Photographs, 1897-1905

Author / Creator

Jones, William A. (William Arthur), 1844-1912

Available as

Physical

Summary

Photographs documenting the agencies, schools, reservations, and Native Americans under the jurisdiction of William Arthur Jones while he was U.S. Commissioner of Indian Affairs from 1897 to 1905. ...

Photographs documenting the agencies, schools, reservations, and Native Americans under the jurisdiction of William Arthur Jones while he was U.S. Commissioner of Indian Affairs from 1897 to 1905. Many of the school and reservation images provide insight into the federal government's attempt to "civilize" Native Americans, especially through the education of Indian children.

Included are images of school and agency buildings, Indian pupils in posed groups and engaged in vocational training, various types of Indian dwellings, and Indian dancers, agricultural workers, and cowboys. Extensively covered are the Warm Springs Indian Reservation in Oregon, the Pima Agency in Arizona, and various schools and agencies in Oklahoma and New Mexico. The portrait series contains a number of images by G. W. Parsons of Osage Indians. Other portraits and photographs document Cherokee, Creek, Ponca, Pueblo, and Sioux Indians; images of additional tribes are scattered throughout the collection.

Also included are photographs documenting the 1898 Ojibwa-Pillager Battle at Sugar Point, Minnesota; the Trans-Mississippi Exposition and Indian Congress held in Omaha, Nebraska; the first roll call of Troop L, 1st U.S. Cavalry, a largely Native American group of Rough Riders; and the Big Horn Ditch irrigation project on the Crow Reservation in Wyoming. Images by well known photographers Thomas Croft, J. H. Bratley, and Frank A. Rinehart are found throughout the collection.

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