with the massive project of creating photographically illustrated versions of Jackson’s Catalogue.      

The volumes were both expensive and time-consuming to make, and as a result, only a small number were produced. No single set contains every image listed in the Jackson Indian Catalogue and while many sets share the same core photographs, and have captions cut from the catalogue, none exactly duplicates any other volume.  Portraits represent the highest percentage of views which are followed by images of lifestyles.  Several also have loose plates inserted and additional photographic subject matter outside of Jackson’s Catalogue such as winter counts and maps by Indians, renderings by Anglo artists Seth Eastman and Charles Deas of idyllic Indian life, native artists David McClusky, Standing Buffalo and To-tay-go-nai, copies of paintings of prehistoric scenes, photographs of artifacts and important archeological sites from the American southwest, models of pueblos by Jackson, and twenty photographs of Mayan structures in Mexico by Desiré Charnay and in very rare instances, images of skulls.

What the criteria was, and who made the photographic selection for each volume, is  unknown, but as most volumes are in repositories with anthropological interests, it is likely that the original recipients were involved in the process to some degree.  What is obvious, however, from the variety of images in each volume, or set, is that each covers a comprehensive array of images representing all aspects of Native American life. 

The formats are non-standard and prints vary in size from approximately 2.75” x 3.75” to 12.5” x 19.5”.    The number of prints in an album or set would range from 20 to over 1000.

The individuals depicted in the albums were carefully posed by leading American photographers such as Alexander Gardner, Jeremiah Gurney, Thomas Easterly, John Fitzgibbon, and Julian Vannerson.  Archeological views of the American Southwest by William Henry Jackson and the specially commissioned photographs by Orloff Westmann further add to the rich variety of images included in the albums.  Many of the negatives carried cropping masks so that the final compositions of the portraits and scenes have a great artistic impact and immediacy while also informing the viewer. 

Researchers will note that Jackson did not credit the original photographers.   Most of the crediting and identification problems are associated with the 304 photographs covered by the Shindler Catalogue which form the core of the later Jackson Catalogues and the Hayden albums.  Shindler was indeed the original photographer of some of the negatives, and while he does credit himself as the copy photographer for some of the images, he was not always consistent.  Shindler also credits himself with the McClees studio portraits, however he merely had access to the negatives and only the printer.  In no case does he reference the original photographers of the cards loaned by Blackmore.   By the time of the Jackson recataloging, other photographers are only generally mentioned in the introduction.  The problem is compounded further, as although not Jackson’s intention, he is frequently credited as the photographer for all of the images because of his authorship of the catalogue.

Jackson’s numbers and catalog entries are reasonably reliable, however in-depth checking of image numbers to the 1874 and 1877 catalog entries reveals numerous problems.  While each successive cataloging project offered opportunities for adding new information, it also allowed for the loss of data and transposition of information.  Further renumbering of negatives themselves after Jackson’s cataloguing resulted in the removal of many of his numbers, and also provided additional opportunities for errors to enter the records.  Additional problems are encountered accurately identifying some of the subjects and correctly correlating individual images with specific catalog entries.             

In order to solve many of these problems, an examination of the original glass plate negatives covered by the Shindler Catalogue, as well as research on vintage prints in various world repositories was necessary.  The resulting data has been published in Native American Photography at the Smithsonian:  The Shindler Catalogue.  The information from this as well as amended identifications for most of the balance of the images accompanies the Western Reserve volumes.

Conceiving a project of this nature is easy; actual production is not.  The project could not have been a success without Blackmore’s financial support and determination.  The amount of work necessary to produce the volumes is awe-inspiring, taking years of travel around the United States to acquire images, photographers recording the native peoples, negatives being cataloged and published, and then nearly 1,000 fragile glass plates being printed by hand, captioned and mounted into albums.   Hayden noted in his 1877 Preface to the Jackson Catalogue,

“The collection being thus unique, and not to be reproduced at any expenditure of money, time, or labor, its value for ethnological purposes cannot easily be over-estimated.”¹⁵
FOOTNOTES:

1       John Tallis, 1851  History and Description of the Crystal Palace, and the Exhibition of the Worlds Industry in 1851, London Printing and Publishing Company; London, England. 

2      John Falconer, 1984 “Ethnographical Photography in India 1850-1900”, The Photographic Collector (U.K.), vol.5 #1, p. 16

3      McClees Studio circular, W.W. Turner papers, Acc. 76-112, Smithsonian Institution, National Anthropological Archives, Washington, D.C. 

4      Falconer, op cit.

5      William Blackmore collection, Diary #17, 1868, p. 21, History Library, Museum of New Mexico

6      ibid.

7      ibid., p. 22-23

8      ibid., p.17

9      The original plate negatives remained under the control of the Hayden Survey until 1879 when the four great surveys of the American West were combined into the United States Geological Survey and a Bureau of Ethnology, later the Bureau of American Ethnology, was created to house the ethnographic objects, photographs and research notes, and placed under the control of the Smithsonian Institution.  In 1965 the B.A.E. was phased out and the archives joined with the Smithsonian’s Division of Anthropology archives, and renamed the National Anthropological Archives.

10   William Henry Jackson, 1877, Descriptive Catalogue of  photographs of North American Indians, U. S. Department of the Interior, Miscellaneous Publications No. 9, Washington, D.C., p. iii

11   ibid., p iv

12   ibid. 

13   Blackmore to Hayden, Oct. 13, 1877, National Archives and Records Administration, Microfilm M623, Correspondence of the U.S. Geological Survey, roll 16

14   ibid.    Note:  These specific volumes have not yet been identified or located.

15   Jackson, op. cit., p. iii

Paula Richardson Fleming is a Photo Historian and Archivist who, before her retirement after thirty-three years, was the Photograph Archivist for the National Anthropological Archives of the Smithsonian Institution where she was responsible for the identification, arrangement, description, and care of  the Archives’ collection of nearly a half-million photographs including the original glass plate negatives and vintage prints from the Blackmore collection and the Hayden Survey albums created by Jackson.  She has authored and co-authored three classic texts in the field:

The North American Indians in Early Photographs  Paula Richardson Fleming and Judith Lynn Luskey, Harpercollins, 1986.The Grand Endeavors of American Indian Photograp, by Paula Richardson Fleming and Judith Lynn Luskey, Smithsonian Books, 1993.Native American Photography at the Smithsonian: The Shindler Catalog, Smithsonian Books, 2003.