Descriptive Catalogue of Photographs of North American Indians

In the late 1870s, a photographer and a geologist set out to document what they understood might soon vanish. William Henry Jackson, working under the United States Geological Survey, spent twenty-five years creating over a thousand negatives capturing more than twenty-five tribes across North America. This catalogue represents one of the earliest systematic attempts to preserve the visual record of Indigenous peoples through photography, a technology many subjects distrusted or feared. The images here-portraits, ceremonial scenes, daily life-documentation that required patience, persuasion, and sometimes outright negotiation with people who saw the camera as something more than a machine. The result is a complicated, invaluable artifact: a window into tribal diversity, dress, and customs at a pivotal historical moment, just as westward expansion began reshaping everything these communities had known. Jackson's accompanying notes provide ethnographic detail alongside the assumptions and limitations of his era. This is essential reading for anyone interested in American history, early photography, or the complex ethics of cultural preservation.