Visual Materials
Elizabeth Compton Hegemann Photograph Collection of Navajo Indians and the Southwest
- Description
This collection contains 729 photographs of Elizabeth Compton Hegemann's travels through the Navajo Indian Reservation and the Grand Canyon from 1922 to 1934. It also documents Southwest Indian life and archaeological monuments during Hegemann's career based at the Shonto Trading Post on the Navajo Reservation in Arizona. The most notable images depict Hegemann; United States National Park Service rangers; Fred Harvey Trading Company sites and employees; Navajo and Hopi Indians; trading posts; Charles F. Lummis; the Grand Canyon; various ruins of Indian pueblos; Hopi ceremonies; Navajo horse races; and natural rock formations scattered throughout Arizona. Many of the photographs were published in Hegemann's 1963 book Navaho Trading Days.
The subject of the first batch of this collection centers around Hegemann's experiences from 1922 to 1926 at the Grand Canyon and on the Navajo Reservation, as narrated in her book, Navaho Trading Days. The second batch of photographs contains more candid moments from Hegemann's travels through Arizona, Southern California, and New Mexico during the same time period as the first group of photographs. The second batch of photographs do not appear in "Navaho Trading Days." Photographs that are not published in "Navaho Trading Days" include Huntington call numbers (40-47), (84-85), (95), (119-142), (167), (170), (172-185), (257-271), (293-313), (340-361), (382-402), and (416-426).
- Date
- 1922-1934
- Call number
- photCL 125
- Provenance
- The Hegemann Collection of 729 prints came to the Huntington as two separate gifts. The first and largest part of the collection was donated by Elizabeth Hegemann in 1962. This portion (photographs numbered 1 through 539) was accompanied by copy negatives, the original negatives having been lost in the 1938 fire which claimed the Shonto Trading Post. The second group of photographs (numbered 540 through 729) came to the Library in 1965, three years after Hegemann's death. Copy negatives were made for a sprinkling of this second group.
- Rights
- The photographs which appeared in Navaho Trading Days are under copyright to the University of New Mexico Press. While the Huntington will provide copy prints for this material, permission to publish the photographs must be requested in writing from the Press itself. However, not all of the material in the Hegemann Collection is copyrighted by UNM Press. Hegemann arranged the photographs so that those images which appear in the book, and are hence under copyright, come first, followed by the uncopyrighted material. The images which are copyrighted are separated by those that are not by white paper dividers within the collection, and the status of the material is noted on the transcript. None of the photographs acquired in 1965 are copyrighted. At some point the status of this copyright needs to be investigated, since in several instances UNM Press has been unaware of the copyright status when approached by researchers for permission.
