Edward S. Curtis

Edward Sheriff Curtis (February 19, 1868 – October 19, 1952), also known as Edward Sherriff Curtis, was an American photographer and ethnologist. He focused on the American West and Native American people, earning the nickname "Shadow Catcher" as he traveled across the United States to capture the fading traditions of various native tribes through both photographs and audio recordings.

Curtis was born on a farm in Cold Spring Township, north of Whitewater, Wisconsin. His father, Reverend Ashen "Johnson" Curtis, was a minister, farmer, and Civil War veteran from Ohio; his mother, Ellen Sheriff, was from Pennsylvania. He had siblings named Raphael (or Ray), Edward (or Eddy), Eva, and Asahel. Johnson Curtis struggled to manage the farm due to his war experiences, leaving the family in hardship. Around 1874, they moved to Minnesota to join Johnson's father, Asahel Curtis, who ran a grocery store and served as postmaster in Le Sueur County. Curtis left school after the sixth grade and soon built his own camera.

At 17, in 1885, Curtis apprenticed with a photographer in St. Paul, Minnesota. In 1887, his family relocated to Seattle, Washington, where he bought a new camera and partnered with Rasmus Rothi in an existing studio, paying $150 for a half share. After about six months, he left Rothi and formed a new partnership with Thomas Guptill, opening Curtis and Guptill, Photographers and Photoengravers. In 1895, he met and photographed Princess Angeline (Kickisomlo), daughter of Chief Seattle—his first portrait of a Native American. Three of his images were selected for a National Photographic Society exhibition in 1898: two of Princess Angeline ("The Mussel Gatherer" and "The Clam Digger") and one of Puget Sound ("Homeward"), which won the grand prize and a gold medal. That same year, while photographing Mount Rainier, he encountered a group of lost scientists, including George Bird Grinnell, a noted expert on Native Americans. This meeting likely led to Curtis being appointed official photographer for the Harriman Alaska Expedition of 1899. Despite little formal education, he learned much from lectures given aboard the ship each evening. Grinnell later invited Curtis to join an expedition to photograph the Blackfoot Confederacy in Montana in 1900.

In 1906, after an introduction through Belle de Costa Greene, J. P. Morgan provided Curtis with $75,000 to produce a series on Native Americans, to be published in 20 volumes with 1,500 photographs. The funds were to be disbursed over five years and covered only fieldwork, not writing, editing, or production. Curtis received no salary for the project, which lasted over 20 years. Under the terms, Morgan would receive 25 sets and 500 original prints as repayment. Curtis hired several employees: former journalist William E. Myers for writing and language recording; University of Washington graduate Bill Phillips for logistics; Alexander B. Upshaw, a member of the Apsáalooke tribe, for fieldwork; and Smithsonian anthropologist Frederick Webb Hodge as editor. Eventually, 222 complete sets of photographs were published. Curtis aimed to document Native American life before colonization, writing in his first volume in 1907 that the information must be collected immediately or the opportunity would be lost. He made over 10,000 wax cylinder recordings of language and music, took over 40,000 photographs of members of over 80 tribes, recorded tribal lore and history, described traditional foods, housing, garments, recreation, ceremonies, and funeral customs, and wrote biographical sketches of tribal leaders. His work was exhibited at the Rencontres d'Arles festival in France in 1973.

Curtis had been using motion picture cameras in fieldwork for *The North American Indian* since 1906. He worked extensively with ethnographer George Hunt in 1910, inspiring his work with the Kwakwakaʼwakw, though much of their collaboration remains unpublished. By the end of 1912, Curtis decided to create a feature film depicting Native American life, partly to improve his finances and partly because film technology had advanced enough for longer films. He chose the Kwakwakaʼwakw of the Queen Charlotte Strait region in British Columbia, Canada, as his subject. *In the Land of the Head Hunters* was the first feature-length film with an entirely Indigenous North American cast. It premiered simultaneously at the Casino Theatre in New York and the Moore Theatre in Seattle on December 7, 1914, with a score by John J. Braham.