Artifact Identification Using Historical Photographs: The Case of Red Cloud's Manikin

Abstract

A stereograph depicting a manikin in Plains Indian clothing initiated this project. The manikin was made in the likeness of an Oglala Teton Sioux Chief, Red Cloud, whose 1872 visit to Washington was the impetus for making the figure. The same manikin was used again in the 1876 Centennial Exposition with a change of clothing to suggest a more warlike image. This essay explores why Red Cloud was selected as the subject for the manikin and shows how the study of the photograph led to identifying objects in the Smithsonian collections that had lost their provenance.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Research for this article took months of perseverance. Vicki Simon, then an intern, helped with the research. Other interns working on the project were Catherine J. Adams, Andrea Kehler, Eleni Glekas, Kathy Mancuso and Christina Redmond. Felicia Pickering, Museum Specialist in the Smithsonian Dept. of Anthropology's Museum Support Center, was critical in helping to find many of the artifacts in the collection that matched the manikin's. Thomas Kavanagh's [1990] research on manikins at the National Museum was also an important resource. In addition Frank Goodyear, of the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, Department of Photographs, kindly shared his visual history of Red Cloud [2003] and made comments that greatly improved the scope of this work. Raymond DeMallie, a Professor of Anthropology at Indiana University, helped on many editorial points, especially Siouan history.

Notes

A stereograph is a double photograph designed to be seen as a single image when viewed through a special optical device known as a stereoscope (if one has binocular vision). This gives a three-dimensional impression of space and depth. The pictures, mounted side by side, are produced with a camera equipped with a pair of lenses. This type of photography, introduced in the 1850s, became popular in the 1860s–1870s.

John F. Jarvis (b. 1850) worked for William H. Jackson in Omaha, Neb., as a studio printer. He moved to Washington about 1871 and opened his own studio there. He was especially active as a publisher [Fleming and Luskey 1986: 239]. His dated stereo cards span 1887–1904. Underwood and Underwood also published Jarvis's photographs. A search of the Library of Congress copyright records [General Index 1870–97] did not produce any evidence that Jarvis copyrighted this image of the “Indian Chief” or Red Cloud manikin.

An image of these three manikins is reproduced in Fitzhugh [1997: 222] and identified as Dr. Elisha Kent Kane with Inuit companions “Joe” (Inuktitut name Ebierbing) and his wife “Hanna” (Inuktitut name Tookoolito). The manikins are wearing Alaskan garments from Norton Sound, not Polar Eskimo clothing from Greenland, which if context were uppermost would have been used, since it was the Greenland Eskimo with whom Kane had interacted. According to Fitzhugh [1997: 244, endnote 4], “… The earliest manikins show little concern with accurate cultural or racial representation. Lacking life casts, curators treated manikins as mounts for garments rather than as depictions of real people. Garments were frequently shifted from one manikin to another, and absence of full costumes in the collections necessitated piecing costumes together from various collections and locations, often with bizarre results … ” I have not been able to verify the source of Fitzhugh's identification of these manikins as Joe and Hanna. Eskimo manikins from the 1876 Centennial, identified as “2722. Esquimaux Joe and Hannah, Cap't. Hall's Companions on Polaris Expedition” [Brown 2001: 94], had different faces and were dressed in different clothing. These manikins were made by the Smithsonian and there is evidence that Clark Mills made face casts of Joe and Hannah during their visit to Washington in January 1870–June 1871. In 1874 the Smithsonian tried to get copies of these face casts. Correspondence in the Smithsonian Archives from Secretary Joseph Henry to Clark Mills [February 10, 1874] states that “We are informed by a Mrs. Clinton that you have in your possession casts of the faces of Esquimaux Joe and his wife Hannah who were brought here from the Arctic regions by Captain Hall, and as we are very anxious to get authentic face masks of the Equimaux for the Ethnological department of the National Museum, you will very much oblige us by giving us the copies of these casts or by lending us the originals to be copied by ourselves.” It is beyond the scope of this article, but researching these sets of early Eskimo manikins is now needed.

On May 15, 1873, six stereograph photos by C. Seaver Jr. (1839–79) were deposited and copyrighted by Charles Pollock, who owned a major publishing house in Boston. They are listed as follows: “No. 5479-Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C., Dr. Kane and The Esquimaux; No. 5480-Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C., Indian Chief; No. 5481-Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C., Japanese Warrior; No. 5482-Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C., Buffalo; No. 5483 President's House, Green Room; No. 5484 President's House, Red Room.”

The term manikin or mannequin refers to four types of human imagery: (1) An early dress form or tailor's dummy dating back to Ancient Egypt; such forms were found in King Tutankhamen's tomb; (2) the fashion doll; (3) a lay figure or artist's model; and (4) a wax portraiture, sculpture or effigy [Hale ca. 1985]. The Plains Indian manikin under discussion falls into the last category.

A memo by W. P. True [September 27, 1949] said, “As early as 1870 the Smithsonian Institution placed on exhibition a number of crude wax figures of Kane, the arctic explorer, and his companions, dressed in fur costumes. In 1873 equally crude manikins of Eskimo Joe and his wife Hannah were displayed. These figures were so poorly modeled that they were soon discarded.” Nothing in True's notes mentions the Indian Chief manikin.

“The possibilities of preparing more life-like figures were recognized when, in 1875 four costumed figures of Japanese peasants and actors, two realistically carved of wood and two fashioned of papier-mâché, were received from Japan. Shortly thereafter the staff of this Museum began experimenting in the creation of life-sized human figures to interpret the appearance of primitive peoples. They studied the techniques employed with considerable success in Europe—Castan's “Panopticum” in Berlin, and Madam Tussuad's [Tussaud] popular wax museum in London. They were influenced also by the representations of the races of mankind at Sydenham [Great Exhibition of 1851 in the Crystal Palace] and the Swedish peasant figures exhibited at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876. Still more influential were the groups showing the history of primitive man, made for the Paris Exposition in 1888–89, and the figures of racial types in the Trocadero Museum in Paris. Permission was obtained to copy several of the latter for exhibition in the Smithsonian Institution” [True 1949]. After a disastrous fire in 1865 the Smithsonian had to rebuild the interior of the Castle. It gave an opportunity to rethink its public museum: the 1870 Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution [1871: 34–36] suggests that attempts should be made to make a public museum and “without detracting from its scientific character, largely partake of the popular element … [including making] modeled figures of the different races of men … ” The 1871 Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution [1873: 39] continues to talk about renovation of the large room on the second story that will house anthropology exhibits. The Evening Star [September 4, 1872] noted in reporting laws passed by the 42nd Congress that the Smithsonian Institution would receive “for the completion of the hall required for the government collections, ten thousand dollars.” The 1872 Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution notes the progress of the renovation: “It is intended to prepare a large number of effigies representing accurately the lineaments, dress, and form of the tribes of Indians, and to place upon these their corresponding ornaments, weapons, etc.; and to introduce them, either singly or in groups, into suitable cases, where they can most readily be seen” [1873: 51–52]. This seems to be the earliest mention of a mandate to make a large number of manikins.

One may speculate why certain subjects were made into manikins in the early 1870s. Not only was a manikin made to display Plains Indian clothing, i.e., the Indian Chief, but also a Japanese warrior was created, as well as Dr. Kane and two Eskimo. The probable reason for selection of these subjects follows.

The Evening Star for 1872 showed the great popular interest in Indians, especially Red Cloud. In spring 1872 he and members of his band visited Washington. The press followed his itinerary closely, including a trip to New York in mid-June 1872. Similar popular interest was shown in the Japanese. On February 29, 1872, the first Japanese delegation arrived in Washington, and there was much press about them. They visited all the major sites, including the Smithsonian [Evening Star, March 19, 1872], were treated to many receptions and parties, and even asked to participate in the U.S. Centennial celebration [ibid., March 14, 1872]. The Japanese were also presented with a treaty giving them the same commercial rights as other nations [ ibid., June 29, 1872]. The explorer Dr. Elisha Kent Kane and his heroic survival in Northwestern Greenland (1853–55) had created a sensation in the United States and helped maintain an interest in arctic explorations, which were flourishing in the 1860s–1870s [Fitzhugh 1997: 221]. This persistent interest in the Arctic probably influenced the selection of Dr. Kane and the Eskimo manikins. It is not surprising that if the Smithsonian were constructing manikins for display, subjects and individuals that celebrated national heroes in the popular spotlight would be created.

The computer recreations were scanned at 600 dpi by Jane Walsh, of the Dept. of Anthropology, Smithsonian, and an analysis made of them in 2001. The enlarged computer-scanned recreations used in this article [Figures 5 and 7] were made by Noel P. Elliott.

This article, titled “Geronimo in Effigy: A Figure which is to Adorn the National Museum,” included material from an interview with George Brown Goode, Curator and Assistant Director of the U.S. National Museum, Smithsonian, who reportedly said that in, displaying the manikins, “we do not of course, purpose to exhibit portraits. Our idea is to show types.” The bust was said to have been made from a photo taken on one of the expeditions of the Geological Survey, from which Mrs. Heideman modeled the head in clay, which was then cast by Mr. Palmer (of the National Museum). The article goes on to say that “These figures, however, look a little stiff, all alike. We then had some heads of famous Indians made by Achille Colin of the office of the Supervising Architect of the Treasury. They were life-like works of art, and showed at once what might be done in the way of representing types of Indians. Now this head of Geronimo will be interesting as a type and interesting also as the head of so famous a chief. The figure when completed will be dressed in a costume, which will be a reproduction of Geronimo's. All we need have modeled in addition to the head will be the hands. The remainder of the body being concealed by the clothing will be a mere dummy to fill out the clothing” [Evening Star, September 18, 1886].

An article in The Evening Star [April 10, 1886] titled, “In the Wizard's Workshop: Odd Things to be Seen in a Room at the National Museum,” describes the shop of Mr. J. W. Hendley, a modeler who could “imitate anything in nature, both in form and color.” The reporter noted that in Mr. Hendley's shop was a manikin of the son of Spotted Tail sitting on a tree stump, with his arms resting on his knees, that was modeled from life when the subject was in Washington, and manikins of Eskimo Joe and Hannah made of straw that were being refurbished by Mr. Hendley.

This information is from the Smithsonian Institution Daybooks 1846–84 (RU 100), [Third Quarter 1872: 194], which include the payments made to various people and organizations by the Smithsonian. Records were checked from the First Quarter of 1869 [p. 481] through the Third Quarter of 1875 [542].

See note 3.

See note 3.

Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspapers, 30(771), July 9 [1870: 261].

Along with his mentor, Mathew B. Brady, Alexander Gardner had photographed Civil War soldiers and battles. After that war Gardner's commercial studio photographed many Indian delegations to Washington, probably on commission from William Blackmore [Taylor 1987b: 324–327]. Gardner photographed sixteen of the twenty-six members of the 1872 Oglala delegation.

In 1872 Mathew Brady's studio was located at 625-27 Pennsylvania Ave. NW [Evening Star, May 28, 1872]; Alexander Gardner's studio was at 921 Pennsylvania Ave. NW [Fleming and Luskey 1986: 231]. The existence of the Brady photo and verification that it was taken in his studio came from Frank Goodyear, National Portrait Gallery [personal communication, August 15, 2001]. The Evening Star [May 28, 1872] printed two notices regarding Red Cloud's photo by Brady, including the following in its “News and Gossip” column: “Red Cloud and his Indian braves visited Brady's gallery this morning, and a number of excellent group pictures were taken of the party, which will add to the interest of Brady's great national portrait collection.”

Thanks to Carolyn Thome, Carol Reuter, James Reuter and Laura Collins, Exhibits Central, who looked at the photos on March 5, 2001.

The Evening Star [July 22, 1872].

See note 8.

One of the early mandates of the Smithsonian Institution was to provide a course of free lectures. These were abandoned about 1865; instead the Smithsonian supported lectures and programs given at the Young Men's Christian Association (Y.M.C.A.) in their Lincoln Hall [Pittsburgh Commercial, Supp., May 3, 1873].

An advertisement in The Evening Star [May 15, 1872] reads: “Lincoln Hall/For three nights only/commencing/Monday Evening, May 27/Matinee Wednesday Afternoon, 2 o'clk. /The Genuine and only/Mrs. Jarley's/Unrivaled Collection of Wax Works/and/Wax Work Quartette, /From London, England.” The character of Mrs. Jarley's waxworks was probably based on the famous waxworks of life-sized manikins made of the famous and infamous by Madame Tussaud's [Leslie and Chapman 1978: 161].

Editor's note. OCLC, the World Catalogue of Books, does list this as a “juvenile drama” titled either Mrs. Jarley's Unrivalled Waxwork Exhibition or Mrs. Jarley's Royal Waxwork Show, by Albert Walker; printed at Otley by William Walker & Sons, n.d.

Hassrick [1984: xxiii]. Many of these figures and costumes were destroyed by insects, fire and water and were buried in the yard of Harrison's boiler factory in 1879 [Donaldson 1887: 386].

Office of Cultural Affairs, Museum of New Mexico/Palace of the Governors, Angelico Chavez History Library, The William Blackmore Colln. no. AC18.

This is well illustrated in Fitzhugh [1997], which traces the history of exhibiting Eskimos at the Smithsonian, and shows how collections influenced exhibit themes and how stereotypes were created and reinforced by the Eskimo exhibits. In this case, they helped to promote the Alaskan Eskimo as the popular, common stereotype [see note 3].

Written on the drum was “AMM 90/8390/Yankton Sioux Drum/Dacotah Ter./ Dr. A. B. Campbell USA/ 90.D.23” An associated ledger-book documented its donor as Campbell, Asst. Surgeon U.S.A., who acquired it at the Yankton Res., Dakota.

The earrings were identified as cat. no. 8504-A collected by Dr. J. F. Boughter, U.S.A. in 1867 among the Sioux in Dakota Terr. They are made of dentalium shells arranged in tiers separated by strips of leather. Pendants of abalone shell are on either end.

The moccasins, cat. no. 8544, have a white and red design in pony beads around the bottom edge, from the toe along the outside edge and up the heel seam, but not on the inside edge. There is also a “V” seed bead pattern in red and white beads on the tops of the moccasins. They were collected by Brev. Maj. Samuel M. Horton, Asst. Surgeon, U.S.A. who sent them from Ogalalla Station, Nebraska Terr., in 1868. They were probably collected among the Arapaho when Horton was stationed at Fort Phil Kearny in Dakota Terr. during 1866–68 (F. Pickering, personal communication, October 24, 2013). The bottom of the moccasins has holes in the heel and toe area, indicating that they were once attached to a manikin.

Ogalalla Station was a major shipping-point for cattle on the Union Pacific Railroad, and many Central Plains Indian tribes would have come in contact with Army personnel here [Federal Writers’ Project 1939: 343–344].

Lt. Gouverneur Kemble Warren was trained at West Point Academy, becoming an officer in the Corps of Topographical Engineers. He directed three field surveys in the West and deposited the bulk of his floral, faunal and ethnological collections with the Smithsonian, as was customary for U.S. Army expeditions [Hanson 1996: 3–5]. The Warren collection is listed in the Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution for 1856 [1856: 50]. That year Warren donated an extensive amount of material, both natural history specimens and ethnological specimens, that he had collected in his travels up the Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers. Much of the Indian material he had was probably plundered from the encounter and battle/massacre with the Sioux on Blue Water Creek in September 1855. The Warren collection is the earliest comprehensive group of Lakota artifacts in a museum today [Hanson 1996: 11–20].

The leggings are cat. no. 1952 of the Warren collection [Hanson 1996: 73, 79]. They have dark lines of varying thickness circling the leg, beaded strips of white, black and butterscotch beads with locks of human hair fastened to each strip, and have very long fringed flaps that dragged on the ground. All of the North American Indian exhibits in the National Museum of Natural History were removed from display in the summer of 2004.

The necklace may be cat. no. 8381, identified as a grizzly-bear claw necklace collected by Dr. A.B. Campbell from Yankton Sioux at Fort Randall, Dak. Terr., June 1868. It was sent to the Army Medical Museum and then transferred to the Smithsonian in 1869. The necklace has been missing from the S.I. collections since June 1978.

Lt. Col. William Oliver Collins (1809–80) was a lawyer who practiced in Ohio prior to the Civil War. His military service was December 19, 1861 to April 1, 1865. He was stationed at Fort Laramie, Wyo. (May 30, 1862–August 1864) and was Post Commander from October 13, 1863 to August 1864. He was highly regarded by many of the local Oglala leaders [personal communication from Fort Laramie National Historical Site, March 30, 2001–June 1, 2001].

As a result of the Indian Religious Freedom Act (1978), the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, Public Law 101-601 (1990) and the National Museum of the American Indian Act, Public Law 101-185 (1989), human remains and sacred funeral objects have been actively repatriated to various Indian groups. The Oglala Sioux Tribe requested the return of their ancestor's human remains in 1988. The claim for Chief Smoke's skull and mandible was verified and the skeletal material was repatriated September 21, 1993. No funerary objects or other cultural materials were present or returned.

Suzanne Peurach, of the U.S. Geological Survey, Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, Biological Survey Unit, identified the skins as elk from the hair on the edge of the skins. Using a microscope, she was able to measure the diameter of the hair shaft: that of the Bighorn Sheep is no greater than 322 microns, while the shaft of the Elk can be as wide as 357 microns, and the hair in the sample from the shirt was 351 microns. She also examined the hairs from the tassels and found most were horsehair with human hair interspersed.

C. Taylor, personal communication [October 30, 1999].

Yellow was a common color in Plains decorative motifs from early times, often representing earth, but the blue dye, while a favorite color of the Sioux at this period, often representing sky, may not have been available until after the Sioux came in contact with traders [Lyford 1940: 85]. The critical point however is that the color blue held an important place in Sioux symbolism and appears to have been used only on shirts that the most important leaders would wear. On Plains Indian ceremonial shirts, including structural characteristics, symbolism of the decorations, and the status and rank associated with them, see Taylor [1981, 1987a].

Theodore A. Mills (1839–1916) modeled many of the early museum figures from the 1890s [True 1949]. Mills was the eldest of Clark Mills’ sons and was sent with the second son, Theophilus, to study at the Royal Academy of Art in Munich about 1862–65, thus acquiring formal training in sculpting.

Bergmann is identified as a “preparator” in a listing of employees of the U.S. National Museum [letter and list Rockwell to Rhees, December 21, 1901]. Preparators included modelers, photographers, artists and taxidermists [Report of the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution 1889]. Listed by Bergmann as No. 25 of the lay figures sent to the 1893 exposition, each item of clothing on the manikin is identified by catalog number and collector.

Squint Eye, a Cheyenne warrior, was held prisoner by the U.S. government, 1875–78, at Ft. Marion in St. Augustine, Florida. While imprisoned he learned to read and write English, and after his release attended Hampton Institute in Virginia. After this formal schooling he was hired by the Smithsonian and worked in the museum from about 1879 to 1881, where he learned to prepare bird and mammal specimens for exhibition. He also guided groups through the Smithsonian's ethnological halls [Peterson 1971: 193–206]. In 1880 he returned to the Cheyenne and Arapaho Reservation but maintained his Smithsonian connection, collecting natural history specimens and Native crafts that he sent to the museum [http://www.nmnh.si.edu/naa/squint_eyes/squint_eyes.htm].

Thomas William Smillie (who died in 1917) was the first official photographer of the Smithsonian photographic laboratory (created in 1870). The lab was first in the Regent's Room of the Smithsonian Castle, where a large south-facing bay window provided light; it was later moved to the west cloister of the Smithsonian Castle in an area having a row of large windows that provided even diffused northern light [Field, Stamm and Ewing 1993: 106, 167]. Smillie photographed both archaeology and natural history artifacts that were used for illustrating Smithsonian publications and also produced exhibit photos for the museum. In 1879, when the Bureau of [American] Ethnology was established as part of the Smithsonian, John Wesley Powell brought his own photographer, John K. Hillers. Smillie continued to photograph some of the Indian delegates to D.C. in the National Museum laboratory [Fleming and Luskey 1986: 178–180]. The relationship between T. W. Smillie and C. Seaver Jr. is not known, but it is clear that the Seaver stereos were photographed in the Smithsonian photography lab.

Grass (Phejí), also known as Charging Bear (MathóWathákpe), was best known as John Grass. He was a Chief of the Blackfoot tribe of Teton Sioux who often voiced the concerns of his people both at treaty conferences and in Washington, where he was a tribal delegate from Standing Rock Reservation, North and South Dakota. He was one of Frances Densmore's major consultants in her 1911 study of the Sun Dance [1918: 87, 89]. For a concise ethnographic account of the Teton Sioux or Lakota, see DeMallie [2001b].

The first presentation of this project was through an exhibit in the National Museum of Natural History under the title: “Picture Puzzles: Red Cloud's Manikin and His Uncle's Shirt,” during 2002–2004. A web page with additional images is available [Scherer and Simon 2003]. An earlier version of this article [Scherer and Simon, “Red Cloud's Manikin and His Uncle's Shirt: Historical Representation in the Museum as seen through Photo Analysis”] appeared in 2005 and is here revised by permission of the publisher from The People of the Buffalo, vol. 2, The Plains Indians of North America. Essays in Honor of John C. Ewers, eds. Colin Taylor and Hugh Dempsey (Wyk auf Foehr: Tatanka Press, 2005), pp. 88–103, copyright © 2005.

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Joanna C. Scherer

Joanna C. Scherer is Emerita Anthropologist in the Department of Anthropology, Smithsonian Institution, where she was an anthropologist and illustrations researcher for the twenty-volume Handbook of North American Indians project, 1978–2006. She has published several books, twenty-three scholarly articles, many reviews, and two websites relating to photographs of American Indians. She is past president and an active member of the Society for Visual Anthropology, and currently its historian.