Edward Curtis’ The North American Indian Forever a marketer,
Curtis wrote for Scribner’s magazine about the Indians and
continued to lecture as well. He made a movie, In the Land of
the Head Hunters, and developed a “picture-musicale.” He placed
his photos in other writers’ books. He did most anything to
showcase who he was and what he was doing. The first volume,
published in 1907, focused on the Apache, Jicarillas, and the
Navajo. Roosevelt wrote in the foreword, “In Mr. Curtis we have
both an artist and a trained observer, whose pictures are
pictures, not merely photographs; whose work has far more than
mere accuracy, because it is truthful.” His work continued.
Volumes two and three were published in 1907. Volumes four and
five came two years later. Volumes six, seven, and eight
appeared in 1911. Volumes nine, ten, and eleven followed in
1913, 1915, and 1916, respectively. And then, on April 2, 1917,
America entered World War I, and production of The North
American Indian ground to a six-year halt. The wa