Edward S. Curtis (1868-1952) was a white American photographer who captured photographs of the native people of some eighty North American tribes between 1899 and 1920. Taking by some estimates over 40,000 pictures, he published a monumental twenty volume work, The North American Indian, which took him some thirty years to complete. Curtis was born in Wisconsin, raised in Minnesota, and in 1887 migrated to the Pacific Northwest . By 1900 he had embarked on a career of photographing the native people of North America. Many of his portraits capture great and famous native leaders such as Chief Joseph and Geronimo.
Britannica Article
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Edward-S-Curtis
PBS Documentary - The Shadow Catcher
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/edward-curtis-shadow-catcher/568/
The Documentary on YouTube: The Shadow Catcher
https://youtu.be/ZhNNmo2Si-o
Book by Edward Curtis – Free Digital Download
Indian Days of the Long Ago
https://archive.org/details/indiandaysoflon00curt
Edward Curtis's Monumental Collection: The North American Indians
All 20 volumes and portfolios are available online in Northwestern University's digital collection:
http://curtis.library.northwestern.edu/index.html
Silent Film of Native People by Edward Curtis
Academic presentation on the Silent Film by Edward Curtis
Video includes descendants of the native people in the film.
Comments