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Lesson 3

How and why did portrait photographer Edward Curtis document Native American figures and culture in the early 20th century? We will learn who early 20th-century photojournalist Edward Curtis was and how he engaged in a life-long quest to document American Indian tribes, customs, and figures. To study his approach to photojournalism, we will analyze several of his most iconic photos.

Lesson Goals

  • Can I recognize points of connection among Curtis’s photographic images, their visual elements, and their perspectives to make logical, objective comparisons?

  • Can I recognize and interpret language and sentence structures to deepen my understanding of an informational text about the work of Edward S. Curtis?

Texts

Core

  • Digital Access
    • Chief Joseph, Edward S. Curtis, Charles Deering McCormick Library of Special Collections, Northwestern University Libraries, 1903
    • “Edward Curtis: Coming to Light — Shadow Catcher,” George Horse Capture, PBS, 2001
    • “Edward Curtis: Photographing the North American Indian,” Smithsonian Magazine, YouTube
    • “Edward Curtis’ Epic Project to Photograph Native Americans,” Gilbert King, Smithsonian Magazine, 2012
    • “Edward S. Curtis’s The North American Indian,” Northwestern University
    • Ogalala War Party, Edward S. Curtis, Charles Deering McCormick Library of Special Collections, Northwestern University Libraries, 1907
    • “Photogravures: Prints, Not Photographs,” Smithsonian Libraries
    • Princess Angeline, Edward S. Curtis, Charles Deering McCormick Library of Special Collections, Northwestern University Libraries, 1899
    • The Mussel Gatherer, Edward S. Curtis, Charles Deering McCormick Library of Special Collections, Northwestern University Libraries, 1899

Materials

Tools

Reference Guides

Question Sets

Editable Google Docs

Activity 1: View – Write – Discuss

We will examine several famous photographs by Edward Curtis and begin to learn about his early 20th-century efforts to Capture images of Native Americans before their cultures vanished.

Step 1

Access the Northwestern University website, which allows you to search a collection of images from Edward S. Curtis’s The North American Indian. On this site, you can access several thousand early 20th-century photographic images of Native Americans taken by photographer Edward S. Curtis.

As you explore this primary research resource, note that the site provides you with images that can be expanded to fit the screen and downloaded, and also that each image is accompanied by a section that allows you to learn more about it. You will use this resource to locate and examine Curtis photographs throughout this section of the unit.

Use the “Search within collection” field to find the first photo of a Native American subject taken by Curtis in 1899 by typing “Princess Angeline” into the text box.

With a partner, study and discuss this photo, recording notes about what you observe on a Visual Analysis Tool. After examining Princess Angeline’s face, discuss this question:

  1. What do you think might be the story behind this early Curtis image and the woman he depicted?

Join with another discussion pair and compare your observations and speculations about Princess Angeline’s story.

Step 2

With your discussion group, search for and examine another photograph of Princess Angeline titled The Mussel Gatherer. As you study the photo and note its visual details, discuss these questions:

  1. How does this second photo of Princess Angeline compare to the portrait you examined earlier?

  2. What additional details of Princess Angeline’s story might this photo capture or suggest?

In your Learning Log, make entries for the two Princess Angeline photos and record observations you or others have made about them.

Step 3

As a class, discuss the meanings and distinctions of two related terms often used to describe images and their cultural contexts: archetype and stereotype.

Use the same search process to find a third Curtis photo, taken in 1907, titled Ogalala War-Party.

Make an entry in your Learning Log for this photo.

With your partner, record observations about the photo and what it depicts. Then scroll down (or follow the “More Details” link) to read the caption that accompanies this photo:

Here is depicted a group of Sioux warriors as they appeared in the days of intertribal warfare.

Discuss these questions:

  1. How does this image of a Sioux war party relate to what you may have previously learned or perceived about Native American history and culture?

  2. What additional visual details does Curtis’s caption for the photograph make you pay attention to?

  3. What does this sentence and the past-tense verb “appeared” suggest about the truth of this photographic representation?

  4. Do you think this image conveys a cultural archetype or stereotype? Why?

Step 4

Find a fourth Curtis photo, a portrait of Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce tribe titled Chief Joseph taken in 1903. As you search, note the many other Curtis photos of Native Ameican chiefs. Make an entry in your Learning Log for this photo.

Discuss what you observe in this photograph and how it compares to the other two you examined. Share what you know about Chief Joseph in response to this question:

  1. Who was Chief Joseph and why is his story important in the history of Native Americans?

Then scroll down to the caption for this photo and read what Edward Curtis said about his subject in a volume of The North American Indian:

The historical effort to retain what was rightly their own makes an unparalleled story in the annals of the Indian's resistance to the greed of the whites. That they made this final effort is not surprising. Indeed, it is remarkable that so few tribes rose in a last struggle against such dishonored and relentless objection.

  1. What does this caption suggest about Curtis’s perspective on his subject?

Step 5

As a class, discuss your responses to the text-specific questions and what you have already discovered about American photojournalist Edward Curtis and his photos documenting Native American figures, culture, and history.

Activity 2: Read – Discuss – Write

We will learn more about the identity, work, and significance of Edward S. Curtis as a pioneer of modern photojournalism and a self-described ethnographer of Native Americans. As we read an informational article, we will learn to use the Attending to Details Tool.

Step 1

Access a short introductory article that is presented to accompany the PBS documentary “Edward Curtis: Coming to Light - Shadow Catcher” written by George Horse Capture on the PBS American Masters website.

On your own, read the first paragraph of the article, noting anything you learn in response to this question:

  1. Who was Edward Curtis?

Study the self-portrait that accompanies the article, noting what you observe and wonder about Curtis’s representation of himself.

As a class, discuss what you learn and observe about Curtis.

Discuss the meaning of the term ethnographer and whether this term might be applied to Edward Curtis and his work. Make an entry for this word in your Vocabulary Journal.

Step 2

Read down to Paragraph 5, noting additional details about Curtis and his work.

As a class, discuss the first two sentences of Paragraph 5:

One of Curtis’ major goals was to record as much of the people’s way of traditional life as possible. Not content to deal only with the present population, and their arts and industries, he recognized that the present is a result of the past, and the past dimension must be included, as well.

  1. What do you think the author means when he says about Curtis: “he recognized that the present is a result of the past”?

Step 3

Follow along as your teacher introduces or reviews the Attending to Details Tool to help you do a close reading of a written text. Note how similar this tool is to the Visual Analysis Tool you have already used, in terms of its organization and thinking process. With this tool, instead of looking for key visual details in a photograph, you will now be looking for key words, phrases, or examples that help you analyze the text in relation to a text-specific question.

Use the tool in the following way:

  1. Write down the guiding question in the space provided at the top. Read the text, paying attention to details that relate to the guiding question. Depending on how long the section of text is, you might find several examples. Use the Attend to Details row to write down the details that most strongly relate to the guiding question.

  2. Make connections between the details you recorded and the guiding question in the Think About the Details row. This is often the "reasoning" that is asked for when you make an observation or claim, and then use evidence to support it. It makes your thinking visible to others and helps you remember what that thinking was if you come back to this later.

  3. In the Express Your Understanding row, write new connections, observations, ideas, or questions that result from reading and analyzing the text.

Step 4

Read the rest of Paragraph 5, noting what the implications of Curtis’s view of native culture were for how he approached The North American Indian. Consider this question as you record details and your thinking about them on the Attending to Details Tool:

  1. When Curtis “presented his subjects in a traditional way whenever possible”—even setting up reenactments—was he acting as an objective photojournalist, as an ethnographer, or as a more subjective storyteller?

Step 5

As a class, discuss the details you have noticed, your analyses of them, and how you have used them to decide whether you see Curtis (thus far) as an objective photojournalist, as an ethnographer, or as a more subjective storyteller. Use details from your reading and examination of photographs to support your position.

Activity 3: Read – View – Discuss

We will learn more about Curtis’s work and photographic techniques by reading a short smithsonian article and watching a short smithsonian video: “Edward Curtis: Photographing The American Indian.”

Step 1

Access and read the Smithsonian Libraries short informational article titled “Curtis’ Technique – Photogravures: Prints, Not Photographs.”

Like Mathew Brady and Alexander Gardner before him, Edward Curtis was still using wet-plate photography for the field photographs he took in the early twentieth century, even though newer methods had begun to emerge.

Step 2

As a class, discuss what you learn about how Edward Curtis extended the process of wet-plate photography through the photogravure printing process.

Note how this process influenced the characteristics of the four Curtis images you have examined.

Step 3

Considering the qualities of the images Curtis created, discuss a term that has been associated with his work: romanticism. Add a definition for this word to your Vocabulary Journal.

Step 4

Access and watch the short Smithsonian video “Edward Curtis: Photographing the American Indian.” The video is embedded in the article, “Edward Curtis’ Epic Project to Photograph Native Americans.”

As you watch, consider these questions:

  1. What do you notice in the Curtis photo that accompanies the title to the video, Canon de Chelly?

  2. What do you think the film’s Smithsonian narrator (Jake Homiak) means when he characterizes Curtis’s style as “ethnographic romanticism”?

  3. What more do you learn about Curtis’s The North American Indian and how he created (and sometimes manipulated) his photos?

  4. Why does the narrator suggest that among Native Americans, Curtis’s work has a “very strong resonance”?

  5. Do you agree from what you have seen so far that Curtis’s representations are “enobling”? Why or why not?

As a class, discuss your responses to the video and these questions, especially the last two.

Activity 4: Read – Write – Discuss

We will interact with the words we defined to cement our understanding of their meaning.

Work with a partner or group to respond to the vocabulary exercises, as directed by your teacher.

Activity 5: Read

For homework, we will do a first reading of a smithsonian article and consider a set of text-specific questions about its depiction of Curtis’s work.

For homework, access and read the Smithsonian Magazine article by Pulitzer Prize-winning author and historian Gilbert King (from the same site as the video): “Edward Curtis’ Epic Project to Photograph Native Americans." Consider these text-specific questions as you read, and prepare to discuss your answers at the start of the next lesson:

  1. What more do you learn about Edward Curtis, The North American Indian project, and how he came to dedicate his life to that work?

  2. How do the information in this article, its perspective, and its tone compare to the PBS article from George Horse Capture? Why might the two writers’ perspectives on Curtis and his work be different?

  3. Why do you think that Curtis came to be endeared to and trusted by the Native Americans he studied? Why might they have named him “Shadow Catcher”?

  4. What ironic sacrifices did Curtis make in order to complete his 20-volume opus, The North American Indian?

  5. What are the two sides mentioned as to how critics have responded to Curtis and his work? In what ways might it be characterized as “photographic fakery”? As conveying the “dignity, universal humanity and majesty” of his Native American subjects?