The Frederick Monsen Ethnographic Indian Photographs

This set of 373 photographs by the photographer Frederick Monsen focuses on Native Americans of the Southwest in mostly candid photographs taken in Pueblo communities from approximately 1886 to 1911. Most of the photographs in this collection are enlargements made from 3 ¼" x 4 ¼" Kodak roll or cartridge film; Monsen preferred using the small Kodak cameras so he could quickly capture natural moments. There are also some posed portraits, landscapes and others that were possibly taken with larger-format cameras, particularly those taken on the Brown-Stanton survey of 1889. Some photographs were made by Monsen while he was with U. S. Geological Surveys, and others during his own photography trips.

The majority of Native Americans pictured are Hopi and Navajo, but there are also Paiute, Apache, and Pueblo Indians. There are a few views of Mojave Indians of Southern California, and natives of Baja, Mexico. There are several views of Indian children, shown with and without clothes, in their daily activities.

Scenes of non-Indian Western life include men in covered wagons on trails, gold prospectors and stagecoaches. There are many artistic landscape views of canyons, buttes and mesas; Death Valley; salt beds; ancient ruins; cactus and other desert plants.

Unusual subjects of note are three photographs of skeletons in the deserts of Arizona and one view of the covered bodies of prospectors being carried on burros.

The prints are all signed by Monsen and have typed or handwritten captions on the back, written by Monsen. The prints in the collection appear to have been made over a period of years – some have Monsen's printed labels on the back, some have blank labels, or none; signatures are in both ink and pencil; some have copyright symbols, some do not; and the mounts vary in size and type of paper. There are some duplicate images, with slightly different captions, crops or printing effects. Occasionally duplicate photographs have captions that contradict each other, such as the year photographed (see for example, images 367 and 369). These discrepancies have been noted.

Other items in collection:

- One box of ephemera, including brochures for Monsen's lectures and exhibits; a reprint of The Craftsman, March 1907; and Artland magazine, August 1926, with article on Monsen.

- One 8" x 10" photograph (in Ephemera box), titled "The Eagle's Flight." It shows four Hopi boys on the edge of a mesa cliff. This print appears to have been added to the collection at a later time. This image is not in the set of 373 enlargements.