1906
Edward Curtis and the staged photograph
The photographer behind The North American Indian, and what he changed.
The funding
Mr. Curtis, I want to see these photographs in books - the most beautiful set of books ever published.J. P. Morgan to Edward S. Curtis, 1906, quoted by Smithsonian Libraries
Smithsonian Libraries: Morgan agreed to pay $15,000 a year for five years. In exchange he would receive 25 sets of the volumes and 500 prints. The money covered equipment, interpreters, ethnographic writers and field costs. The twenty volumes were published between 1907 and 1930.
The clock
In the 1910 photograph "In a Piegan Lodge," a small clock sits between two seated men. In a later print the clock is gone, erased from the photographic plate. JSTOR Daily calls it one of the most infamous alterations of Curtis's career.
The headdress
Literary historian Shamoon Zamir describes Curtis's photograph of his Crow interpreter Alexander B. Upshaw as "an illustration of the triumph of romance over reality." Upshaw wore Western clothes and neatly parted hair every day. In the photograph he wears a feather headdress, chest bared. (JSTOR Daily)
What it means
Curtis's photographs were paid for by one patron, over a fixed term, with a fixed return in sets and prints. Some were staged, costumed or retouched to fit his idea of what an Indian should look like.
A photograph is not a record of a day. It is a record of what the photographer chose to show.
Sources
Smithsonian Libraries, Frontier Photographer: Edward S. Curtis
The Morgan Library & Museum, Curtis, Morgan, and The North American Indian
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