Publisher's Weekly Review
This volume demonstrates that melodramatic images created by commercial photographers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries perpetuated fallacies about Native Americans. Goetzmann ( Exploration and Empire ) selects photos of ``real Indians'' and costumed actors, and explains how professional photographers and artists interpreted Native American culture according to classical and romantic ideals. The work of Edward S. Curtis, who attempted to document the tribal way of life, is well represented here: he depicts braves on horseback riding to war, captures humble dwellings against dramatic mountain backgrounds and shoots portraits of melancholy individuals. We see members of Wild West shows, sacred ceremonies treated as tourist attractions, George Trager's sensationalistic images of the dead at Wounded Knee and staged scenes inspired by movies. Goetzmann points out the sentimental elements that encourage misinterpretation of Native American history. (Dec.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
Historian Goetzmann alerts us immediately to the fact that the turn-of-the-century commercial photographs of native Americans in this handsome volume are not straightforward documentations of life, but rather, manipulated images loaded with the values of the photographers and their customers. These pictures, submitted to the Library of Congress for federal copyright, "embodied sentimental notions about the `vanishing American,'" a variation on the archetypal noble savage. By the 1880s, when celluloid film became available, there were few "coherent Native American cultures" left to photograph. That fact, combined with Victorian concepts of the grand and picturesque, shaped these staged yet haunting and powerful portraits. The work of Edward Curtis is emphasized in this selection of 105 striking photographs by various photographers. Goetzmann's captions accent the irony and pathos of these pictures, which, in spite of their artificiality, still capture moments in the lives of real people experiencing the destruction of their universe. ~--Donna Seaman
