Edward Sheriff Curtis was born in 1868, grew up in Minnesota, and moved to the Puget Sound area with his family in 1887. In 1891 he established a photography business in Seattle. Within a few years, Curtis and his partner, Thomas Guptill, established themselves as the leading photographers on Puget Sound. In 1897 Guptill left the business, and its name was changed to Edward S. Curtis, Photographer and Photoengraver. In addition to photoengraving for other businesses and publications, Curtis's stock in trade consisted of fashionable wedding portraits, society portraits, dramatic prints of Northwest scenery, and photographs of local Indians. As his business prospered, Curtis was able to leave the studio in the charge of others so that he could photograph subjects which interested him.

In 1899 Curtis was chosen as the official photographer for the Harriman expedition, a scientific expedition to Alaska sponsored by railroad tycoon Edward Harriman. The expedition stimulated Curtis's interest in photographing Native Americans, exposed him to scientific methods, and provided him with a number of useful contacts. In the next several years, he continued his studio work as well as his Indian work, but from 1904 on, he spent most of his time away from Seattle. By 1903 or 1904 he began to form a plan for a photographic project that would be "a permanent record of all the important tribes of the U.S. that still retain to a considerable degree their primitive traditions and customs." Reflecting a general belief that Native Americans were a vanishing culture, Curtis embarked on a monumental project that was both artistic and ethnological. His Indian photographs emphasized traditional elements of dress and culture, deemphasizing acculturation. In this he mirrored the interests of ethnologists of the day.

Curtis's project benefited from broad public interest in the West. In 1904 Curtis went to the Smithsonian Institution's Bureau of American Ethnology and discussed his plans for a multi-volume collection of photos of Indians. Frederick Webb Hodge, a leader of the Ethnology Bureau, agreed to edit Curtis's collection, The North American Indian . In 1904 Curtis also met Theodore Roosevelt, who became an enthusiastic supporter of the project. Curtis organized an Eastern tour in 1905; his exhibitions in Washington and New York resulted in sales of his pictures, patronage for his fieldwork, and a commission from Scribners magazine for four illustrated articles. In 1906 Curtis sought financial support from J. P. Morgan, who initially agreed to give Curtis $15,000 a year for five years to research, write, and publish 20 volumes of The North American Indian . Each volume included ethnological text illustrated with 75 small photogravure prints, plus a companion portfolio of 36 copper photogravure plates. The volumes were printed on handmade paper with fine engravings and bound in Moroccan leather. The first two volumes were published in Apr., 1908, but the project was not completed until 1930, when volumes 19 and 20 were released. By this time, Morgan and the Morgan estate had contributed half of the project's total cost of $1,500,000.

Curtis concentrated his study on the tribes west of the Mississippi, from New Mexico to Alaska. He began his work in the Southwest in 1904 and made his last field trip, to Alaska, in 1927. He studied over eighty tribes and took 40,000 photographs. He attempted to participate as much as possible in the daily and ceremonial life of each tribe. Although not academically trained, Curtis and his assistants conducted extensive fieldwork. With his assistant, William Myers, Curtis recorded many songs (now in the University of Indiana archives) and amassed information on Indian life. Myers did most of the writing for North American Indian after the first two volumes.

The project suffered a number of delays and temporary setbacks. By 1907 Curtis's reputation had grown and his photographs enjoyed popular success, but he was continually short of funds to cover the cost of the project. He spent the warmer months of each year in the field, photographing and conducting research with his crew, and the rest of the year raising money or promoting the project. There was a six-year lapse between the publication of volumes 11 and 12 due to delays caused by World War I. After the war public interest in Curtis's work had waned and he gave up trying to make advance subscription sales of future volumes. In 1917, after a divorce and a loss of the Seattle studio, Curtis moved to Los Angeles and set up a new studio there. In addition to his studio work and efforts finishing up The North American Indian , Curtis pursued an interest in mining and occasionally took jobs as a cameraman on early Hollywood movies. He died on October 21, 1952, in Los Angeles.

Florence Graybill was Edward Curtis's middle daughter. As a child she was taken on some of his field trips. In the summer of 1922 she assisted Curtis with his work among the Indians of northern California and southern Oregon. Together with Victor Boesen she published Edward Sheriff Curtis: Visions of a Vanishing Race in 1976. She died in 1987.