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Curtis (Edward S.) papers
850111
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Contributing Institution:
Special Collections
Title: Edward S. Curtis papers
Creator:
Curtis, Edward S., 1868-1952
Identifier/Call Number: 850111
Physical Description:
10.3 Linear Feet
(8 boxes, 1 flatfile)
Date (inclusive): 1900-1978 (bulk 1903-1954)
Date (bulk): 1903-1954
Abstract: The Edward S. Curtis papers document all of the photographer's major projects, focusing on
The North American Indian, his major publication, the
Curtis Picture Musicale, and his full-length feature film
In the Land of the Head Hunters. The promotion and publication of these projects is particularly well-documented. The collection also contains the original
manuscript musical scores for both the
Curtis Picture Musicale and
In the Land of the Headhunters. Also included are typescripts and notes for books, lectures, and other writings. There is a small amount of Curtis's original
photographic material as well as miscellaneous personal and professional documents.
Physical Location: Request access to the physical materials described in this inventory through the
catalog record for this collection. Click here for the
access policy .
Language of Material: Collection material is in English.
Scope and Content of Collection
The Edward S. Curtis papers document Curtis's major projects, focusing on his seminal publication,
The North American Indian, the
Curtis Picture Musicale, and his full-length feature film
In the Land of the Head Hunters. The promotion and publication of these projects is particularly well-documented, and provides a picture of a highly-driven
personality who well knew the importance of publicity in garnering financial support for his visionary projects.
Series I comprises manuscripts and publications and includes materials related to
The North American Indian (1907-1930), typescripts for Curtis's books
Indian Days of Long Ago (1914) and
In the Land of the Head-hunters (1915; written after the film was made and with a slightly different title), and several undated, and apparently unpublished,
typescripts for lectures or writings. The series is divided into three subseries.
Series I.A documents Curtis's efforts to promote
The North American Indian, ranging from newspaper articles and reviews to publicity materials and subscription agreements. Also included are partial
lists of photographs taken for the project and a list of photographs deposited for copyright.
Additional manuscript and publication materials including the typescripts for Curtis's books
Indian Days of Long Ago and
In the Land of the Head-hunters, as well as undated and apparently unpublished typescripts and notes, are found in Series I.B. Manuscript titles include
"The Forgotten Map Maker," "Peyote Ceremony According to Charles More," "The Peyote Cult," and "The Indian and His Religious
Freedom." These typescripts may in some cases relate to Curtis's lectures. Copies of a few articles published by Curtis and
copies of published materials reproducing images by Curtis are found in Series I.C.
Series II documents Curtis's attempts to promote his photography and raise funds for
NAI through photograph exhibitions, lectures, lantern slide shows, movies, picture musicales, and films. Starting around 1903,
Curtis began giving exhibition talks and stereopticon lantern slide lectures during the months that he was not working in
the field as a way to raise funds for his fieldwork. He lectured extensively in the eastern United States as well as in the
Pacific Northwest. Series II.A. includes several undated lecture typescripts. They contain substantial information, based
on first-hand observation, on the cultures of Northwest, Southwestern, Pueblo, and Plains indigenous American groups, and
include such aspects as population, religious and cermonial practices, and daily life. Other lectures discuss his experiences
in the field and the difficulty of financing research and publications.
The Curtis Picture Musicale (1911-1912) was a more ambitious money-raising scheme with a format based on the concept of a lantern slide lecture, a popular
entertainment of the time. This elaborate multimedia production began with an orchestral prelude composed by Henry F. Gilbert.
Curtis's lecture was accompanied by both hand-colored lantern slides and motion pictures, along with orchestral numbers composed
by Gilbert for each segment. Included in Series II.B. are materials related to the
Curtis Picture Musicale such as prospectuses, announcements, publicity materials, and programs for the production, as well as Gilbert's complete
score for the musicale and additional related music by Gilbert.
Curtis also conceived of his film
In the Land of the Head Hunters (1914), an epic story of love and war among the Kwakwaka'wakwa in pre-contact times, as a way to raise funds for his fieldwork
and the
NAI project. Included in Series II.C. are preliminary materials for the film such as typescript narratives regarding the genesis
of the film, typescript prospectuses for the Continental Film Company, scripts for scenes, shooting schedules, a list of scenes
shot in 1913, film stills, a movie poster, and John J. Braham's manuscript score for the film.
A small number of hand-colored and tinted lantern slides, such as would have been used by Curtis for his various slide lectures
and presentations, comprise Series II.D. These are mostly Pacific Northwest Native American scenes, although a few Navajo
and California Native American images are included.
The personal and professional documents in Series III include posthumous articles about Curtis and materials regarding the
disposition of Curtis's manuscripts, recordings, and artifact collection. There are a few letters sent or received by Curtis
and a few pieces of original artwork. Also included is a transcript of an interview with M. E. Magnuson, Curtis's son-in-law,
conducted by Conrad Angore, G. Ray Hawkins, and a Mr. Lee, on 19 September 1978. The interview relates mostly to the dispersal
of the Curtis collection of Native American artifacts.
The collection was processed and finding aid written by Beth Ann Guynn in 2008. The finding aid was encoded by Beth Ann Guynn
and Linda Kleiger in 2014.
Edward S. Curtis papers, 1900-1978, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Accession no. 850111.
http://hdl.handle.net/10020/cifa850111
The headline for a 1905 article in the
Seattle Times hailed Edward Sheriff Curtis as "Artist, Explorer, Clubman, Photographer, Historian and President's Friend." Indeed, by this
point in his career, Curtis was all these things and more. Now known primarily for his photographs of indigenous North Americans,
Curtis's enduring achievement was a monumental, heroic, and theatrical portrayal of the peoples whom he saw as a "vanishing
race." Curtis's depiction of Native Americans was filtered through his interpretation of their pre-contact rather than their
current way of life.
Born near Whitewater, Wisconsin in 1868, Curtis grew up in Wisconsin and Minnesota. He built his first camera when he was
12 years old. In 1887, at the age of 19, he and his father traveled to the Washington Territory where, after settling near
Port Orchard, they sent for the rest of the Curtis family. Curtis moved to Seattle in 1891 and opened his first photography
studio, Rothi and Curtis Photographers, in partnership with Rasmus Rothi. Within a short time he went into partnership with
Thomas H. Guptil, forming Curtis and Guptil Photographers and Photo-engravers; Guptil left the firm in 1897. Although Curtis's
photographic interests were initially portraiture and landscape photography in the pictorialist tradition, he soon became
fascinated with recording Seattle-area Native American groups. Later in his life he claimed that his pictures of Princess
Angeline (1895), the aged daughter of Chief Sealth, or Seattle, who eked out a living as a clam digger, were his first photographs
of Native Americans.
In 1898, while photographing on Mt. Rainier, Curtis rescued a group of well-known scientists that included zoologist C. Hart
Merriam, head of the U.S. Biological Survey and a founding member of the National Geographic Society, and ethnographer and
naturalist George Bird Grinnell, editor of
Field and Stream and founder of the Audubon Society, who had become lost while climbing the mountain. Impressed with Curtis, Merriam asked
him to join the Harriman Alaska Expedition (1899) as its official photographer. Organized by E. H. Harriman, a railway magnate
and financier, the expedition's aim was to explore Alaska's coastal waters from its southern panhandle to Prince William Sound.
Participation in the expedition introduced Curtis to the fundamentals of ethnographic research. His photographs were included
in a two-volume souvenir photograph album produced for expedition members, and reproduced as photogravures in two of the 14
volumes in the
Harriman Alaska Series.
The following year Grinnell invited Curtis to photograph the Sun Dance ceremony at the Piegan Reservation in Montana. This
experience further solidified Curtis's interest in Native American cultures and fueled his desire to produce a comprehensive
visual and written record of the last vestiges of what he saw as the "vanishing race" and its traditional ways. Concentrating
on peoples west of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, Curtis spent over a quarter of the twentieth century in the field
working on
The North American Indian (
NAI), his 20-volume publication containing over 1500 small full-page photogravures, along with 700 large-format photogravures
in the 20 accompanying portfolios.
NAI became one of the largest anthropological projects to be undertaken to date, and is indeed often the only record of the lore
and history of some North American groups.
During the first years of the twentieth century Curtis's photographic work in general, and especially his Native American
material, became increasingly well-known throughout the United States. When not in the field he worked unceasingly to raise
funds for
NAI by giving lantern slide lecture tours, mounting exhibitions, and publishing articles. In 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt
asked Curtis to photograph his family. Roosevelt was very interested in the
NAI project and wrote a glowing letter of recommendation that Curtis used in subsequent publicity for the project. Finally, in
1906, J. P. Morgan agreed to back the
NAI project for the next five years, and in 1907 the first volume was published with a foreword by Roosevelt.
Despite incessant work by the large team Curtis assembled for the project, which included William E. Myers as researcher and
writer; Frederick Webb Hodge as editor; and a phalanx of ethnological and photographic assistants, interpreters, and native
guides, only eight volumes of
NAI were completed in the first five years. After Morgan's death in 1913 his son, J. P. Jr., agreed to continue sponsoring the
project, the final volume of which was published in 1930. To augment Morgan's funding and the sale of subscriptions Curtis
continued to raise capital through increasingly complex off-season projects. In 1911-1912 he mounted the
Curtis Picture Musicale (The Story of the Vanishing Race). This elaborate multimedia production began with an orchestral prelude composed by Henry F. Gilbert. Curtis's lecture was
accompanied by both hand-colored lantern slides shown through a stereopticon, which made them appear to dissolve in and out
of one another, and by film clips, with an orchestral number composed by Gilbert for each segment of the talk. Although it
opened at Carnegie Hall to a sold-out audience, the production proved costly, and subsequent performances were not as successful.
Curtis had been using a motion picture camera in the field since 1904, and in 1911 he formed the Continental Film Company
to support his idea of producing a commercial, full-length motion picture film, whose ticket sales would help fund the
NAI project.
In the Land of the Head Hunters was released in 1914. An "epic story of love and war" set in pre-contact times, this silent movie was the first feature film
to star Native American, non-professional actors, specifically members of the Kwakwaka'wakw tribes of British Columbia, who
were meant to portray their ancestors. Curtis commissioned John J. Braham (
Hiawatha and
The Corsair) to compose a full score for the film. Shot on location, the film, which included elaborately costumed performances of Kwakwaka'wakw
dances, was made all the more dramatic through the use of dynamic camera work, the vivid toning and tinting of the footage,
and Braham's theatrical score. Despite its initial critical acclaim, it too was a financial disaster. Although
In the Land of the Head Hunters does accurately document some aspects of Kwakwaka'wakw culture, Curtis's intention was to produce what would now be termed
a mass-market "blockbuster" film. In fact, the film is currently viewed as documenting a cultural encounter between Curtis
and the Kwakwaka'wakw who performed his version of their past.
Curtis's constant work in the field and his promotion of
NAI on the east coast during the winters kept him away from his family most of the time. His wife Clara divorced him in 1919,
and he and his daughter Beth moved to Los Angeles, where they opened a Curtis Studio in the Biltmore Hotel. Clara and their
daughter Katherine continued to run the Curtis Studio in Seattle until 1930. In Los Angeles Curtis also worked as a still
photographer and cameraman for Cecil B. DeMille and other Hollywood studios to finance his fieldwork. During this time, again
to raise funds for fieldwork, he sold the copyright for
NAI to the Morgan Company and also sold the copyright for
In the Land of the Head Hunters. In the summer of 1927, Curtis and Beth traveled to remote islands in the Bering Sea to complete the fieldwork for the last
volume of
NAI. This was his last expedition. Returning to Los Angeles, Curtis spent the rest of his life working as a cameraman, mining
for gold, and writing his memoirs. The remaining assets of the
NAI were sold to the Charles E. Lauriat Company of Boston in 1935. Curtis died in Los Angeles in 1952.
The repository holds David Gilbert's manuscript transcription and recordings of the original John J. Braham score for Edward
Curtis's 1914 silent film
In the Land of the Head Hunters and the performance edition of the Braham score, scored by Gilbert and first performed at the premier of the restored film
at the Getty Center on 5 June 2008. See: Scores for
In the Land of the Head Hunters, Special collections accn. no. 2008.M.58.
Arranged in three series: Series I: Manuscripts and publications, 1900-1935; Series II: Lectures, presentation and audiovisual
projects, 1903-1914, undated; Series III: Personal and professional papers, 1908-1978.
Acquired in 1985.
The lantern slides in Series II (boxes 7 and 7a) were digitized by the repository. Online access is available to on-site readers
and Getty staff:
http://hdl.handle.net/10020/850111_ref20_pb2
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Indians of America -- Portraits
Indians of North America -- Social life and customs
Indians of North America -- Northwest, Pacific -- Social life and customs
Scores -- United States -- 20th century
Posters -- United States -- 20th century
Prospectuses -- United States -- 20th century
Lantern slides -- United States -- 20th century
Newspapers -- United States -- 20th century
Photography in ethnology
Gelatin silver prints -- United States -- 20th century
Indians of North America -- Research
Kwakiutl Indians -- Social life and customs
Hawkins, G. Ray
Gilbert, Henry F. B. (Henry Franklin Belknap), 1868-1928
Braham, John J.