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Native American and Indigenous Peoples: Photography Collections

A guide to collections that depict Native American and Indigenous peoples from the late 19th-century to mid-20th century.

Images from the Collections

Southwest

Horatio N. Rust Photograph Collection
(5 collections) Horatio Nelson Rust’s Photographs of people at Cabazon, Soboba, and Yuma.
Call number: photCL 7, photCL 8, photCL 9, photCL 10, photCL 11

A.C. Vroman Photograph Collection
Photographs made by Adam Clark Vroman, ca. 1892-1909, including scenes from his travels to Pueblo villages of the Southwest. Of particular significance is Vroman's handwritten journal of a trip to see the Snake Dance at Walpi, Arizona, in 1895, written sequentially on the back of 19 mounted photographs.
Call number: photCL 86

William Henry Holmes Photograph Album of the U.S. Geological Survey of the Territories and Washington D.C., approximately 1868-approximately 1877
Photographs of the American West including views by John K. Hillers of Paiute Indians (1873), made in Nevada and Utah during the United States Survey under John Wesley Powell. There is also one view of Nez Perce Indians in front of a tepee.
Call number: photCL 96

A. Frank Randall Photographs of Apache Indians
Studio and field photographs taken between 1883 and 1888 of Apache Indians during the United States military campaign to capture Apache renegades during the Apache Wars. 
Call number: photCL 101

Earle Forrest Photographs of Hopi Indians
Photographs of Hopi natives and their families, villages of Oraibi and Mishongnovi, and various rituals and ceremonies.
Call number: photCL 126

Elizabeth Compton Hegemann Photograph Collection of Navajo Indians and the Southwest
Photographs of Hegemann's travels through the Navajo Indian Reservation and the Grand Canyon from 1922 to 1934, and Southwest Indian life and archaeological monuments.
Call number: photCL 125

Photograph Album of Salt Lake City, San Francisco, and Other City Views
Some views of Native Americans of the Southwest and Great Plains, including Paiute Navajo, Pueblo, and Bannock Indians.
Call number: photCL 135

William E. Irwin Photographs of Great Plains Indians
Disbound album of portrait photographs of Plains Indians, taken by Irwin from the 1890s to early 1900s, documenting the Chiricahua Apache, Comanche, and Kiowa peoples.
Call number: photCL 161

A. A. Hart Stereographs of the Central Pacific Railroad
Some images of Native Americans, including Paiute and Shoshone Indians.
Call number: photCL 184

Philip Reade Collection of Native American Photographs by William S. Soule
Studio portraits of Native Americans from the Midwestern and Southwestern United States taken during the American Indian Wars, as well as views of their homes and camps on reservations. 
Call number: photCL 189

Photograph album of Southwest Pueblos and portraits of Indian leaders, 1867-1890
A disbound album of photographs of Hopi pueblos of the Southwest, and studio portraits of Native American leaders who visited Washington, D.C. on delegation trips.
Call number: photCL 190

Photographs of Indians of the Southwest by E.A. Bonine
Studio portraits of Native Americans from southwestern Arizona taken in Bonine's photography tent in Yuma, 1880-1883. Call number: photCL 200

Photographs of Towns and Indians of the Southwest
Photographs focusing on Apache and Pueblo Indians and the pueblos of Isleta, Jemez, Taos, Zuni, Laguna, and Walpi, ca. 1880s-1890s. 
Call number: photCL 215

George W. Ingalls Photograph Collection
Glass plate negatives and prints collected by Major George W. Ingalls, a United States Indian agent, 1872-1875, who worked among Paiute and other tribes in the American West, as well as among Great Plains, Great Basin and Eastern tribes relegated to Indian Territory.
Call number: photCL 275

Stereographs of Indians of the Southwest, California, and other views by George Wharton James and G. L. Rose, approximately 1900
Stereographs of the American Southwest featuring images of Native Americans, including Cahuilla Indians, and scenes in California, New Mexico, and Arizona. Call number: photCL 294

Mary Hunter Austin Collection 
Photographs of Mary Austin, one of the early authors of the American Southwest, including images of Southwest Indians and pueblos, art and artifacts.
Call number: mssAU 1-5456 ; photCL 296

The Frederick Monsen Ethnographic Indian Photographs
Focuses on Native Americans of the Southwest in mostly candid views taken in Pueblo communities, ca. 1886-1911, as well as portraits, ceremonies, dances, pueblos, and scenes of daily life.
Call number: photCL 312

Carl Moon Photographs of Indians of the Southwest and Oklahoma
Photographs of Native Americans living in Arizona, New Mexico and Oklahoma between 1904 and 1917, featuring portraits and candid views of people in their daily activities, pueblos, and dance ceremonies. Call number: photCL 313

Sigurd Russell Photograph Collection of Southwest Indians and Schools
Photographs and postcards focusing on Navajo and Hopi Indians and various Indian schools and schoolchildren throughout Arizona, mostly in 1927.
Call number: photCL 399

George P. Thresher Negative Collection of the Southwest
Glass plate and film negatives focusing on the American Southwest and Native Americans of the region, particularly of Arizona, and the Gila River crossing area, from ca. 1898 to 1910. Tribes depicted include Yuma, Apache, Navajo, Maricopa, Pima, and Papago (Tohono O’Odham).
Call number: photCL 449

Photograph Album from Charles F. Lummis to Susanita Del Valle
The gift album features a set of photographs that Lummis used to champion Rancho Camulos as the original home of the fictional character Ramona from Helen Hunt Jackson’s 1888 novel.
Call number: photCL 504

Edith Metcalf Collection of Navajo Indian Lantern Slides
Depicts Baptist missionary work with Navajo Indians at Two Gray Hills Mission near Ship Rock, New Mexico, at the beginning of the 20th-century.  Call number: photCL 517

Reverend Berry Edmiston collection of photographs of Apache peoples, approximately 1890s
Glass plate negatives and lantern slides of Apache people at an encampment in Arizona, approximately 1899.
Call number: photCL 623

The Arizonian, views of Arizona and the Colorado River, 1868
Photographs of Arizona river steamboats and shipyards on the Colorado River and portraits of Native Americans of various Arizona tribes.
Call number: photOV 11398-11400

Studio portraits of Native Americans of New Mexico and scenes of Santa Fe, New Mexico and surrounding territory, approximately 1880-approximately 1890s
Cabinet cards with portraits, city scenes, and a few landscapes depicting Indian camps and the surrounding countryside. Call number: photPF 20751-20774