Descriptive Catalogue of Photographs of North American Indians

A descriptive catalogue records and annotates a large photographic collection of North American Indigenous individuals, groups, villages, and scenes assembled by a federal survey. It inventories over a thousand negatives representing numerous families, tribes, and bands and supplies provenance, portrait types, plate sizes, and anthropometric measurements when obtainable. Entries combine portrait captions with ethnographic and historical notes drawn from delegates, agents, and standard references. Prefatory material discusses photographic methods, the practical and cultural difficulties of taking portraits, arrangements of plates, and a numerical index to help locate individual images.