Reading Photographs: Wanamaker Collection of American Indian Photographs
In 1906, John Wanamaker, owner of the Wanamaker department stores of Philadelphia and New York, hired Joseph Kossuth Dixon to be director of the Education Bureau. As part of this position, "Dr." Dixon--the doctorate was apparently purely honorary--gave daily public lectures in the store's 3000 seat auditorium illustrated with slides or the newly invented motion pictures.
Begining in 1908, Rodman Wanamaker, son of the store owner, sponsored a series of "Expeditions to the American Indian" headed by Dixon. That year, the Expedition journeyed to Crow Agency, Montana, to produce a motion picture of the epic poem, The Song of Hiawatha.
Eli Blackhawk as Hiawatha, Angela Star Blackhawk as Minnehaha
and Wolf Lies Down as the Arrowmaker [W339]
Dixon also made photographs in and around their camp on the
Little Big Horn, including shots of the
second annual Crow Fair, and of Crow Agency.
In 1909, Dixon gathered about fifty "chiefs"--actually
relatively few were political leaders--from several Plains and
Plateau tribes at the Crow Reservation to participate in what
Dixon called the "Last Great Indian Council." Afterwards, they
rode symbolically "into the sunset."
[W2608]
He also took pictures of living Indian survivors of the Battle of the Little Big Horn at the battlefield site.
Cheyenne Chief Two Moons at the Little Big Horn Battlefield [W2776]
Beginning that same year, 1909, Dixon and the Wanamakers
became actively involved in the American Indian policy reform
movement. They worked towards the building of a National Indian
Memorial, dedicated in February 1913, to be built on Fort Wadsworth
Island in New York Harbor; the statue would be larger than the Statue of
Liberty.Artist's rendering of the National Indian Memorial [W3069]
Later that summer, Dixon and his staff travelled to
over 150 reservations
across the country carrying a "Declaration of Allegiance" seeking
citizenship for the unenfranchised American Indians.
Cut Finger (Southern Arapaho) signing the Declaration of Allegiance at El Reno, OK, June 21, 1913. [W3170]
Following World War I, Dixon began documenting American
Indian participation in the United States military forces.
James Blackhawk (Cherokee), Fireman 2/c USN, on board USS North Dakota. [W6357]
Next Section