1 00:00:01,440 --> 00:00:05,880 Speaker 1: As indicated by the work of painters and photographers. Nostalgia 2 00:00:06,000 --> 00:00:09,680 Speaker 1: and honesty about the West dueled with one another as 3 00:00:09,720 --> 00:00:14,239 Speaker 1: the Frontier ended and the modern West began. I'm Dan 4 00:00:14,320 --> 00:00:18,760 Speaker 1: Flores and this is the American West, brought to you 5 00:00:18,800 --> 00:00:20,880 Speaker 1: by Velvet Buck Wine, where the. 6 00:00:20,960 --> 00:00:22,240 Speaker 2: Hunt meets the harvest. 7 00:00:22,760 --> 00:00:26,279 Speaker 1: A portion of each bottle goes to support backcountry hunters 8 00:00:26,280 --> 00:00:32,000 Speaker 1: and anglers. Limited supply available at Velvetbuck Vineyards dot com. 9 00:00:32,120 --> 00:00:58,400 Speaker 1: Enjoy responsible shadows of the Frontier. For many Americans, the 10 00:00:58,440 --> 00:01:02,320 Speaker 1: West occupies a mental space similar to how we imagine 11 00:01:02,440 --> 00:01:07,000 Speaker 1: phases in our history, like the Confederacy, say, or World 12 00:01:07,000 --> 00:01:10,240 Speaker 1: War Two. It had a beginning and in the arc 13 00:01:10,280 --> 00:01:13,160 Speaker 1: of time, it had an end, and the best one 14 00:01:13,200 --> 00:01:15,880 Speaker 1: can do with it now is to read about it 15 00:01:16,160 --> 00:01:19,800 Speaker 1: or watch movies, because the real thing, the beating heart, 16 00:01:19,959 --> 00:01:24,440 Speaker 1: flesh and blood of it, has now receded into the past. 17 00:01:25,280 --> 00:01:28,839 Speaker 1: While that may work for wars or the Great Depression 18 00:01:29,360 --> 00:01:33,319 Speaker 1: or the societal upheaval that was the nineteen sixties, for 19 00:01:33,400 --> 00:01:36,800 Speaker 1: the West, not so much. And there's a simple reason 20 00:01:36,880 --> 00:01:41,319 Speaker 1: the West is different. The West was never just a phase, 21 00:01:41,640 --> 00:01:45,200 Speaker 1: but a place, a remarkable region of the country that 22 00:01:45,280 --> 00:01:49,280 Speaker 1: still exists and whose present story is intertwined with its 23 00:01:49,400 --> 00:01:54,400 Speaker 1: past the way morning emerges from sunrise. When the US 24 00:01:54,440 --> 00:01:58,120 Speaker 1: Census announced in eighteen ninety that the West by then 25 00:01:58,240 --> 00:02:02,520 Speaker 1: had been so broken up by settlement that a frontier 26 00:02:02,640 --> 00:02:06,480 Speaker 1: line no longer existed, the West did not end the 27 00:02:06,480 --> 00:02:11,200 Speaker 1: way the Confederacy did when Grant accepted Lee's surrender in 28 00:02:11,240 --> 00:02:15,240 Speaker 1: eighteen sixty five. My point is that the end of 29 00:02:15,240 --> 00:02:19,800 Speaker 1: the so called frontier was hardly a black line across history. 30 00:02:19,919 --> 00:02:25,440 Speaker 1: The way Appomattox Courthouse are, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were as 31 00:02:25,560 --> 00:02:28,560 Speaker 1: wild as the Western past had been as a part 32 00:02:28,600 --> 00:02:32,560 Speaker 1: of history, the region's future looked just as exciting and 33 00:02:32,760 --> 00:02:36,320 Speaker 1: just as troublesome. Of course, we all know there were 34 00:02:36,320 --> 00:02:39,000 Speaker 1: Americans upset by the end of the Frontier. 35 00:02:39,400 --> 00:02:40,440 Speaker 2: Maybe some still are. 36 00:02:41,200 --> 00:02:45,480 Speaker 1: Some people in the early twentieth century experienced a psychological 37 00:02:45,600 --> 00:02:51,480 Speaker 1: alarm historians have labeled frontier anxiety. After all, if the 38 00:02:51,520 --> 00:02:56,000 Speaker 1: so called frontier thesis was true, that Darwinian argument that 39 00:02:56,040 --> 00:02:59,800 Speaker 1: the wilderness had selected out traits that created the American character, 40 00:03:00,360 --> 00:03:04,960 Speaker 1: then how are we going to preserve americanness without a frontier. 41 00:03:06,560 --> 00:03:09,840 Speaker 1: A remarkable thing in itself is that nostalgia for the 42 00:03:09,919 --> 00:03:14,080 Speaker 1: Old West lasted for at least eighty years after the 43 00:03:14,160 --> 00:03:19,000 Speaker 1: eighteen ninety census announced the frontier was over. It was 44 00:03:19,160 --> 00:03:24,440 Speaker 1: nostalgia that made Bill Cody's Wild West Show legendary, made 45 00:03:24,480 --> 00:03:28,880 Speaker 1: the careers of painters Frederick Remington and Charlie Russell, of 46 00:03:28,919 --> 00:03:32,200 Speaker 1: filmmaker John Ford, And of course, it was Old West 47 00:03:32,240 --> 00:03:36,680 Speaker 1: nostalgia that made Tom Mix, John Wayne, Audie Murphy, and 48 00:03:36,800 --> 00:03:40,680 Speaker 1: Roy Rogers cinema stars, and got Clint Eastwood his start. 49 00:03:41,640 --> 00:03:46,040 Speaker 1: Maybe writer Zane Gray captured the magic best The Old West, 50 00:03:46,160 --> 00:03:49,920 Speaker 1: he once wrote, was the last time in the history 51 00:03:49,960 --> 00:03:54,040 Speaker 1: of Earth humans got to live a sensuous life in 52 00:03:54,080 --> 00:03:58,840 Speaker 1: a state of nature. The Old West virus infected all 53 00:03:58,840 --> 00:04:01,720 Speaker 1: of us. As a five year old, I once found 54 00:04:01,800 --> 00:04:05,880 Speaker 1: myself in an Oklahoma City elevator looking up at a 55 00:04:05,920 --> 00:04:12,040 Speaker 1: fellow passenger I realized was film star Randolph Scott. The 56 00:04:12,120 --> 00:04:15,600 Speaker 1: excitement almost took me out. I've never been without a 57 00:04:15,600 --> 00:04:19,880 Speaker 1: pair of cowboy booths since. American country music centered in 58 00:04:19,920 --> 00:04:23,760 Speaker 1: the South had little beyond a regional appeal until it 59 00:04:23,839 --> 00:04:30,119 Speaker 1: rebranded itself country Western and affected cowboy hats and jeans. Now, 60 00:04:30,160 --> 00:04:33,800 Speaker 1: not even Beyonce can resist it, even in the twenty 61 00:04:33,839 --> 00:04:39,080 Speaker 1: first century. The writer David Milch's HBO series Deadwood, or 62 00:04:39,120 --> 00:04:41,680 Speaker 1: as I like to call it, back to the Fucking 63 00:04:41,760 --> 00:04:46,000 Speaker 1: West Cocksuckers, proved just how resilient the Old West could 64 00:04:46,040 --> 00:04:50,760 Speaker 1: be as a compelling subject. More of Milch and Deadwood 65 00:04:50,839 --> 00:04:53,839 Speaker 1: in another episode. What I want to argue now and 66 00:04:53,880 --> 00:04:57,160 Speaker 1: across the remaining episodes in this podcast is that the 67 00:04:57,200 --> 00:05:00,920 Speaker 1: twentieth and twenty first century West has maybe been an 68 00:05:00,960 --> 00:05:05,039 Speaker 1: even more thrilling place for history to play out. Nostalgia 69 00:05:05,120 --> 00:05:07,560 Speaker 1: for the Old West, as I'm about to demonstrate here, 70 00:05:07,839 --> 00:05:12,000 Speaker 1: with the careers of two famous artists, the photographer Edward 71 00:05:12,040 --> 00:05:16,520 Speaker 1: Sheriff Curtis and the painter ven Old Rice, could be 72 00:05:16,600 --> 00:05:21,080 Speaker 1: pretty much a drag on understanding the possibilities of modern 73 00:05:21,160 --> 00:05:24,919 Speaker 1: life in the West. We've not yet entirely escaped the 74 00:05:25,000 --> 00:05:28,440 Speaker 1: pull of the Western pass but the honysty of someone 75 00:05:28,560 --> 00:05:32,240 Speaker 1: like ven Old Rice painting the Blackfeet Indians of Montana 76 00:05:32,560 --> 00:05:36,440 Speaker 1: from roughly nineteen twenty to nineteen fifty helped. 77 00:05:36,160 --> 00:05:39,520 Speaker 2: Show us the way towards the West we actually live 78 00:05:39,560 --> 00:05:40,719 Speaker 2: in or visit. 79 00:05:51,720 --> 00:05:56,440 Speaker 1: No One remotely interested in American Indians or merely the 80 00:05:56,480 --> 00:06:01,640 Speaker 1: beauty and dignity of humanity ever, forgets their reaction standing 81 00:06:01,720 --> 00:06:07,119 Speaker 1: before an Edward Sheriff Curtis photograph, after the initial shock 82 00:06:07,160 --> 00:06:11,240 Speaker 1: of seeing what appears to be pre modern people preserved 83 00:06:11,279 --> 00:06:15,120 Speaker 1: by a modern medium. I had no idea cameras existed 84 00:06:15,120 --> 00:06:18,240 Speaker 1: that long ago, a friend said to me. Once you 85 00:06:18,360 --> 00:06:22,159 Speaker 1: start looking more closely, becoming aware that the sense of 86 00:06:22,279 --> 00:06:25,920 Speaker 1: age here is in part due to the Cepia tones 87 00:06:26,040 --> 00:06:30,080 Speaker 1: of Curtis's Prince. Mostly you're stunned by the depth of 88 00:06:30,279 --> 00:06:35,520 Speaker 1: character in Curtis's human subjects. As George horse Capture of 89 00:06:35,600 --> 00:06:39,400 Speaker 1: Montana's Fort bell Knapp Reservation said of his first sight 90 00:06:39,720 --> 00:06:44,360 Speaker 1: of a Curtis portrait, the world stopped for several moments. 91 00:06:45,440 --> 00:06:48,480 Speaker 1: That was a special case since the portrait was of 92 00:06:48,560 --> 00:06:52,479 Speaker 1: horse Capture's great grandfather. But he speaks for most of us. 93 00:06:52,720 --> 00:06:56,960 Speaker 1: Whether we encounter Curtis's images and books on calendars or 94 00:06:57,000 --> 00:07:00,600 Speaker 1: on postcards, and these days his CPIA photo do seem 95 00:07:00,640 --> 00:07:05,120 Speaker 1: to be everywhere. Were spellbound, as if deposited in the 96 00:07:05,160 --> 00:07:10,760 Speaker 1: past by a time machine. But why what is it 97 00:07:10,880 --> 00:07:16,360 Speaker 1: we see in Curtis's photographs? Who was this shadow catcher, 98 00:07:16,720 --> 00:07:19,640 Speaker 1: as some of his subjects called him, who in a 99 00:07:19,720 --> 00:07:23,840 Speaker 1: good piece of one lifetime managed to befriend some eighty 100 00:07:23,960 --> 00:07:28,680 Speaker 1: tribes of Indians and shoot more than forty thousand photographs 101 00:07:28,720 --> 00:07:32,400 Speaker 1: of them. How was someone like this on the scene 102 00:07:32,680 --> 00:07:38,840 Speaker 1: in the Old West with a camera? Well, that's the 103 00:07:38,880 --> 00:07:43,520 Speaker 1: first fantasy about the shadow Catcher to brush aside. Curtis 104 00:07:43,640 --> 00:07:48,560 Speaker 1: was not photographing eighty indigenous tribes while the frontier raged on. 105 00:07:49,880 --> 00:07:54,120 Speaker 1: The census had declared the frontier over a full decade 106 00:07:54,440 --> 00:07:59,080 Speaker 1: before Curtis said about his project. As for who he was, 107 00:07:59,520 --> 00:08:03,480 Speaker 1: there's the simple characterization of the kind we'd all reject 108 00:08:03,560 --> 00:08:06,480 Speaker 1: if it were applied to us. Then there's the more 109 00:08:06,680 --> 00:08:11,560 Speaker 1: complex scent of flesh biography. The simple version is that 110 00:08:11,680 --> 00:08:15,880 Speaker 1: he was an almost uneducated Seattle mountaineer who in the 111 00:08:15,920 --> 00:08:20,760 Speaker 1: twentieth century became consumed with romantic notions about how Indians 112 00:08:20,800 --> 00:08:25,800 Speaker 1: once lived. He had some talent, got lucky with influential friends, 113 00:08:26,160 --> 00:08:30,200 Speaker 1: and so obsessively pursued his goal that he sacrificed his 114 00:08:30,320 --> 00:08:34,559 Speaker 1: marriage and money to consummate it and died virtually forgotten. 115 00:08:35,559 --> 00:08:39,240 Speaker 1: The longer version is more interesting and gets us a 116 00:08:39,280 --> 00:08:41,920 Speaker 1: lot closer to being able to answer the kinds of 117 00:08:42,040 --> 00:08:49,320 Speaker 1: questions people mouthed silently when they stand wrapped before the photographs. 118 00:08:49,360 --> 00:08:52,880 Speaker 1: Like so many first generation Americans who grew up in 119 00:08:52,920 --> 00:08:57,280 Speaker 1: the Northwest, Curtis's family roots were in the Midwest and 120 00:08:57,400 --> 00:09:02,719 Speaker 1: his case Wisconsin. Sold their farm to become an itinerant 121 00:09:02,760 --> 00:09:06,240 Speaker 1: preacher by the time Edward was twelve, but he had 122 00:09:06,280 --> 00:09:09,560 Speaker 1: briefly gotten to attend a one room school that seems 123 00:09:09,600 --> 00:09:14,240 Speaker 1: to have been his only formal education. Photography was in 124 00:09:14,320 --> 00:09:17,560 Speaker 1: the air in the late eighteen hundreds, and both the 125 00:09:17,640 --> 00:09:23,280 Speaker 1: technology and the possibilities entranced him. Somewhere, Curtis acquired a 126 00:09:23,360 --> 00:09:26,720 Speaker 1: how to manual, and, unable to afford the real thing, 127 00:09:27,160 --> 00:09:30,240 Speaker 1: built his first camera from a wooden box and a 128 00:09:30,280 --> 00:09:33,320 Speaker 1: stereoscopic lens his father brought home from. 129 00:09:33,200 --> 00:09:33,960 Speaker 2: The Civil War. 130 00:09:35,040 --> 00:09:38,520 Speaker 1: In eighteen eighty seven, when Curtis was nineteen, his father 131 00:09:38,640 --> 00:09:42,239 Speaker 1: moved the family west to Washington State, where they homesteaded 132 00:09:42,280 --> 00:09:47,000 Speaker 1: a farm just across Puget Sound from Seattle. With income 133 00:09:47,160 --> 00:09:50,760 Speaker 1: he brought in from commercial fishing and small scale logging, 134 00:09:51,160 --> 00:09:55,880 Speaker 1: young Edward finally managed to buy a fourteen by seventeen 135 00:09:56,040 --> 00:10:00,680 Speaker 1: view camera. Then, in a capitalization strategy rely on most 136 00:10:00,720 --> 00:10:04,560 Speaker 1: of his life, he mortgaged the Curtis farm to buy 137 00:10:04,720 --> 00:10:09,960 Speaker 1: into a partnership and a photographic studio in bustling, growing Seattle. 138 00:10:10,760 --> 00:10:14,080 Speaker 1: At twenty four, his future beginning to open before him, 139 00:10:14,160 --> 00:10:16,600 Speaker 1: and what turned out to be an ill fated move, 140 00:10:16,960 --> 00:10:22,920 Speaker 1: he married a young neighbor named Clara Phillips. For most photographers, 141 00:10:22,960 --> 00:10:26,960 Speaker 1: making a living largely involves capturing images of two rather 142 00:10:27,120 --> 00:10:32,880 Speaker 1: mundane subjects, weddings and families. For four years, Curtis refined 143 00:10:32,920 --> 00:10:36,160 Speaker 1: his abilities in these fields and paid the mortgage lean. 144 00:10:36,840 --> 00:10:40,120 Speaker 1: But he also dreamed of being a fine arts photographer 145 00:10:40,400 --> 00:10:43,960 Speaker 1: and a new movement that saw photography as a kind 146 00:10:43,960 --> 00:10:48,600 Speaker 1: of technologically assisted form of painting and the photographer as 147 00:10:48,640 --> 00:10:52,480 Speaker 1: an artist. What he needed most of all, Curtis decided, 148 00:10:52,800 --> 00:10:56,200 Speaker 1: were a subject matter and a style he could make 149 00:10:56,240 --> 00:11:01,160 Speaker 1: his own. These were savvy insights. On his mountain climbing 150 00:11:01,160 --> 00:11:04,959 Speaker 1: and fishing trips. Curtis kept coming across local Native people, 151 00:11:05,080 --> 00:11:09,160 Speaker 1: still engaged in their ancient subsistence, even as the post 152 00:11:09,240 --> 00:11:14,240 Speaker 1: frontier West whorled around them. Fortuitously, one of these turned 153 00:11:14,280 --> 00:11:19,520 Speaker 1: out to be Princess Angeline, the elderly daughter of Chief Seattle, 154 00:11:19,960 --> 00:11:24,600 Speaker 1: namesake of the burgeoning city. Curtis befriended her and she 155 00:11:24,720 --> 00:11:28,320 Speaker 1: allowed him to shoot a few soft focused photos of 156 00:11:28,360 --> 00:11:33,040 Speaker 1: her as she engaged in a timeless indigenous pursuit digging 157 00:11:33,120 --> 00:11:37,719 Speaker 1: for clowns along the Pacific shore. In a true epiphany, 158 00:11:37,920 --> 00:11:41,120 Speaker 1: it struck Curtis that he should put the finished print 159 00:11:41,200 --> 00:11:46,120 Speaker 1: through a CPO wash so the image looked brown aged, 160 00:11:46,400 --> 00:11:51,120 Speaker 1: so viewers would feel a timelessness about it. Entered in 161 00:11:51,160 --> 00:11:55,960 Speaker 1: the eighteen ninety six National Photographic Exhibit, it took first 162 00:11:56,160 --> 00:12:00,560 Speaker 1: prize in portraiture. Overnight, Curtis became one of seattle best 163 00:12:00,640 --> 00:12:05,520 Speaker 1: known photographers. Now he had his subject and his leit motif. 164 00:12:11,240 --> 00:12:16,400 Speaker 1: Like toppling Domino's, the breaks came in rapid succession. Two 165 00:12:16,520 --> 00:12:19,200 Speaker 1: years later, high up on the shoulders of one of 166 00:12:19,240 --> 00:12:23,960 Speaker 1: his favorite peaks, Mount Rainier, Curtis encountered a lost climbing 167 00:12:24,000 --> 00:12:27,680 Speaker 1: party that he guided to safety. It was the kind 168 00:12:27,720 --> 00:12:31,080 Speaker 1: of group any ambitious young man might want to run into, 169 00:12:31,200 --> 00:12:35,800 Speaker 1: let alone rescue. The party included Gifford Pinchot of the 170 00:12:35,960 --> 00:12:40,160 Speaker 1: US Forestry Division see Heart, Miriam head of the US 171 00:12:40,280 --> 00:12:45,240 Speaker 1: Biological Survey, and, most importantly for Curtis, the famous author 172 00:12:45,600 --> 00:12:46,840 Speaker 1: George byrd Grennell. 173 00:12:47,600 --> 00:12:48,920 Speaker 2: He was a photographer. 174 00:12:49,000 --> 00:12:51,839 Speaker 1: Curtis told them and back in Seattle when he showed 175 00:12:51,880 --> 00:12:55,360 Speaker 1: them some of his photographs, including his early Indian works. 176 00:12:55,480 --> 00:12:56,359 Speaker 2: They were impressed. 177 00:12:57,000 --> 00:13:00,839 Speaker 1: Grennell and Miriam both had already signed on for an 178 00:13:01,000 --> 00:13:06,520 Speaker 1: upcoming grand expedition financed by railroad tycoon E. H. Harriman, 179 00:13:06,679 --> 00:13:11,280 Speaker 1: to Alaska the next summer. Might young Curtis be interested 180 00:13:11,360 --> 00:13:15,960 Speaker 1: in accompanying the party as photographer? This was the domino 181 00:13:16,040 --> 00:13:20,760 Speaker 1: that collapsed the table. The Harriman expedition included three dozen 182 00:13:21,080 --> 00:13:25,840 Speaker 1: of America's most famous scientist, writers, artists, a kind of 183 00:13:26,080 --> 00:13:30,439 Speaker 1: camelot afloat on the Alaskan seas. Curtis got their rubbed 184 00:13:30,440 --> 00:13:35,160 Speaker 1: shoulders with the natural history writers John Muir and John Burrows, 185 00:13:35,440 --> 00:13:41,719 Speaker 1: the geologist Grove Carl Gilbert, biologists William Dahl, Frederick Dellenbaugh 186 00:13:42,040 --> 00:13:46,480 Speaker 1: and William Brewer, even mister Harriman himself. They were the 187 00:13:46,520 --> 00:13:51,439 Speaker 1: core of Washington's prestigious Cosmos Club. For Curtis, the trip 188 00:13:51,520 --> 00:13:57,520 Speaker 1: served as passport to the whole American scientific and conservation community, 189 00:13:58,040 --> 00:14:02,160 Speaker 1: and the ship, the George day Elder, was, in John 190 00:14:02,240 --> 00:14:07,640 Speaker 1: Mure's words, a floating university, providing Curtis the education he 191 00:14:07,640 --> 00:14:11,880 Speaker 1: had never gotten. He was thirty one years old. The 192 00:14:11,960 --> 00:14:15,480 Speaker 1: trip particularly made Grinnell a good friend, and the writer 193 00:14:15,679 --> 00:14:19,480 Speaker 1: now invited Curtis along in the summer of nineteen hundred 194 00:14:19,840 --> 00:14:24,160 Speaker 1: to a Plains Indian sundance among the Blackfeet on their 195 00:14:24,200 --> 00:14:29,360 Speaker 1: reservation in Montana. All of Curtis's life had been preparation 196 00:14:29,800 --> 00:14:34,960 Speaker 1: for this moment. As he wrote later, he was intensely affected. 197 00:14:35,600 --> 00:14:38,680 Speaker 1: It was the start of my effort to learn about 198 00:14:38,720 --> 00:14:42,440 Speaker 1: the Plains Indians and to photograph their lives. He would 199 00:14:42,480 --> 00:14:46,920 Speaker 1: preserve the Indian world before Indian ness, as Curtis and 200 00:14:47,120 --> 00:14:51,560 Speaker 1: all his new friends firmly believed, what happen would vanish 201 00:14:51,640 --> 00:14:56,560 Speaker 1: for all time. What Curtis had in mind was a 202 00:14:56,680 --> 00:15:01,520 Speaker 1: monumental undertaking, but it wasn't untilnineteen o six that JP 203 00:15:01,680 --> 00:15:06,480 Speaker 1: Morgan finally bankrolled him with seventy five thousand dollars for 204 00:15:06,640 --> 00:15:10,560 Speaker 1: his grand project. Morgan's deal wasn't much of a bargain. 205 00:15:10,880 --> 00:15:13,840 Speaker 1: He wanted Curtis to do the field and print work, 206 00:15:14,080 --> 00:15:17,480 Speaker 1: plus in the matter of John James Ottoman, to publish 207 00:15:17,560 --> 00:15:22,440 Speaker 1: and even market the Finnish books himself. Curtis called the 208 00:15:22,440 --> 00:15:26,880 Speaker 1: books in question the North American Indian, and they came 209 00:15:27,000 --> 00:15:30,200 Speaker 1: near to being still born at the outset. When the 210 00:15:30,280 --> 00:15:34,120 Speaker 1: anthropological community got word of what Curtis was proposing, a 211 00:15:34,160 --> 00:15:39,400 Speaker 1: photographic record of traditional Indian life, three decades after most 212 00:15:39,440 --> 00:15:43,400 Speaker 1: tribes had settled onto reservations, it ran up a red flag. 213 00:15:44,200 --> 00:15:46,160 Speaker 2: Professor Franz Boaz. 214 00:15:45,760 --> 00:15:50,040 Speaker 1: At Columbia expressed what still is the most obvious objection 215 00:15:50,760 --> 00:15:54,800 Speaker 1: in the twentieth century. What Curtis was proposing was impossible. 216 00:15:55,280 --> 00:15:59,360 Speaker 1: Despite widespread nostalgia for the Old West, by the early 217 00:15:59,440 --> 00:16:03,560 Speaker 1: nineteen high hundreds, most tribes had already endured decades of 218 00:16:03,760 --> 00:16:09,680 Speaker 1: systematic policy driven a culturation. To show traditional Indian life 219 00:16:09,880 --> 00:16:13,040 Speaker 1: as it was lived in the eighteen hundreds, Curtis would 220 00:16:13,120 --> 00:16:16,400 Speaker 1: have to fake the details and most of the contexts 221 00:16:16,440 --> 00:16:20,920 Speaker 1: of his project. Boas His objections did lead to President 222 00:16:21,080 --> 00:16:25,640 Speaker 1: Roosevelt appointing a committee to investigate those arguments, but the 223 00:16:25,640 --> 00:16:29,400 Speaker 1: committee included William H. Holmes of the Bureau of Ethnology, 224 00:16:29,640 --> 00:16:35,560 Speaker 1: who despised Boas and who knew Roosevelt wanted Curtis to succeed. Roosevelt, 225 00:16:35,560 --> 00:16:39,240 Speaker 1: in fact, wrote the forward to Volume one, and it's 226 00:16:39,320 --> 00:16:42,880 Speaker 1: easy to conclude that the President was as caught up 227 00:16:42,960 --> 00:16:47,520 Speaker 1: in the romance of the undertaking as Curtis. Nonetheless, a 228 00:16:47,640 --> 00:16:54,040 Speaker 1: reputation as the great fabricator has been Curtis's albatross ever since. 229 00:16:55,520 --> 00:16:59,160 Speaker 1: Curtis was in over his head anyway. He was young, 230 00:16:59,560 --> 00:17:02,640 Speaker 1: enter jet and inspired and thought he could wrap up 231 00:17:02,640 --> 00:17:06,200 Speaker 1: the entire project in five years, but if dated from 232 00:17:06,200 --> 00:17:09,320 Speaker 1: that nineteen hundred sun dance in Montana where he got 233 00:17:09,320 --> 00:17:14,080 Speaker 1: the idea, it actually took up thirty years of his life. 234 00:17:14,119 --> 00:17:18,119 Speaker 1: With offices both in New York for marketing and Seattle 235 00:17:18,280 --> 00:17:22,440 Speaker 1: for the photographic end, he embarked on years and years 236 00:17:22,640 --> 00:17:28,159 Speaker 1: of one world win trip after another. Volume, one on 237 00:17:28,320 --> 00:17:32,840 Speaker 1: the Novajos in the Southwest, came out in nineteen oh seven, 238 00:17:33,320 --> 00:17:34,400 Speaker 1: and it was led. 239 00:17:34,200 --> 00:17:36,960 Speaker 2: Off by a photo whose title. 240 00:17:36,960 --> 00:17:43,560 Speaker 1: The Vanishing Race, captured the whole underlying premise. Over the 241 00:17:43,600 --> 00:17:47,560 Speaker 1: next seven years, ten more volumes appeared. By this time, 242 00:17:47,640 --> 00:17:51,520 Speaker 1: Curtis had gone through Morgan's initial investment and was barely 243 00:17:51,600 --> 00:17:56,240 Speaker 1: passed halfway to his goal. His novel solution for money 244 00:17:56,720 --> 00:18:01,080 Speaker 1: was to turn into an indie filmmaker, but his silent 245 00:18:01,200 --> 00:18:05,120 Speaker 1: film In the Land of the Headhunters, a quaky Udel, 246 00:18:05,280 --> 00:18:10,200 Speaker 1: Romeo and Juliet story, was a box office flop. By 247 00:18:10,240 --> 00:18:13,240 Speaker 1: taking out a second mortgage on his house, this one 248 00:18:13,280 --> 00:18:17,359 Speaker 1: without his wife's knowledge, and appealing to the Morgan family 249 00:18:17,440 --> 00:18:21,360 Speaker 1: for continued financing, Curtis was finally able to turn out 250 00:18:21,480 --> 00:18:26,800 Speaker 1: the last nine volumes of his grand project. While all 251 00:18:26,880 --> 00:18:31,040 Speaker 1: this was happening, the last volume twenty finally appeared in 252 00:18:31,160 --> 00:18:36,160 Speaker 1: nineteen thirty, much of the rest of Curtis's world was imploding. 253 00:18:37,240 --> 00:18:42,520 Speaker 1: Clara filed for divorce from her absentee husband in nineteen sixteen. 254 00:18:43,280 --> 00:18:48,320 Speaker 1: Curtis was convicted of failure to pay alimony in nineteen eighteen, 255 00:18:49,040 --> 00:18:53,280 Speaker 1: and when the divorce was settled in nineteen twenty, Clara 256 00:18:53,320 --> 00:18:57,200 Speaker 1: got possession not only of his studio but of all 257 00:18:57,320 --> 00:19:01,920 Speaker 1: the negatives he had shot so far. The subsequent disappearance 258 00:19:02,040 --> 00:19:06,879 Speaker 1: of Curtis's studio materials dating before nineteen twenty has led 259 00:19:06,920 --> 00:19:11,080 Speaker 1: to one of the great treasure hunts in Western art so. 260 00:19:11,160 --> 00:19:12,199 Speaker 2: Far, to no avail. 261 00:19:13,440 --> 00:19:17,439 Speaker 1: Clara wasn't through, though, having him arrested one more time 262 00:19:17,680 --> 00:19:21,080 Speaker 1: as he passed through Seattle Enroot, home from his last 263 00:19:21,080 --> 00:19:25,280 Speaker 1: photo shoot for The North American Indian in nineteen twenty seven. 264 00:19:26,760 --> 00:19:30,640 Speaker 1: Curtis lived for another quarter century without ever producing another 265 00:19:30,760 --> 00:19:34,440 Speaker 1: significant work, so the meaning of his life is largely 266 00:19:34,480 --> 00:19:39,000 Speaker 1: synonymous with what we think about his great project. There's 267 00:19:39,000 --> 00:19:43,840 Speaker 1: no question today of Curtis's status as an artist, but 268 00:19:44,000 --> 00:19:48,800 Speaker 1: the mesmerizing quality of his images is largely a consequence 269 00:19:49,080 --> 00:19:52,840 Speaker 1: of his understanding of the nostalgic. 270 00:19:52,200 --> 00:19:53,880 Speaker 2: Allure of Native America. 271 00:19:54,600 --> 00:19:58,360 Speaker 1: Other photographers and painters certainly attempted this, but no one 272 00:19:58,400 --> 00:20:02,000 Speaker 1: else pulled it off with the a line that Curtis did. 273 00:20:02,920 --> 00:20:05,639 Speaker 1: On the other hand, there's always the question of whether 274 00:20:05,720 --> 00:20:10,600 Speaker 1: you can entirely trust a Curtis image. The text of 275 00:20:10,640 --> 00:20:14,240 Speaker 1: the North American Indian, edited by Frederick Webb Hodge of 276 00:20:14,280 --> 00:20:18,359 Speaker 1: the Bureau of Ethnology, presents a straightforward ethnography of the 277 00:20:18,440 --> 00:20:22,640 Speaker 1: tribes as Curtis found them, but of course hardly anyone 278 00:20:22,800 --> 00:20:26,159 Speaker 1: reads the text anymore. So we're back to the fact 279 00:20:26,560 --> 00:20:30,280 Speaker 1: that rarely do his photo show Indian life as it 280 00:20:30,440 --> 00:20:34,879 Speaker 1: actually was in the post frontier. Instead, Curtis went to 281 00:20:34,960 --> 00:20:40,240 Speaker 1: extraordinary links to exercise the whole twentieth century. He provided 282 00:20:40,280 --> 00:20:44,120 Speaker 1: his Indian subjects with outfits and props from a half 283 00:20:44,200 --> 00:20:49,040 Speaker 1: century earlier. He airbrushed away power lines in his photos, 284 00:20:49,359 --> 00:20:52,880 Speaker 1: once even used dark room tricks to erase an alarm 285 00:20:53,000 --> 00:20:57,240 Speaker 1: clock he found to his horror beside the right elbow 286 00:20:57,560 --> 00:21:02,280 Speaker 1: of his blackfeet subject in the State eighteen seventies, looking 287 00:21:02,359 --> 00:21:07,399 Speaker 1: photo in a Paygan lodge. Of the more than twenty 288 00:21:07,400 --> 00:21:11,480 Speaker 1: two thousand photographs in the North American Indian, a few 289 00:21:11,560 --> 00:21:14,840 Speaker 1: can't be trusted or are questionable today for other reasons. 290 00:21:15,400 --> 00:21:19,600 Speaker 1: Sometimes Indians do Curtis. Some of the novel hosts did 291 00:21:19,640 --> 00:21:22,400 Speaker 1: their ceremonies backwards for his camera. 292 00:21:23,280 --> 00:21:25,080 Speaker 2: As one of the only white. 293 00:21:24,760 --> 00:21:29,119 Speaker 1: Men ever to participate in the nine Day Hopey Snake Dance, 294 00:21:29,520 --> 00:21:30,720 Speaker 1: Curtis even. 295 00:21:30,480 --> 00:21:32,720 Speaker 2: Photographed that's sacred ritual. 296 00:21:33,040 --> 00:21:37,000 Speaker 1: Today, the Hopies don't even allow non Indians to see 297 00:21:37,080 --> 00:21:40,840 Speaker 1: this ceremony. It's not easy then, to know what to 298 00:21:40,880 --> 00:21:45,520 Speaker 1: think about Curtis. Listening to George Horse Capture helps Thom, 299 00:21:45,880 --> 00:21:50,680 Speaker 1: a defender of Curtis Horse Capture, remains awestruck at Curtis's 300 00:21:50,720 --> 00:21:54,320 Speaker 1: dedication to his project and at the stunning quality of 301 00:21:54,400 --> 00:21:59,400 Speaker 1: the resulting imagery. Most importantly, he believes that Curtis's work 302 00:21:59,560 --> 00:22:05,439 Speaker 1: Strengthson's native confidence. What Curtis's images show is that what 303 00:22:05,760 --> 00:22:10,480 Speaker 1: Indians suspected about the depth and beauty of their ancestors 304 00:22:10,560 --> 00:22:17,560 Speaker 1: culture in the Old West was true. As Curtis was 305 00:22:17,680 --> 00:22:22,400 Speaker 1: journeying to tribe after tribe, then disappearing into his dark room. 306 00:22:22,800 --> 00:22:26,760 Speaker 1: All over the West, painters were fixing images of Native 307 00:22:26,800 --> 00:22:30,880 Speaker 1: people and the Old West as rapidly as they could work. 308 00:22:32,359 --> 00:22:35,879 Speaker 1: Frederick Remington and Charlie Russell became the most famous and 309 00:22:35,960 --> 00:22:40,880 Speaker 1: successful the artists captivated by Indians believed their subjects were vanishing, 310 00:22:41,280 --> 00:22:44,919 Speaker 1: so artists like Joseph Henry Sharp, who particularly focused on 311 00:22:45,000 --> 00:22:48,840 Speaker 1: the Crows and Taos and Santa Fe based painters like 312 00:22:48,960 --> 00:22:54,680 Speaker 1: e Irvingkows, Ernest Blumenshein and John Sloan captured the pueblos 313 00:22:54,720 --> 00:22:58,480 Speaker 1: of the Southwest at a frantic pace. At a time 314 00:22:58,520 --> 00:23:02,480 Speaker 1: when railroads were one of the biggest businesses in the country, 315 00:23:02,960 --> 00:23:07,840 Speaker 1: Tourism seemed the future, and nothing advertised a Western adventure 316 00:23:07,920 --> 00:23:13,400 Speaker 1: in a strange land like images of exotic natives. Ving 317 00:23:13,480 --> 00:23:17,080 Speaker 1: Old Rice, who immersed himself in the northern West between 318 00:23:17,160 --> 00:23:20,480 Speaker 1: roughly nineteen twenty and nineteen fifty, was one of the 319 00:23:20,520 --> 00:23:25,640 Speaker 1: painters who attracted the attention of a Western railroad. Rice's 320 00:23:25,720 --> 00:23:30,679 Speaker 1: mission began very much in the genre that Curtis, Remington, 321 00:23:30,880 --> 00:23:35,840 Speaker 1: Blumensheine and others had already laid out. Yet the more 322 00:23:35,960 --> 00:23:39,520 Speaker 1: Rice learned, the more experience he had, the more he 323 00:23:39,600 --> 00:23:43,359 Speaker 1: thought it critical to portray the post frontier world of 324 00:23:43,400 --> 00:23:49,120 Speaker 1: his Indian subjects as opposed to old West nostalgia. For Curtis, 325 00:23:49,160 --> 00:23:53,720 Speaker 1: the arrow of time flew backwards into a retreating past. 326 00:23:54,440 --> 00:23:56,960 Speaker 2: For Rice, that projectile flew. 327 00:23:56,840 --> 00:24:00,439 Speaker 1: Into an open ended future where neither of the West 328 00:24:00,600 --> 00:24:06,360 Speaker 1: nor his subjects had vanished. Rice hardly started out immune 329 00:24:06,480 --> 00:24:09,679 Speaker 1: to Western romance. Like all of us, he was a 330 00:24:09,720 --> 00:24:12,879 Speaker 1: product of time and place, and in his case the 331 00:24:12,960 --> 00:24:17,760 Speaker 1: place was Germany and the time the late nineteenth century, when, 332 00:24:17,800 --> 00:24:22,480 Speaker 1: perhaps more so than anywhere, Rice's countrymen were intoxicated with 333 00:24:22,640 --> 00:24:27,760 Speaker 1: the idea of people living in nature. Like other German boys, 334 00:24:27,920 --> 00:24:32,439 Speaker 1: Reis grew up reading Karl Mei, who mesmerized generations of 335 00:24:32,520 --> 00:24:37,160 Speaker 1: German readers with a kind of fantasy American West. Mai 336 00:24:37,240 --> 00:24:42,160 Speaker 1: remains so crucial to European ideas about America that Durshue 337 00:24:42,359 --> 00:24:46,720 Speaker 1: de monitu An Austin Powers like Sendup of a nineteen 338 00:24:46,840 --> 00:24:50,919 Speaker 1: sixty two Karl my movie is the most popular film 339 00:24:51,160 --> 00:24:55,600 Speaker 1: in Germany right now. In twenty twenty five, it wasn't 340 00:24:55,720 --> 00:24:59,960 Speaker 1: cowboys or miners or buffalo hunters who entranced Germans, though 341 00:25:00,680 --> 00:25:05,760 Speaker 1: it was Western Indians like My's heroic apache chief Vinetou 342 00:25:06,040 --> 00:25:11,520 Speaker 1: who mesmerized them. Actually, My never visited the American West, 343 00:25:11,760 --> 00:25:15,160 Speaker 1: knew nothing about it beyond reading a few dubious books 344 00:25:15,520 --> 00:25:18,560 Speaker 1: and entirely confused geography and tribes. 345 00:25:19,400 --> 00:25:20,320 Speaker 2: None of that mattered. 346 00:25:20,960 --> 00:25:24,399 Speaker 1: My's novels made the West appear the only place on 347 00:25:24,520 --> 00:25:28,399 Speaker 1: Earth one could really be alive. Ven Old Rice was 348 00:25:28,440 --> 00:25:32,479 Speaker 1: one of his converts, prepared for a version of the 349 00:25:32,480 --> 00:25:36,399 Speaker 1: West hardly more real than a galaxy far far away. 350 00:25:37,000 --> 00:25:40,120 Speaker 1: A twenty seven year old Rice arrived in New York 351 00:25:40,280 --> 00:25:44,600 Speaker 1: in nineteen thirteen expecting to see Indians on Fifth Avenue 352 00:25:44,920 --> 00:25:50,000 Speaker 1: are living in teepee villages outside New York or Boston. Eventually, 353 00:25:50,040 --> 00:25:54,359 Speaker 1: he stumbled across a homeless ex Wild West performer named 354 00:25:54,440 --> 00:25:58,080 Speaker 1: yellow Elk, who was Blackfeet and told the young German 355 00:25:58,320 --> 00:26:01,560 Speaker 1: if his heart's desire was to paint real Indians, the 356 00:26:01,600 --> 00:26:05,520 Speaker 1: best place to go was to newly created Glacier National 357 00:26:05,600 --> 00:26:10,600 Speaker 1: Park and its adjacent Blackfeet Reservation in Montana. There, yellow 358 00:26:10,680 --> 00:26:17,760 Speaker 1: Elk said, were the Indians of Rice's imagination. The Great 359 00:26:17,800 --> 00:26:21,560 Speaker 1: War years obviously were not the time for a painter 360 00:26:21,720 --> 00:26:26,080 Speaker 1: from America's enemy nation to travel the US in search 361 00:26:26,119 --> 00:26:30,000 Speaker 1: of subjects from the margins of American life. So a 362 00:26:30,160 --> 00:26:34,000 Speaker 1: nineteen thirteen nineteen fourteen trip to the West didn't happen, 363 00:26:35,000 --> 00:26:37,720 Speaker 1: but it's quickly following the war's end as he could 364 00:26:37,800 --> 00:26:40,840 Speaker 1: make it happen. In the absolute dead of winter of 365 00:26:40,920 --> 00:26:46,000 Speaker 1: December January nineteen nineteen and nineteen twenty, Rice took the 366 00:26:46,040 --> 00:26:50,480 Speaker 1: Great Northern Railroad west to Montana. As soon as he 367 00:26:50,520 --> 00:26:53,560 Speaker 1: stepped off the train, the Germans spotted a group of 368 00:26:53,640 --> 00:26:57,920 Speaker 1: blanket draped Indians, and, to the profound shock of the group, 369 00:26:58,400 --> 00:27:01,880 Speaker 1: strolled up to them, wrapped one on the back, held 370 00:27:01,960 --> 00:27:05,239 Speaker 1: up his hand, and, in a recreation of scenes in 371 00:27:05,359 --> 00:27:11,000 Speaker 1: carl My novels, blurted out, how lucky for vin Old Rice, 372 00:27:11,200 --> 00:27:13,920 Speaker 1: lucky for all of us. The Blackfeet, by this time 373 00:27:13,960 --> 00:27:17,720 Speaker 1: in their history, had learned to be amused and tolerant 374 00:27:18,040 --> 00:27:22,399 Speaker 1: of the unfathomable antics of white people. Maybe the innocence 375 00:27:22,520 --> 00:27:27,680 Speaker 1: of how was downright endearing. In nineteen nineteen, So, recognizing 376 00:27:27,800 --> 00:27:31,119 Speaker 1: a fallible fellow human when he saw one one of 377 00:27:31,119 --> 00:27:34,439 Speaker 1: the Blackfeet men, whose name was Turtled, motioned for his 378 00:27:34,560 --> 00:27:38,119 Speaker 1: friends to choke off their laughter and to welcome this 379 00:27:38,280 --> 00:27:42,840 Speaker 1: strange individual, as the Blackfeet had done with empathetic whites 380 00:27:42,840 --> 00:27:48,119 Speaker 1: for decades. The Blackfeet had experiences with artists and photographers 381 00:27:48,320 --> 00:27:51,359 Speaker 1: that went back at least twenty years, and after a 382 00:27:51,400 --> 00:27:56,359 Speaker 1: few minutes of translated but good spirited conversation, some of 383 00:27:56,400 --> 00:28:00,000 Speaker 1: the group Rice approached with how agreed to sit for him. 384 00:28:00,560 --> 00:28:03,919 Speaker 1: Rice had taken the first big step. He was on 385 00:28:03,960 --> 00:28:07,399 Speaker 1: his way to a long and celebrated career as one 386 00:28:07,440 --> 00:28:13,359 Speaker 1: of the best twentieth century portraitists of American Indians. A 387 00:28:13,400 --> 00:28:17,720 Speaker 1: few years ago, I toured a first rate Blackfoot exhibit 388 00:28:18,040 --> 00:28:21,919 Speaker 1: in the Glenbow Museum in Calgary. The tribal name in 389 00:28:22,000 --> 00:28:27,240 Speaker 1: Canada is rendered Blackfoot that had been assembled and interpreted 390 00:28:27,440 --> 00:28:31,280 Speaker 1: by the elders of the Canadian Blackfoot bands and the 391 00:28:31,320 --> 00:28:36,760 Speaker 1: Southern Pagans the Montana Blackfeet. What caught my attention were 392 00:28:36,880 --> 00:28:42,200 Speaker 1: panels claiming the Blackfoot and Southern Pagan people remembered the 393 00:28:42,320 --> 00:28:46,440 Speaker 1: artists and photographers from a century ago as people they 394 00:28:46,640 --> 00:28:51,720 Speaker 1: especially liked and admired. One exhibit panel put it this way, 395 00:28:51,880 --> 00:28:56,120 Speaker 1: these artists had a profound respect for us as human beings. 396 00:28:56,720 --> 00:29:01,880 Speaker 1: Their respect shows in the images they created. Adjacent to 397 00:29:01,960 --> 00:29:06,240 Speaker 1: those very words were several portraits of their ancestors done 398 00:29:06,520 --> 00:29:12,520 Speaker 1: in brilliantly colored pastels by ving Old Rice. Rice became 399 00:29:12,680 --> 00:29:17,120 Speaker 1: the most successful of all the Great Northern Railroads finds 400 00:29:17,440 --> 00:29:21,040 Speaker 1: as a painter, promoter of Glacier National Park and the 401 00:29:21,160 --> 00:29:26,120 Speaker 1: railroad's ticket sales to Western tourists. Just as the Southwestern 402 00:29:26,160 --> 00:29:29,560 Speaker 1: Railroads had done with the art of the Southwest, the 403 00:29:29,640 --> 00:29:34,560 Speaker 1: Great Northern, led by Louis Hill, son of founder James J. Hill, 404 00:29:35,040 --> 00:29:38,920 Speaker 1: hoped to use artists to help establish Glacier as a 405 00:29:38,960 --> 00:29:45,000 Speaker 1: premier American vacation destination. Urged on by George Burgrenelle in 406 00:29:45,120 --> 00:29:48,800 Speaker 1: nineteen ten, Congress had created Glacier out of pieces of 407 00:29:48,840 --> 00:29:53,400 Speaker 1: the Flathead National Forest and the Blackfeet Reservation. For the 408 00:29:53,440 --> 00:29:57,400 Speaker 1: next half century, the national Park acted like some deep 409 00:29:57,480 --> 00:30:02,240 Speaker 1: space singularity that bent the railroad around it. As part 410 00:30:02,280 --> 00:30:07,000 Speaker 1: of the Great Northern's Sea America First campaign in nineteen fifteen, 411 00:30:07,160 --> 00:30:10,680 Speaker 1: it built many Glacier Hotel along with several of the 412 00:30:10,720 --> 00:30:16,200 Speaker 1: park's Swiss chalets, and hired local Blackfeet to entertain tourists. 413 00:30:16,720 --> 00:30:20,719 Speaker 1: Then it advertised Glacier as the American version of the 414 00:30:20,800 --> 00:30:25,680 Speaker 1: Swiss Alps except with Indians. The year of the park open, 415 00:30:26,120 --> 00:30:31,360 Speaker 1: Hill hired Austria John Ferry as the first sponsored artist 416 00:30:31,760 --> 00:30:35,320 Speaker 1: to help with this promotion, and between nineteen ten and 417 00:30:35,440 --> 00:30:40,240 Speaker 1: nineteen thirteen, Ferry produced three hundred and forty seven pieces, 418 00:30:40,560 --> 00:30:44,040 Speaker 1: for which Hill paid by the square foot of canvas, 419 00:30:44,240 --> 00:30:46,920 Speaker 1: at a price that worked out to roughly thirty dollars 420 00:30:46,920 --> 00:30:53,000 Speaker 1: a painting. The railroad's publicity department used Ferri's work in ads, pamphlets, 421 00:30:53,080 --> 00:30:54,040 Speaker 1: even on menus. 422 00:30:54,800 --> 00:30:56,520 Speaker 2: Other artists followed. 423 00:30:56,160 --> 00:31:00,280 Speaker 1: In a whirlwind of promotional notions in nineteen thirty eighteen. 424 00:31:00,320 --> 00:31:04,560 Speaker 1: In nineteen fourteen, Hill invited the German modernist Julius Seidler 425 00:31:04,680 --> 00:31:09,239 Speaker 1: to the park, then Indian genre painter Edwin Demming. By 426 00:31:09,400 --> 00:31:12,960 Speaker 1: nineteen seventeen, Hill placed his hopes on one of the 427 00:31:13,000 --> 00:31:18,680 Speaker 1: West's most famous illustrator painters, San Francisco artist Maynard Dixon, 428 00:31:19,080 --> 00:31:21,600 Speaker 1: with a plan for Dixon to produce a set of 429 00:31:21,760 --> 00:31:26,440 Speaker 1: large oils for glaciers, lodges, and as advertising posters on 430 00:31:26,520 --> 00:31:31,040 Speaker 1: the West coasts. Dixon came and painted and sent a 431 00:31:31,160 --> 00:31:36,240 Speaker 1: dozen finished oils to Saint Paul in nineteen eighteen. They 432 00:31:36,360 --> 00:31:42,840 Speaker 1: disappeared and have never been found. As for the Blackfeet. 433 00:31:43,480 --> 00:31:47,000 Speaker 1: They had reasons of their own for posing and performing 434 00:31:47,080 --> 00:31:50,920 Speaker 1: for the railroad. Getting to dress in their traditional clothing, 435 00:31:51,360 --> 00:31:54,520 Speaker 1: going on excursions into their old haunts now deep in 436 00:31:54,600 --> 00:31:57,640 Speaker 1: the park were among those reasons, and yes, there was 437 00:31:57,760 --> 00:32:01,120 Speaker 1: cash to be earned. All these made the Blackfeet for 438 00:32:01,200 --> 00:32:05,000 Speaker 1: a time among the most willing Indian subjects in the West. 439 00:32:06,160 --> 00:32:09,440 Speaker 1: All these elements set the table perfectly for vn Old 440 00:32:09,520 --> 00:32:15,240 Speaker 1: Rice's arrival in Blackfeet Country in nineteen nineteen. I once 441 00:32:15,360 --> 00:32:19,120 Speaker 1: was privileged to have lunch with Renate Rice, vn Old 442 00:32:19,200 --> 00:32:24,040 Speaker 1: Rice's engaging daughter in law in Santa Fe. She told 443 00:32:24,080 --> 00:32:28,000 Speaker 1: me that Rice came to Montana with outstanding training at 444 00:32:28,040 --> 00:32:32,200 Speaker 1: the Munich Royal Academy of Fine Arts. When Art's instruction 445 00:32:32,440 --> 00:32:36,040 Speaker 1: was fascinated with the lives and art of so called 446 00:32:36,120 --> 00:32:42,160 Speaker 1: primitive people think Paul Gogan and Pablo Picasso. Rice was 447 00:32:42,240 --> 00:32:47,000 Speaker 1: exposed to all those currents, including modern art like Fauvism 448 00:32:47,120 --> 00:32:52,160 Speaker 1: and Cubism. Borrowing his love of pure chromatic colors and 449 00:32:52,200 --> 00:32:56,840 Speaker 1: a fascination with exotic people from modern art, Rice translated 450 00:32:57,000 --> 00:33:01,280 Speaker 1: those into a completely fresh take on the black Feet 451 00:33:01,400 --> 00:33:05,520 Speaker 1: of the West. The paintings then became commercial work in 452 00:33:05,600 --> 00:33:07,920 Speaker 1: the form of the Great Northern Railroads. 453 00:33:07,360 --> 00:33:11,080 Speaker 2: Calendars and menus. He just loved people. 454 00:33:11,280 --> 00:33:14,240 Speaker 1: Rice's daughter in law told me he loved the way 455 00:33:14,320 --> 00:33:19,640 Speaker 1: people looked. But as Riis's son Jark always said, the 456 00:33:19,680 --> 00:33:23,800 Speaker 1: real reason Rice came to America was always to paint 457 00:33:23,880 --> 00:33:27,920 Speaker 1: the Indians. Over a few weeks on that first visit 458 00:33:27,960 --> 00:33:31,080 Speaker 1: to the black Feet, Rice churned out a remarkable thirty 459 00:33:31,200 --> 00:33:36,160 Speaker 1: six portraits exhibited back east. The entire cash quickly sold. 460 00:33:36,920 --> 00:33:39,960 Speaker 1: Already one of the most celebrated Modernist portrait painters in 461 00:33:40,040 --> 00:33:43,760 Speaker 1: New York, Rice had finally painted Indians, but he was 462 00:33:43,840 --> 00:33:47,000 Speaker 1: still living in New York, and what he really wanted 463 00:33:47,200 --> 00:33:51,840 Speaker 1: was to be George Catlin Redducks, a twentieth century biographer 464 00:33:51,960 --> 00:33:55,600 Speaker 1: of Indians who everyone in New York believed at the 465 00:33:55,680 --> 00:34:02,080 Speaker 1: time were vanishing. As with Curtis, some times life requires 466 00:34:02,160 --> 00:34:06,920 Speaker 1: a lucky break. In early nineteen twenty seven, Rice's sculptor 467 00:34:07,040 --> 00:34:11,400 Speaker 1: brother Hans, was guiding climbers in Glacier Park when he 468 00:34:11,520 --> 00:34:15,080 Speaker 1: happened to meet Louis Hill of the Great Northern. When 469 00:34:15,080 --> 00:34:18,560 Speaker 1: he showed Hill a portfolio of his brother's portraits, Hill 470 00:34:18,640 --> 00:34:22,520 Speaker 1: did not hesitate. Could Veno come out that summer at 471 00:34:22,560 --> 00:34:25,520 Speaker 1: the invitation of the Great Northern, which would fund his 472 00:34:25,560 --> 00:34:29,440 Speaker 1: trip in lodging in return for rights of first refusal 473 00:34:29,719 --> 00:34:35,480 Speaker 1: on whatever art resulted. Vn Old was passed. Ready, he 474 00:34:35,640 --> 00:34:38,680 Speaker 1: remarked to friends in the East the previous year, how 475 00:34:38,760 --> 00:34:42,440 Speaker 1: beautiful the West is. You people in New York don't 476 00:34:42,480 --> 00:34:45,840 Speaker 1: realize I've lived in New York. But now I can't 477 00:34:45,880 --> 00:34:48,880 Speaker 1: stand it any longer. I feel I must break away, 478 00:34:49,200 --> 00:34:52,040 Speaker 1: get among the Indians again, live with them in their 479 00:34:52,080 --> 00:34:56,759 Speaker 1: simple way, and study and paint them. The relationship that 480 00:34:56,840 --> 00:35:00,200 Speaker 1: now formed between an artist, a railroad, a national park, 481 00:35:00,440 --> 00:35:04,800 Speaker 1: and several score Western Indians lasted for the next quarter century. 482 00:35:05,160 --> 00:35:08,640 Speaker 1: It had something for everybody. The painter got to fulfill 483 00:35:08,719 --> 00:35:11,520 Speaker 1: a lifelong ambition and leave an enduring legacy. 484 00:35:11,840 --> 00:35:13,000 Speaker 2: The railroad ended. 485 00:35:12,880 --> 00:35:15,680 Speaker 1: Up with beautiful portraits he would use to advertise the 486 00:35:15,760 --> 00:35:19,759 Speaker 1: line to tourists. Leisher Park's identity was forged by the arrangement, 487 00:35:20,120 --> 00:35:22,920 Speaker 1: and as for the Blackfeet, early on it was a 488 00:35:23,040 --> 00:35:26,680 Speaker 1: chance to hold on to and showcase clothing and other 489 00:35:26,800 --> 00:35:31,640 Speaker 1: elements of their traditional culture. Later, at least as much 490 00:35:31,719 --> 00:35:36,799 Speaker 1: as the railroad would allow, Rice's relationship with the Blackfeet showed. 491 00:35:36,520 --> 00:35:38,839 Speaker 2: Something more honest than Curtis ever did. 492 00:35:39,800 --> 00:35:43,840 Speaker 1: He produced an unmatched portrait of a generation of Native 493 00:35:43,880 --> 00:35:48,120 Speaker 1: people who were no longer buffalo hunters, but ranchers who 494 00:35:48,200 --> 00:35:52,960 Speaker 1: lived in clapboard houses or federal employees who drove pickups. 495 00:35:53,560 --> 00:35:58,280 Speaker 1: In other words, modern Indians surviving in a West different 496 00:35:58,400 --> 00:36:03,920 Speaker 1: from the old Frontier. Summer after summer, ten of them 497 00:36:03,960 --> 00:36:07,760 Speaker 1: between nineteen twenty seven and nineteen forty eight, Reis returned 498 00:36:07,800 --> 00:36:11,920 Speaker 1: to Glacier, gathered black Feet and occasionally Cootney sitters, and 499 00:36:12,000 --> 00:36:15,920 Speaker 1: from his studio on Saint Mary's Lake, faithfully recorded their 500 00:36:16,040 --> 00:36:21,880 Speaker 1: changing circumstances. With his chromatic modernist colors. Rice painted Indians 501 00:36:21,880 --> 00:36:25,960 Speaker 1: with a skill of George Catlan could never have imagined possible. 502 00:36:26,600 --> 00:36:31,000 Speaker 1: Their faces, evoking the ancient and the exotic, were rendered 503 00:36:31,040 --> 00:36:35,240 Speaker 1: into great art. Increasingly, he sought to paint the black 504 00:36:35,239 --> 00:36:38,680 Speaker 1: Feet as they appeared daily to one another, the way 505 00:36:38,719 --> 00:36:41,960 Speaker 1: they dressed and looked, not in the eighteen seventies, but 506 00:36:42,080 --> 00:36:46,120 Speaker 1: in the nineteen thirties and nineteen forties to his managers 507 00:36:46,160 --> 00:36:50,840 Speaker 1: in the railroad offices. However, showing exotic and nostalgic images 508 00:36:50,880 --> 00:36:54,640 Speaker 1: to tourists was the moneymaker. Portraying the Black feet in 509 00:36:54,760 --> 00:36:58,919 Speaker 1: jeans and cowboy hats and checkered church how was that 510 00:36:59,200 --> 00:37:05,240 Speaker 1: going to sell train tickets? So alarmed at Blackfeet intermarriage 511 00:37:05,280 --> 00:37:08,319 Speaker 1: with non Indians and with what appeared to be their 512 00:37:08,400 --> 00:37:12,279 Speaker 1: growing assimilation into the modern West, which of course had 513 00:37:12,280 --> 00:37:14,680 Speaker 1: been the whole point of American Indian policy for one 514 00:37:14,760 --> 00:37:19,440 Speaker 1: hundred years, the Great Northern began to waffle about lodging 515 00:37:19,560 --> 00:37:23,279 Speaker 1: Rice for the summers. Rice's last visit to Glacier came 516 00:37:23,360 --> 00:37:26,600 Speaker 1: in nineteen forty eight, and this time something happened that 517 00:37:26,640 --> 00:37:30,640 Speaker 1: the Railroad interpreted as certain evidence that the world had 518 00:37:30,680 --> 00:37:36,880 Speaker 1: turned upside down. Eileen Schilt, a Blackfeet woman whose portrait 519 00:37:37,000 --> 00:37:41,400 Speaker 1: Rice painted that summer, ended up bringing a lawsuit against 520 00:37:41,440 --> 00:37:46,560 Speaker 1: the railroad for using her image and advertising without paying 521 00:37:46,680 --> 00:37:51,359 Speaker 1: her a royalty. What buffalo hunting Indian would ever do 522 00:37:51,440 --> 00:37:57,360 Speaker 1: such a thing? Following a stroke, Veno Rice passed away 523 00:37:57,680 --> 00:37:58,960 Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty three. 524 00:38:00,000 --> 00:38:01,000 Speaker 2: What a life he had had. 525 00:38:01,760 --> 00:38:05,799 Speaker 1: He left marvelous pictorial evidence of just the kind of 526 00:38:05,840 --> 00:38:10,200 Speaker 1: existence he had hoped for. Even the ending was straight 527 00:38:10,400 --> 00:38:14,200 Speaker 1: out of a Carl My novel. In nineteen fifty four, 528 00:38:14,640 --> 00:38:18,520 Speaker 1: Jark shipped his father's ashes to bull Child, one of 529 00:38:18,600 --> 00:38:23,280 Speaker 1: Rice's Blackfeet friends in Montana. As the Chinooks ate away 530 00:38:23,360 --> 00:38:27,919 Speaker 1: the snow that spring, bull Child climbed Red Blanket Hill 531 00:38:28,320 --> 00:38:33,640 Speaker 1: and spread Rice's ashes across the Blackfeet country, just as 532 00:38:33,680 --> 00:38:37,239 Speaker 1: he had daydreamed in Germany as a boy, ving old 533 00:38:37,320 --> 00:38:51,320 Speaker 1: Rice had finally merged with the West and the Indians. 534 00:38:58,360 --> 00:39:00,960 Speaker 3: Dan, I think one of the first thing that stood 535 00:39:00,960 --> 00:39:04,719 Speaker 3: out to me in this in this episode is the 536 00:39:04,800 --> 00:39:12,120 Speaker 3: idea that these photographs from Curtis are sepia toned. Yeah, 537 00:39:12,280 --> 00:39:15,440 Speaker 3: and we wouldn't really, I don't think very many Americans 538 00:39:15,480 --> 00:39:18,480 Speaker 3: would be familiar with that prior to the age of Instagram. 539 00:39:18,560 --> 00:39:22,879 Speaker 3: But in telling the story, you sort of peel back 540 00:39:23,640 --> 00:39:27,759 Speaker 3: what's behind the image, which up until recently, you know, 541 00:39:27,840 --> 00:39:32,680 Speaker 3: with digital manipulation, it was more obscure to the to 542 00:39:32,760 --> 00:39:34,400 Speaker 3: the viewer right or to the audience. 543 00:39:35,080 --> 00:39:39,040 Speaker 1: Yeah, I think those CPA images that I mean, and 544 00:39:39,080 --> 00:39:43,480 Speaker 1: that's that's how Curtis photograph you know, his two hundred 545 00:39:43,520 --> 00:39:47,400 Speaker 1: thousand photographs, a shot of Native people. That's how he 546 00:39:47,640 --> 00:39:51,160 Speaker 1: did it. That's how he processed them. I mean, they 547 00:39:51,160 --> 00:39:54,080 Speaker 1: were black and white photographs, but he processed them in 548 00:39:54,080 --> 00:39:57,120 Speaker 1: a chemical mix in his dark room in order to 549 00:39:57,520 --> 00:39:59,800 Speaker 1: turn them brown, and the idea, of course, was some 550 00:40:00,000 --> 00:40:04,560 Speaker 1: make these look aged. And that was kind of one 551 00:40:04,600 --> 00:40:11,320 Speaker 1: of his epiphanies when as a young man he found 552 00:40:11,400 --> 00:40:16,440 Speaker 1: himself in a position to produce a kind of a 553 00:40:16,480 --> 00:40:20,799 Speaker 1: photography that could be considered art and that other people 554 00:40:20,840 --> 00:40:25,400 Speaker 1: would would think of him as an artist. That was 555 00:40:25,480 --> 00:40:28,000 Speaker 1: one of the insights he had. The second inside, of course, 556 00:40:28,120 --> 00:40:31,200 Speaker 1: was I'm going to make Native people my focus, and 557 00:40:31,239 --> 00:40:35,160 Speaker 1: I'm particularly going to photograph them as if we were 558 00:40:35,200 --> 00:40:38,840 Speaker 1: still in the eighteen forties, the eighteen fifties, the eighteen sixties. 559 00:40:40,000 --> 00:40:42,720 Speaker 1: And one of the ways to make all this work 560 00:40:43,440 --> 00:40:47,000 Speaker 1: is to make the images is to do a CPA 561 00:40:47,040 --> 00:40:50,760 Speaker 1: wash on them so they look like they're one hundred 562 00:40:50,840 --> 00:40:54,640 Speaker 1: years old or something, you know. And as I said 563 00:40:54,719 --> 00:41:00,359 Speaker 1: early on in the script for this episode, I had 564 00:41:00,360 --> 00:41:04,920 Speaker 1: a friend one time who had his wife had bought 565 00:41:04,960 --> 00:41:10,120 Speaker 1: him a book of Curtis photographs for Christmas one year, 566 00:41:10,160 --> 00:41:14,279 Speaker 1: and we were going through them and he said, I 567 00:41:14,320 --> 00:41:17,160 Speaker 1: gotta say, I I had no idea there were cameras 568 00:41:17,239 --> 00:41:17,879 Speaker 1: back then. 569 00:41:18,920 --> 00:41:21,840 Speaker 2: And I said, well, back then. 570 00:41:22,000 --> 00:41:27,080 Speaker 1: Yes, is that's the rub because back then was actually 571 00:41:27,120 --> 00:41:32,040 Speaker 1: as late as nineteen twenty seven, nineteen thirty, So yeah, 572 00:41:32,040 --> 00:41:34,800 Speaker 1: there were cameras, but what he's doing is he's attempting 573 00:41:34,840 --> 00:41:37,520 Speaker 1: to make these images look like they're one hundred years old. 574 00:41:38,320 --> 00:41:42,880 Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think, at least when it comes to 575 00:41:42,960 --> 00:41:50,680 Speaker 3: this style of art, right portraits of Native people, I 576 00:41:50,719 --> 00:41:55,239 Speaker 3: always have I guess, conflicting thoughts or emotions when it 577 00:41:55,280 --> 00:42:00,480 Speaker 3: comes to it, because there's there's this question of often ticity. 578 00:42:01,120 --> 00:42:04,960 Speaker 3: You know, is this objectifying Native people? Is this or 579 00:42:05,120 --> 00:42:11,200 Speaker 3: is this like a celebratory representation. In this case, you 580 00:42:11,280 --> 00:42:17,160 Speaker 3: have two artists who, you know, some there's some commercial 581 00:42:17,200 --> 00:42:21,520 Speaker 3: motivation obviously, but they do seem to have sort of 582 00:42:21,560 --> 00:42:29,120 Speaker 3: an authentic calling to do this, and they have good motivation, 583 00:42:29,160 --> 00:42:32,439 Speaker 3: pure motivations for lack of a better term, but yeah, 584 00:42:32,520 --> 00:42:39,799 Speaker 3: to historicize Native people in that way, it's it's problematic 585 00:42:40,680 --> 00:42:42,600 Speaker 3: for a lot of reasons. And I wonder if you 586 00:42:42,600 --> 00:42:46,400 Speaker 3: can just sort of talk about some of the conversations 587 00:42:46,440 --> 00:42:46,920 Speaker 3: around that. 588 00:42:47,280 --> 00:42:52,040 Speaker 2: Well, when when the world discovered. 589 00:42:52,880 --> 00:42:55,920 Speaker 1: That Curtis was going to do this, when JP Morgan 590 00:42:56,719 --> 00:43:00,680 Speaker 1: gave him seventy five thousand dollars to do it, and 591 00:43:00,680 --> 00:43:02,959 Speaker 1: and Teddy Roosevelt, who was still president at the time, 592 00:43:03,480 --> 00:43:08,160 Speaker 1: announced that he was writing the forward for this anthropologists 593 00:43:08,239 --> 00:43:12,760 Speaker 1: of the day were stunt and shocked, and Franz Boas 594 00:43:12,800 --> 00:43:17,960 Speaker 1: at Columbia in particular, said, I mean, this is fake. 595 00:43:18,680 --> 00:43:21,680 Speaker 1: You're going to have to fake it all because, I mean, 596 00:43:21,719 --> 00:43:24,719 Speaker 1: we've had an Indian policy in place for a century 597 00:43:25,080 --> 00:43:29,239 Speaker 1: to try to assimilate native people, and many, a great 598 00:43:29,280 --> 00:43:32,880 Speaker 1: many of the world's native people, including in the West, 599 00:43:33,200 --> 00:43:35,719 Speaker 1: have been fully assimilated. So how are you going to 600 00:43:35,760 --> 00:43:41,080 Speaker 1: do this? So the sort of label the great Fabricator 601 00:43:42,640 --> 00:43:48,359 Speaker 1: was placed on Curtis early on in the project, and 602 00:43:48,440 --> 00:43:50,359 Speaker 1: it's been a hard thing for him to live down. 603 00:43:50,400 --> 00:43:52,640 Speaker 1: I think most of the people who see these images now, 604 00:43:52,880 --> 00:43:57,120 Speaker 1: who buy Curtis calendars or postcards or buy books of 605 00:43:57,160 --> 00:44:00,840 Speaker 1: Curtis's work, probably don't understand that that at one time 606 00:44:01,560 --> 00:44:05,239 Speaker 1: was that this was This project was very controversial for 607 00:44:05,280 --> 00:44:07,880 Speaker 1: that reason. And one of the reasons I wanted to 608 00:44:07,960 --> 00:44:11,560 Speaker 1: pair him in this episode with ven Old Rice is 609 00:44:11,600 --> 00:44:17,359 Speaker 1: because Rice is he's a contemporary. He's a painter rather 610 00:44:17,360 --> 00:44:23,880 Speaker 1: than a photographer. He's a very wonderfully trained, academically trained 611 00:44:23,880 --> 00:44:28,719 Speaker 1: portraitist in modern art, and so he's really really skilled. 612 00:44:29,239 --> 00:44:32,920 Speaker 1: He's got the same sort of romantic nostalgia about the West, 613 00:44:33,480 --> 00:44:38,759 Speaker 1: operating from a different perspective, not the frontier for an American, 614 00:44:38,920 --> 00:44:41,680 Speaker 1: but from the karl My novels. 615 00:44:41,960 --> 00:44:45,719 Speaker 3: And it's a clumsy, it's a clumsy and awkward nostalgia. 616 00:44:45,760 --> 00:44:49,080 Speaker 1: It's a very clum because Karl May, the guy who 617 00:44:49,200 --> 00:44:52,759 Speaker 1: made so many Germans fascinated with the West and with 618 00:44:52,960 --> 00:44:58,120 Speaker 1: native people, never visited the West, knew very little about it, 619 00:44:58,600 --> 00:45:02,160 Speaker 1: sort of botched the names of tribes, and I mean, 620 00:45:02,200 --> 00:45:06,120 Speaker 1: he was really kind of awful at it. I lived, 621 00:45:06,120 --> 00:45:10,000 Speaker 1: at one time taught at university on the yostaccato, and 622 00:45:10,400 --> 00:45:13,840 Speaker 1: Carl Me evidently made the toccado into a real focus, 623 00:45:13,880 --> 00:45:17,600 Speaker 1: a geographic focus. And in carl My's books, the onoisocado 624 00:45:17,719 --> 00:45:21,200 Speaker 1: is a mountain range. Well Yanois tacato, in truth is 625 00:45:21,280 --> 00:45:25,600 Speaker 1: actually a dead flat surface, a plateau, the top of 626 00:45:25,640 --> 00:45:30,239 Speaker 1: a plateau. And when I was at Texas Tech back 627 00:45:30,280 --> 00:45:34,200 Speaker 1: in my early career, a bunch of the carl My 628 00:45:34,600 --> 00:45:39,680 Speaker 1: society came to Texas Tech to hold their annual conference, 629 00:45:39,920 --> 00:45:43,759 Speaker 1: and they all got off the plane and were stunned 630 00:45:43,800 --> 00:45:47,840 Speaker 1: to find themselves rather than in snow capped mountains, standing 631 00:45:47,920 --> 00:45:52,240 Speaker 1: out on a bald ass open plane full of cotton 632 00:45:52,280 --> 00:45:54,680 Speaker 1: plants and so, I mean it was a very I 633 00:45:54,719 --> 00:45:57,120 Speaker 1: got to do a talk for them, and it was 634 00:45:57,280 --> 00:46:00,200 Speaker 1: very funny to talk to these Germans who had a 635 00:46:00,280 --> 00:46:04,960 Speaker 1: completely erroneous idea, as I say in the in the episode, 636 00:46:05,000 --> 00:46:07,680 Speaker 1: it's they had the sort of in a galaxy, far 637 00:46:07,800 --> 00:46:11,560 Speaker 1: far away idea about the American West. And so and 638 00:46:11,560 --> 00:46:14,279 Speaker 1: that's what my ca I mean, that's what the Old 639 00:46:14,320 --> 00:46:18,799 Speaker 1: Rice came to America with. But he ended up at 640 00:46:18,840 --> 00:46:22,680 Speaker 1: this moment that he and Curtis were both working, the 641 00:46:22,719 --> 00:46:26,759 Speaker 1: Frontier had come to an end. Many Americans were confronting 642 00:46:26,800 --> 00:46:30,640 Speaker 1: the whole idea of of what historians called frontier anxiety. 643 00:46:30,680 --> 00:46:33,160 Speaker 1: I mean, what are we going to do without a frontier? 644 00:46:33,280 --> 00:46:36,600 Speaker 1: This is what has made America what it is. And 645 00:46:36,640 --> 00:46:39,759 Speaker 1: so you're confronted with do you do the Curtis thing, 646 00:46:40,239 --> 00:46:43,000 Speaker 1: where you act as if the Frontier is not over 647 00:46:43,200 --> 00:46:46,399 Speaker 1: and you continue to portray the Old West as if 648 00:46:46,400 --> 00:46:49,759 Speaker 1: it still exists, or you do what then Old Rice did, 649 00:46:49,920 --> 00:46:54,480 Speaker 1: which was he began portraying the Blackfeet. He was painting 650 00:46:55,160 --> 00:46:59,520 Speaker 1: in cowboy hats and jeans and checkered shirts and driving pickups, 651 00:46:59,560 --> 00:47:02,120 Speaker 1: and of course the railroad that employed him was not 652 00:47:02,280 --> 00:47:06,719 Speaker 1: happy at that. But he was honest about it. And 653 00:47:06,760 --> 00:47:09,600 Speaker 1: one of the things that I think is important about 654 00:47:09,760 --> 00:47:15,640 Speaker 1: that is that from the Curtis perspective and many of 655 00:47:15,640 --> 00:47:20,879 Speaker 1: the people who bought Curtis's books, native people were a 656 00:47:21,000 --> 00:47:26,160 Speaker 1: vanishing race, right, And for ven ol Rice, they weren't 657 00:47:26,200 --> 00:47:32,160 Speaker 1: vanishing at all. They were simply segueing into twentieth century America, right. 658 00:47:32,200 --> 00:47:35,919 Speaker 3: And I think that's you get into that that there's 659 00:47:36,040 --> 00:47:41,080 Speaker 3: serious I mean serious thinkers believe that Native people will 660 00:47:42,160 --> 00:47:45,600 Speaker 3: go extinct, and that that had been the case since, 661 00:47:45,800 --> 00:47:49,520 Speaker 3: you know, even back to Jefferson and before. But then 662 00:47:49,640 --> 00:47:54,920 Speaker 3: there's this question of again authenticity and indian ness. But 663 00:47:54,960 --> 00:47:58,240 Speaker 3: they're people driving pickups, right, and there are people working jobs, 664 00:47:58,280 --> 00:48:01,440 Speaker 3: and it's it's fast that it takes an outsider to 665 00:48:02,400 --> 00:48:03,200 Speaker 3: recognize that. 666 00:48:03,400 --> 00:48:06,480 Speaker 1: Yeah, it takes a German coming over. And because I 667 00:48:06,520 --> 00:48:15,200 Speaker 1: think because he was very sympathetic and he treated his subjects, 668 00:48:15,200 --> 00:48:18,239 Speaker 1: the people he was painting, as real human beings, which 669 00:48:18,280 --> 00:48:22,200 Speaker 1: of course they reciprocated with him. I mean, it became 670 00:48:22,280 --> 00:48:27,439 Speaker 1: important to him to portray them realistically and honestly, rather 671 00:48:27,520 --> 00:48:30,439 Speaker 1: than to try to do what the Great Northern Railroad wanted, 672 00:48:30,480 --> 00:48:34,200 Speaker 1: which was to keep putting bonnets on them and acting 673 00:48:34,239 --> 00:48:37,160 Speaker 1: as if they were still buffalo hunters, because of course 674 00:48:37,640 --> 00:48:40,879 Speaker 1: that was what worked for tourism on the rail line. 675 00:48:41,840 --> 00:48:42,160 Speaker 2: Yeah. 676 00:48:42,200 --> 00:48:47,640 Speaker 1: So an interesting time in the story of the West 677 00:48:48,480 --> 00:48:52,160 Speaker 1: because this magical thing of the frontier. 678 00:48:51,680 --> 00:48:55,120 Speaker 2: Is over, but the West is. 679 00:48:55,040 --> 00:48:57,440 Speaker 1: As I try to stay in the beginning. The West 680 00:48:57,560 --> 00:49:00,399 Speaker 1: is not like say, you know, the Civil War, which 681 00:49:00,400 --> 00:49:04,080 Speaker 1: comes to an end. The West is a place, and 682 00:49:04,160 --> 00:49:07,840 Speaker 1: so it continues to have a story and a history 683 00:49:08,640 --> 00:49:13,239 Speaker 1: forward into time, and that becomes to me as fascinating 684 00:49:13,320 --> 00:49:16,680 Speaker 1: as the time in the previous century. 685 00:49:16,880 --> 00:49:19,879 Speaker 2: Well, thanks Dan, you Bet Randall. Thanks it's been fun.