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Course & Subject Guides

Edward S. Curtis and The North American Indian, Spring-Summer 2018: Arizona: the Hopi, 1900-1919

This library guide is an overview of the Archives & Special Collection exhibit on Edward S. Curtis and The North American Indian.

A Chronology of the Life of Edward S. Curtis: Theodore Roosevelt, Geronimo, and Alexander Upshaw, 1904-1905

                 Map of Alaska and map legend    Map of continental U.S.

Map of North America: Showing the research areas, cities, and rail routes important in Edward Curtis's Life by Eric Elias. In Lawlor, Laurie. Shadow Catcher: The Life and Work of Edward S. Curtis. New York, [1994].

1904

  • JUNE.  Theodore Roosevelt invites Curtis to Sagamore Hill on Long Island Sound, New York, to photograph the Roosevelt children:  Alice, Theodore Jr., Kermit, Quentin, Archie, and Nicholas, after seeing a Curtis photograph published in Ladies’ Home Journal.  Curtis also photographs Roosevelt’s portrait, which he finishes as an orotone print.
  • Curtis begins using a film camera in his fieldwork for The North American Indian.

  • DECEMBER.  Curtis shows his hand-colored lantern slides and moving pictures of the Indians of the Southwest to an audience at a rented hall in Seattle.  He receives rave reviews in The Oregonian, the Portland, Oregon newspaper.

Curtis device

1905

  • MARCH 4.  Curtis is invited to photograph the presidential inauguration of Theodore Roosevelt in Washington, D. C. on March 4, 1905.  Geronimo is also invited to attend the inaugural ceremony, where he agrees to be photographed by Curtis.

  • SPRING.  Hires Alexander B. Upshaw, son of the Apsaroke chief, Crazy Pend d’Oreille.   Upshaw begins his collaboration with Edward S. Curtis as an interpreter and investigator, providing Curtis with remarkable and unfettered access to the Northern Plains tribes.

  • DECEMBER.  Curtis rents and exhibits his photographs in the ballroom at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York.  Louise Morgan Satterlee, the daughter of J. Pierpont Morgan, is in attendance.

Curtis device