Research Guides
HSTRY 498: Indigenous Pacific Northwest: Primary Sources: Images
Why Use Images?
Photographs, drawings and other images provide information you can't always get from a text source. Images can provide details of everyday life such as clothing and material culture. Though we often take photographs at face value. It is important to keep in mind that photographs are not an unbiased reflection of reality -- the photographer chooses what and how to depict a certain scene.
Many photographs do not provide much context, may not even provide an exact date or location. You will need to analyze photographs for clues. The example above shows the the Nickens general store located on the Coville Indian Reservation To date the photograph you may want to examine the car -- when was this type of cars made? Or perhaps search for the business name to find out when it existed.
Historic images of Native Americans reflect the stereotypes and prejudices of the period during which they were produced. Many reflect a romanticized vision of the American Indian. For some background information see the Bancroft Library exhibit Images of Native Americans.
Help: Making Sense of Documentary Photographs, Analyzing Photographs, Analyzing Material Culture, Learning to do Historical Research: Photographic Images.
Digitized Collections of Images
For more information on images including citation and copyright see Finding and Using Digital Images.
Be sure to check the Indigenous Peoples: North America database which includes some newspapers, government documents, manuscript material & photos as well as American Indians of the Pacific Northwest which includes excerpts from the Annual Reports of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to the Secretary of the Interior dealing with PNW tribes plus more than 2000 images. And also check the two databases currently on trial: American Indians and the American West, 1809-1971 & Early Encounters in North America.
- Alaska's Digital Archives: Alaska Native MaterialsHundreds of historic photographs and other material detailing Native life
- American Indians of the Pacific NorthwestDigital collection of historic photographs and documents about the Northwest Coast and Plateau Indian cultures
- Bill Reid Centre CollectionMore than 5000 "images that records the arts and architecture of the various First Nations of the Pacific Northwest"
- C. Hart Merriam Collection of Native American PhotographsCollection of more than 1400 photographs taken between 1890 and 1938 (primarily California)
- Digital Collections @ Denver Public LibraryCollections include more than 90,000 historic photographs of the West including many of Native Americans
- Edward S. Curtis's The North American IndianComplete text and images of the 20 volume set published between 1907-1930; print copy available to view by appointment in Special Collections
- Frank Fuller Avery Image Collection800 images of the Colville Reservation in Eastern Washington
- Historical Photographs of BC and YukonMore than 30,000 historic photographs of British Columbia & Yukon
- McKenney and Hall Indian Tribes of North AmericaText and 121 hand colored lithographs from the book originally published between 1836-1844
- National Museum of the American IndianSearch digital collections for photographs and artifacts
- Nez Perce Historic Images CollectionMore than 1000 National Park Service (NPS) images related to Nez Perce culture
- Smithsonian Instittution: Native AmericansThousands of images from the Smithsonian collections
- UW Libraries Digital CollectionsHistoric photographs and other material primarily of the Pacific Northwest includes many images of native peoples of the Pacific Northwest including Alaska