Between 1907 and 1930, photographer Edward Curtis published the twenty volume The North American Indian. Today, Curtis's photographs are considered controversial due to the use of staging and editing images to present a romanticized image of Native American cultures. In this lesson, students look at five photographs Curtis took of the Piegan Blackfeet to consider the relative strengths and limitations of historical photographs and to reflect on what they may be able to tell us about the Piegan Blackfeet at the time.
Image: Photograph of Little Plume and son Yellow Kidney sitting in a lodge, taken by Edward Curtis in 1910. From the Library of Congress.