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.
The photogravure plates were used in the printing of The North American Indian portfolio. The original photographs used to make the photogravures were made circa 1903-1926 and the photogravure plates were made in 1907-1930. The vast majority of his prints, were printed as photogravures produced for The North American Indian. Curtis used two standard sizes, 5 x 7″ (or reverse), and approximately 12 x 16″ (or reverse). He favored three hand-made papers: Japanese Vellum, Dutch “Van Gelder,” and Japanese “Tissue,” also known as India Proof Paper.
Arranged according to location in the published volumes of The North American Indian portfolio with plate numbers listed below.
Original copper photogravure plates from the North American Indian portfolio by Edward Curtis.
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Text from Curtis caption: "The scene is the narrow bench some hundreds of feet above the level of Spokane river, on its northern bank and a few miles above its confluence with the Columbia."
Volume 7, plate no. 243
Text from Curtis caption: "Two distinct cultural areas are represented in the costume of this damsel. The familiar beadworked, deerskin dress is an acquisition from the plains culture, while the basketry hat and the shell-bead necklace hail from the pacific slope. Note the skin of the deer's tail fastened in front at the collar, as an aid in removing the garment."
Volume 8, plate no. 269
Text from Curtis caption: "Few aspects of Indian life are more interesting to the casual visitor than the demeanor of the children, with the coy bashfulness, their mischievous, sparkling eyes, their doubtful hesitating just the other side of friendship."
Volume 8, plate no. 270
Text from Curtis caption: "Text from Curtis caption: "The Columbia near its mouth spreads in a broad estuary between shores now low and flat and again bold and wooded. The conflict between winds, tides, and current sometimes raises seas that threaten even power-driven craft, and the natives who formerly swarmed in this region were necessarily clever canoemen."
Volume 8, plate no. 286
Text from Curtis caption: "This picture was made a few miles above the Cascades of the Columbia."
Volume 8, plate no. 288
Text from Curtis caption: "Klickitat river flows through what was the territory of the Klickitat, a bold, roving, gypsy-like group of Shahaptian bands. See Volume VII, page 37. The picture, which shows one of a succession of beautiful scenes near the mouth of this stream, accompanies Volume VII for the reason that the land at its junction with the Columbia was formerly Chinookan territory, and in fact it was never altogether given up to the Klickitat."
Volume 8, plate no. 289
Volume 8, plate no. 290
Volume 8, plate no. 291
Text from Curtis caption: "An old Chinook woman with staff and clam basket makes her way slowly over the mud flats of the southern end of Shoalwater bay, in Washington. Chiih (Burden-Basket, Catherine Hawks), is one of a very few survivors of the populous tribe that formerly occupied that part of the state of Washington lying between the middle of Shoalwater bay and the Columbia."
Volume 8, plate no. 292
Text from Curtis caption: "From the fishing station the salmon are carried to the house, distant perhaps a quarter of a mile or more, in an open-mesh bag ("ihlkabenih") borne on the back and supported by means of a tump-line passing across the forehead."
Volume 9, plate no. 277
Text from Curtis caption: "The Chinookan tribes of the Columbia obtained their canoes for the greater part from the coast tribes of Washington. The woman in the picture is the daughter of the former Cascade chief Tamahl, quoted in Volume VII, pages 26-28."
Volume 9, plate no. 285
Volume 9, plate no. 294
Volume 9, plate no. 310
Text from Curtis caption: "When a heavy burden is to be borne, the trumpline crosses the forehead and the bearer walks stooping."
Volume 9, plate no. 311
Text from Curtis caption: "The manufacture of tule mats for use as carpets, house-walls, mattresses, capes, and sails is still in many localities an important duty of women."
Volume 9, plate no. 315
Text from Curtis caption: "The Snoqualmu were a vigorous tribe inhabiting the watershed of Snoqualmie river, Washington."
Volume 9, plate no. 319
Volume 9, plate no. 321
Volume 9, plate no. 322
Text from Curtis caption: "A maiden of noble birth clad in goat-hair robe."
Volume 9, plate no. 323
Text from Curtis caption: "The view includes the deep slope of Tsohelim mountain and a portion of the village Henipsum at the mouth of Cowichan river, Vancouver island."
Volume 9, plate no. 324
Text from Curtis caption: "The scene looks out from the mouth of Cowichan river upon Cowichan harbor."
Volume 9, plate no. 325
Volume 9, plate no. 327
Text from Curtis caption: "On the shore of this beautiful lake, which is near Duncans, British Columbia, the Cowichan of Vancouver island obtain their supplies of tules."
Volume 9, plate no. 328
Text from Curtis caption: "This young chief of an almost extinct tribe resident on Quatsino sound, near the northwestern end of Vancouver island, is wearing one of the nose-ornaments formerly common among Kwakiutl nobility. The dentalium shells of which they consisted were obtained in vast numbers in certain waters of the sound. See Volume X, page 44."
Volume 10, plate no. 331
Text from Curtis caption: "The Tsawatenok are an inland river tribe, depending on the sea for their sustenance much less than do most Kwakiutl tribes, and to an equal degree devoting more time to hunting and trapping in the mountains. Their territory lies along Kingcome river, at the head of the long, mainland indentation known as Kingcome inlet."
Volume 10, plate no. 332
Text from Curtis caption: "The principal chief of the Qagyuhl is depicted in a "button blanket" (which is simply a woollen blanket ornamented with hundreds of large mother-of-pearl buttons), cedar-bark neck-ring, and cedar-bark head-band. His right hand grasps a shaman's rattle, and his left the carved staff which, as a kind of emblem of office, a man always holds when making a speech. The button designs along the edge of the blanket represent "coppers" (see page 144). The tlu'wulahu ceremony is described on page 243 of Volume."
Volume 10, plate no. 333
Volume 10, plate no. 335
Text from Curtis caption: "This high-born clam-digger is wearing aboriginal costume consisting of a cedar-bark blanket, used as a robe, a cedar-bark rain-cape, a spruce-root "chief's hat", and woolen ankle-bands."
Volume 10, plate no. 339
Volume 10, plate no. 342
Volume 10, plate no. 345
Text from Curtis caption: "In physique and intelligence the Quatsino seem inferior to the other Kwakiutl tribes. This plate illustrates the artificial deformation of the head, which formerly was quite general on the North Pacific coast. The process is described in Volume X, page 52."
Volume 10, plate no. 346
Volume 10, plate no. 347
Volume 10, plate no. 348
Text from Curtis caption: "The figure at the bottom of the column in the foreground, with the painting on the front of the house, represents a raven. When a feast or a dance is to be held in this house, the guests enter through the raven's beak, the lower mandible of which swings up and down on a pivot. When a guest steps beyond the pivot, his weight caused the beak to clap shut, and thus the mythic raven symbolically "swallows" the tribesman one by one. A view from the other end of this street is shown in the illustration facing page 8, Volume X. "
Volume 10, plate no. 350
Text from Curtis caption: "The head is a good illustration of the extremes to which the Quatsino Sound tribes carried the practice of artificially lengthening the skulls of their infants."
Voume 10, plate no. 354
Volume 10, plate no. 363
Volume 11, plate no. 385
Text from Curtis caption: "This plate conveys an excellent impression of the character of much of the Vancouver Island coast, with its rugged, tide-washed rocks, thickly timbered lowland, and lofty mountains in the distance."
Volume 11, plate no. 389
Text from Curtis caption: "Huge quantities of halibut are taken by the Makah at Cape Flattery, and the flesh is sliced thin and dried for storage."
Volume 11, plate no. 393
Text from Curtis caption: "Note the great size of the harpoon-shaft. Indian whalers implanted the harpoon-point by thrusting, not by hurling, the weapon."
Volume 11, plate no. 395
Text from Curtis caption: "A small humpback whale (Megapter) lies partially butchered on the beach at Neah Bay."
Volume 11, plate no. 396