(Ebook) The Indian Craze : Primitivism, Modernism, and

Transculturation in American Art, 1890-1915 by Elizabeth

Hutchinson; Nicholas Thomas ISBN 9780822392095,
0822392097 Pdf Download

https://ebooknice.com/product/the-indian-craze-primitivism-
modernism-and-transculturation-in-american-art-1890-1915-51261628

★★★★★
4.6 out of 5.0 (77 reviews )

DOWNLOAD PDF

ebooknice.com
 (Ebook) The Indian Craze : Primitivism, Modernism, and
Transculturation in American Art, 1890-1915 by Elizabeth
Hutchinson; Nicholas Thomas ISBN 9780822392095, 0822392097
Pdf Download

EBOOK

Available Formats

■ PDF eBook Study Guide Ebook

EXCLUSIVE 2025 EDUCATIONAL COLLECTION - LIMITED TIME

INSTANT DOWNLOAD VIEW LIBRARY

Here are some recommended products for you. Click the link to
download, or explore more at ebooknice.com

(Ebook) Biota Grow 2C gather 2C cook by Loucas, Jason; Viles,

James ISBN 9781459699816, 9781743365571, 9781925268492,
1459699815, 1743365578, 1925268497

https://ebooknice.com/product/biota-grow-2c-gather-2c-cook-6661374

(Ebook) Matematik 5000+ Kurs 2c Lärobok by Lena Alfredsson, Hans

Heikne, Sanna Bodemyr ISBN 9789127456600, 9127456609

https://ebooknice.com/product/matematik-5000-kurs-2c-larobok-23848312

(Ebook) SAT II Success MATH 1C and 2C 2002 (Peterson's SAT II

Success) by Peterson's ISBN 9780768906677, 0768906679

https://ebooknice.com/product/sat-ii-success-math-1c-and-2c-2002-peterson-
s-sat-ii-success-1722018

(Ebook) Master SAT II Math 1c and 2c 4th ed (Arco Master the SAT
Subject Test: Math Levels 1 & 2) by Arco ISBN 9780768923049,
0768923042

https://ebooknice.com/product/master-sat-ii-math-1c-and-2c-4th-ed-arco-
master-the-sat-subject-test-math-levels-1-2-2326094
(Ebook) Cambridge IGCSE and O Level History Workbook 2C - Depth
Study: the United States, 1919-41 2nd Edition by Benjamin
Harrison ISBN 9781398375147, 9781398375048, 1398375144,
1398375047
https://ebooknice.com/product/cambridge-igcse-and-o-level-history-
workbook-2c-depth-study-the-united-states-1919-41-2nd-edition-53538044

(Ebook) Creating the College Man : American Mass Magazines and

Middle-Class Manhood, 1890-1915 by Daniel A. Clark ISBN
9780299235338, 0299235335

https://ebooknice.com/product/creating-the-college-man-american-mass-
magazines-and-middle-class-manhood-1890-1915-51431874

(Ebook) The Specter of the Indian : Race, Gender, and Ghosts in

American Seances, 1848-1890 by Kathryn Troy ISBN 9781438466101,
1438466102

https://ebooknice.com/product/the-specter-of-the-indian-race-gender-and-
ghosts-in-american-seances-1848-1890-51624464

(Ebook) Media Primitivism : Technological Art in Africa by

Delinda Collier ISBN 9781478012313, 1478012315

https://ebooknice.com/product/media-primitivism-technological-art-in-
africa-51686524

(Ebook) Print Culture and the Formation of the Anarchist

Movement in Spain, 1890-1915 by James Michael Yeoman ISBN
9780367407971, 0367407973

https://ebooknice.com/product/print-culture-and-the-formation-of-the-
anarchist-movement-in-spain-1890-1915-43770918
 The
Indian
Craze
••• Objects/Histories
Critical Perspectives on Art,
Material Culture, and Representation

A series edited by Nicholas Thomas

Published with the assistance

of the Getty Foundation.
 The
Indian
Craze
◊◊◊
primitivism,
modernism, and
transculturation in
american art,
1890 –1915

Elizabeth
Hutchinson

Duke University Press Durham and London 2009

© 2009 Duke University Press

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

on acid-free paper ♾

Designed by Heather Hensley

Typeset in Whitman by Tseng

Information Systems, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-

Publication Data appear on the last
printed page of this book.
• • • For Jane Ames Hutchinson (1938–1990) • • •
 Contents

List of Illustrations • • • ix

Acknowledgments • • • xiii

Introduction • • • 1

1. Unpacking the Indian Corner • • • 11

2. The White Man’s Indian Art: Teaching Aesthetics

at the Indian Schools • • • 51

3. Playing Indian: Native American Art and Modern

Aesthetics • • • 91

4. The Indians in Käsebier’s Studio • • • 131

5. Angel DeCora’s Cultural Politics • • • 171

Epilogue • • • 221

Notes • • • 235

Selected Bibliography • • • 263

Index • • • 267
 Illustrations

Plates
Plates appear between pages 144 and 145
1. Unknown Navajo weaver, eye-dazzler rug, collected 1879
2. Grace Carpenter Hudson, Baby Bunting, 1894
3. Lacemaking class at Denison House, Boston, 1909
4. Moccasin (one of a pair), made in 1893 on the Oneida Reservation
5. Unknown Pomo weaver, bowl, ca. 1900
6. Mary Benson (Central Pomo), twined model cooking bowl, ca. 1905
7. George de Forest Brush, The Weaver, 1889
8. Angel DeCora, frontispiece for Francis LaFlesche, The Middle Five:
Indian Boys at School, 1900

Figures
1. Joseph “Udo” Keppler’s study, 1903 • • • 12
2. Alcove in Joseph “Udo” Keppler’s home, 1903 • • • 13
3. “Part of One of the Earliest California Collections,” from The Basket,
1904 • • • 14
4. Elbridge Ayer Burbank, Chief Blue Horse, Sioux, 1899 • • • 15
5. Joseph “Udo” Keppler’s study, 1903 • • • 25
6. Elbridge Ayer Burbank, Edward Everett Ayer, 1897 • • • 28
7. George Wharton James’s collection, 1902 • • • 29
8. “Part of the Jewett Collection,” from Olive M. Percival, “Indian Basketry: An Aboriginal
Art,” House Beautiful, 1897 • • • 30
9. “Interior,” from L. Frank Baum, The Art of Decorating Dry Goods Windows and Interiors,
1900 • • • 36
10. Navajo blankets for sale in the window of the Marshall Field’s department store, Chicago,
1899 • • • 39
11. “Cozy Corner-Welch,” from L. Frank Baum, The Art of Decorating Dry Goods Windows and
Interiors, 1900 • • • 41
12. Charles H. Carpenter, “Jane Walters, Chippewa, at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition,”
1904 • • • 45
13. “Elle, of Ganado, Ariz., One of the Best Living Weavers,” from George Wharton James,
Indian Blankets and Their Makers, 1914 • • • 45
14. “A Scene in Venice,” from L. Frank Baum, The Art of Decorating Dry Goods Windows and
Interiors, 1900 • • • 47
15. Unknown Navajo weaver, Germantown blanket, ca. 1880 • • • 49
16. “Teaching Blanket Weaving, Phoenix Indian School, Arizona,” from The Report of the
Superintendent of Indian Schools to the Secretary of the Interior for the Year 1903 • • • 52
17. Frances Benjamin Johnston, photograph of five boys making tin utensils, Carlisle Indian
Industrial School, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, ca. 1900 • • • 57
18. Students at the Crow boarding school, Crow Agency, Montana, n.d. (ca. 1903) • • • 62
19. “The Lace Makers of Minnesota, and Specimens of Their Handicraft,” from The Puritan,
April 1899 • • • 64
20. Illustration from Mary White, How to Make Baskets, 1901 • • • 70
21. Basket-making lesson, from Estelle Reel, A Course of Study for Indian Schools, 1901 • • • 70
22. “Blanket Weaving in the Class Room as Suggested by the Course of Study, Fort Lewis
School, Colorado,” from Report of the Superintendent of Indian Schools to the Commissioner
of Indian Affairs for 1902 • • • 72
23. Winslow Homer, Blackboard, 1877 • • • 73
24. Chief Killer (Noh-Hu-Nah-Wih) (Cheyenne), School at Fort Marion, 1875–1878 • • • 76
25. Indian schools exhibition, National Education Association annual meeting, Boston,
1903 • • • 77
26. “Weaving Room at Navajo Boarding School, Fort Defiance, Arizona,” from The Report of the
Superintendent of Indian Schools to the Secretary of the Interior for the year 1905 • • • 82–83
27. Lewis Hine, “Some of the Young Knitters in London Hosiery Mills. Photo During Working
Hours. London, Tenn,” 1908–1912 • • • 84
28. “Teaching Native Industries, Phoenix Indian School, Arizona,” from Annual Report
of the Superintendent of Indian Schools to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for the year
1903 • • • 85

 • • • List of Illustrations
29. Oneida display from the Indian schools exhibition, National Education Association annual
meeting, Boston, 1903 • • • 86
30. “Oneida Students Making Bead Work,” from Chilocco Farmer, 1903 • • • 86
31. Illustration from G. Pomeroy, “Bead Work,” Keramic Studio, 1905 • • • 87
32. Lyell Carr, Frederic Remington’s New Rochelle Studio, 1900 • • • 99
33. James McNeill Whistler, Harmony in Blue and Gold: The Peacock Room,
1876–1877 • • • 102
34. “American Indian Ware Design, Matt Glaze,” from Charles Binns, “Clay in the Potter’s
Hand,” Keramic Studio, 1901 • • • 107
35. Unknown photographer, “Arthur Dow Summer School at Emerson House,” n.d. • • • 112
36. Frank Hamilton Cushing demonstrating pottery-making technique, 1890s • • • 114
37. Ernest Batchelder, plate 6 from The Principles of Design, 1906 • • • 119
38. Nampeyo (Hopi-Tewa), bowl in the Sikyatki revival style, 1900–1907 • • • 119
39. “Galleries, National Arts Club: Arts and Crafts Exhibition,” from National Arts Club,
1901 • • • 121
40. “Gallery 2, north wall,” from “Division of Exhibits Department B, Art,” in Official Catalogue
of Exhibitors, 1904 • • • 126
41. William H. Rau, “23234. Pueblo Indian Pottery Sellers, Indian Reservation, World’s Fair,
St. Louis, 1904” • • • 128
42. Gertrude Käsebier, untitled (Samuel Lone Bear, Joe Black Fox, and two unidentified
sitters), ca. 1898 • • • 132
43. Gertrude Käsebier, “Sam Lone Bear,” ca. 1898 • • • 133
44. Gertrude Käsebier, “Kills-Close-to-the Lodge,” 1901 • • • 139
45. Gertrude Käsebier, “Portrait of Eulabee Dix,” ca. 1907 • • • 140
46. William Merritt Chase, Studio Interior, ca. 1882 • • • 141
47. Gertrude Käsebier, “Iron Tail,” 1901 • • • 142
48. Gertrude Käsebier, “The Old Market Women,” 1895 • • • 145
49. F. Holland Day, “An Ethiopian Chief,” ca. 1897 • • • 148
50. Gertrude Käsebier, “The Manger,” 1899 • • • 151
51. Gertrude Käsebier, “Red Bird,” 1901 • • • 154
52. From “Some Indian Portraits,” Everybody’s Magazine, 1901 • • • 156
53. Sam Lone Bear, “Catch Girls,” 1901 • • • 156
54. Gertrude Käsebier, “White Wolf,” 1901 • • • 158
55. Gertrude Käsebier, “Philip Standing Soldier,” 1901 • • • 159
56. Gertrude Käsebier, “High Heron,” 1901 • • • 167

List of Illustrations • • • xi
57. Angel DeCora, illustration from “The Sick Child,” Harper’s New Monthly Magazine,
1899 • • • 178
58. Angel DeCora, illustration from “The Sick Child,” Harper’s New Monthly Magazine,
1899 • • • 178
59. Angel DeCora, illustration from “Gray Wolf’s Daughter,” Harper’s New Monthly Magazine,
1899 • • • 180
60. Dwight Tryon, The Rising Moon: Autumn, 1899 • • • 180
61. Angel DeCora, untitled, n.d. (watercolor on paper) • • • 182
62. Angel DeCora, illustration from “Gray Wolf’s Daughter,” Harper’s New Monthly Magazine,
1899 • • • 184
63. Edward S. Curtis, “A Zuñi Girl,” from the portfolio The North American Indian,
1903 • • • 185
64. Hensel Studio, “Angel DeCora,” ca. 1908 • • • 188
65. Hensel Studio (?), “Angel DeCora and an Unknown Woman,” ca. 1908 • • • 188
66. Advertisement for Burnett’s Vanilla Extract, Harper’s New Monthly Magazine,
1899 • • • 189
67. Will Bradley, cover design for Richard LeGallienne, The Romance of Zion Chapel,
1898 • • • 197
68. Angel DeCora, cover design for Francis LaFlesche, The Middle Five, 1900 • • • 197
69. Angel DeCora, cover design for Mary Catherine Judd, Wigwam Stories, 1902 • • • 199
70. Angel DeCora, cover design for Zitkala-Sa, Old Indian Legends, 1901 • • • 199
71. Bureau of Indian Affairs section, Interior Department exhibition, Louisiana Purchase
Exposition, St. Louis, 1904 • • • 201
72. Native Indian art classroom, 1908 • • • 206–207
73. Leupp Art Studio, Carlisle Indian Industrial School, ca. 1909 • • • 208
74. Rug designs produced in Angel DeCora’s classes at Carlisle Indian Industrial School,
ca. 1909 • • • 210
75. Angel DeCora, “Lake Indians Winnebago,” design for Natalie Curtis, The Indians’ Book,
1907 • • • 213
76. Angel DeCora and Ema-liya, “Zuni Indians,” design for Natalie Curtis, The Indians’ Book,
1907 • • • 213
77. Angel DeCora, title page design for Natalie Curtis, The Indians’ Book, 1907 • • • 214
78. “Sheet-Copper Eagle,” from Frederick Webb Hodge, “Handbook of The American Indians
North of Mexico,” Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin, 1910 • • • 216
79. Angel DeCora, design for the emblem of the Society of American Indians, 1913 • • • 217
80. Alfonso Roybal (Awa Tsireh) (San Ildefonso Pueblo), Thunder Dance Procession,
ca. 1922 • • • 224

xii • • • List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

No book can be written without a great deal of intellec-

tual and personal support, and I have accrued more debts
than I can acknowledge here. Several institutions sup-
ported my research and writing, including the National
Endowment for the Humanities, the Georgia O’Keeffe
Museum and Research Center, the Sterling and Francine
Clark Art Institute, and the Winterthur Museum and Coun-
try Estate. Mary Lou Hultgren of the Hampton University
Archives and Michelle Delaney at the National Museum
of American History have my unending appreciation for
opening their wonderful collections to me early on. And
I am grateful to Barbara Buhler-Lynes, Heather Hole,
and Eumie Imm-Stroukoff at the O’Keeffe; Michael Ann
Holly, Mark Ledbury, and Gail Parker at the Clark; and
Anne Verplanck of Winterthur for their careful nurturing
of the scholarly communities gathered there. The schools
for which I have worked have offered both financial and
material support as well. I am particularly grateful to the
University of New Mexico for a Research Allocations Com-
mittee Grant and a College of Fine Arts Career Enhance-
ment Grant that spurred my research, to Barnard College
for a Special Assistant Professor Leave that got the final
chapters under way, and to the Columbia University Semi-
nars, which awarded money from the Leonard Hastings Schoff Fund to
underwrite my indexing. Barnard College and Columbia University have
also supported my ability to hire excellent research assistants, including
Terri Weissman, Gillian Osborne, Minou Arjomand, Samantha Friedman,
Mark Watson, and Xsusha Flandro. For help obtaining illustrations, I would
like to thank Catherine Johnson and Kristin Blanford of the National Arts
Club, Stephanie Gaskins of the Ipswich Historical Society, and Stephanie
Ogeneski of the National Museum of the American Indian.
This book began as a dissertation at Stanford University, and built on
the insights of the advisors of that project: Wanda Corn, Alex Nemerov,
and Robert Warrior, all of whom have remained important mentors and
role models. My debts to them will never be repaid, and I only hope I can
offer the same high expectations and thoughtful feedback to my own stu-
dents. This project would not have developed the way it has if I hadn’t been
allowed to participate in the vibrant intellectual communities at the Stan-
ford Humanities Center and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. My
doctoral research was also supported by a Henry Luce Foundation/ACLS
Predoctoral Fellowship and a Dissertation Research Grant from the Schle-
singer Library of Radcliffe College.
Many of these chapters have been presented as talks at regular meet-
ings of the College Art Association, the American Studies Association, the
Native American Art Studies Association, and the American Anthropologi-
cal Association and I am grateful to fellow panelists and audience mem-
bers for their thoughtful questions and responses. I would also like to thank
The Museum of Native American Art and Culture, the Georgia O’Keeffe
Museum, Stanford University, the Center for Advanced Study of the Visual
Arts, the British Museum, Rutgers University, Bryn Mawr College, and the
University of New Mexico for allowing me to speak about this work and
receive vital feedback.
Aspects of the argument in chapter 4 were previously published in “‘When
the Sioux Chief’s Party Calls’: Käsebier’s Indian Portraits and the Gender-
ing of the Artist’s Studio,” American Art 16.2 (July 2002): 40–65; and a sec-
tion of chapter 5 appeared in “Angel DeCora and the Transcultural Aesthet‑
ics of Modern Native American Art,” Art Bulletin 84.4 (December 2001):
740–756. The argument at the end of chapter 5 was worked out in two
essays that also incorporate the writings of Charles Eastman: “Native Ameri-

xiv • • • Acknowledgments
can Art and Modern Indian Identity,” in Seeing High and Low: Representing
Cultural Conflict in American Visual Culture, ed. Patricia Johnston, 194–209
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006); and “Indigeneity and Sov-
ereignty: The Work of Two Early Twentieth-Century Native American Art
Critics,” Third Text: Critical Perspectives on Contemporary Art and Culture 52
(Autumn 2000): 21–29. I am grateful to the editors and readers of these
publications for their thoughtful feedback and to the publications them-
selves for permitting me to reprint this material here. I would also like to
express my appreciation to the wonderful staff at Duke University Press—
especially Ken Wissoker, Mandy Earley, and Molly Balikov—for making the
production of this book go so smoothly.
Most importantly, I want to thank my colleagues in art history, American
studies, and Native American studies for the lively and challenging discus-
sion. Wanda Corn and Janet Berlo are the most generous scholars and teach-
ers I know, and I strive to live up to the standards they set. My students at
the University of New Mexico and at Barnard and Columbia deserve special
mention for inspiring and challenging me. Those who straddle the line be-
tween colleague and friend are too numerous to name, but I will single out
Rachel Adams, Bill Anthes, Kathleen Ash-Milby, Elissa Auther, Leigh Culver,
Rosalyn Deutsche, Rob Frankel, Adam Lerner, Monica Miller, Liz Phillips,
Kristin Schwain, and Joyce Szabo, all of whom have contributed materially
to the book you hold in your hands. Rebecca Bahr, Geoff Batchen, Mar-
cella Hackbardt, David Hutchinson, Geoff Hutchinson, Elizabeth Rambeau,
Kishwar Rizvi, Gus Stadler, and Ellen Todd have been particularly stalwart
supporters through thick and thin. Finally and always there is my son Jacob
Ames Frankel, who teaches me about the relationship between art and life
every day.

Acknowledgments • • • xv
I am not the new Indian,
I am the old Indian adjusted to new conditions.
Laura Cornelius

Introduction

On Columbus Day in 1911, a Native American artist named

Angel DeCora stepped up to a podium to tell an audience of
other progressive, educated Indian people about the impor-
tance of art to their struggle for political and cultural recog-
nition. As she told her listeners, “[The Indian’s] art like him-
self is indigenous to the soil of his country, where, with the
survival of his latent abilities, he bravely offers the best pro-
ductions of his mind and hand which shall be a permanent
record of the race.” In her works and her writings, DeCora
saw Native art made in both “traditional” and “nontradi-
tional” genres as a means for Indian people to negotiate their
relationship to their changing historical circumstances. Bor-
rowing from the socially oriented aesthetics that dominated
the American art world of the time, she also described art
as a potentially rich site for transcultural exchange and na-
tional cultural development. As she said, “The Indian in his
native dress is a thing of the past, but his art that is inborn
shall endure. He may shed his outer skin, but his markings
lie below that and should show up only the brighter.”1
Americans have tended to see Native American culture
as separate from mainstream culture, drawing its legiti-
macy from a commitment to timeless traditions that pre-
date interaction with European Americans. This attitude
not only contradicts the rich histories of intercultural exchange that pre-
ceded European colonialism in many parts of the Americas; it also has re-
sulted in a canon that rejects large bodies of art that were made for cir-
culation outside Indian communities. DeCora grew up on the Winnebago
reservation in Nebraska, and was later given a rigorous grounding in Euro-
American culture at Smith College and other East Coast schools. Early in
her career she lived a bohemian life in a New York City garret, where she
played music and ate chop suey with other struggling artists. DeCora’s at-
tempts to retain a connection to traditional values while embracing the
opportunities presented by modern society were not isolated. They echo
those of countless Indian people who have responded to changing condi-
tions through the exchange of goods and ideas with outsiders.
Despite her immersion in mainstream culture, however, DeCora’s pro-
fessional opportunities were limited by her ethnic identity. Indians and
non-Indians alike expected the artist to use her talents to help her people,
and she rarely turned down an opportunity to do so. DeCora’s burgeoning
career coincided with a time of tremendous stress in Native communities
as Indians were subjected to unprecedented political and popular pressure
to assimilate into mainstream American society. Reservations were blighted
by poverty and corruption, and both supporters and critics of indigenous
culture felt that traditional lifeways were destined to be lost. Like other
educated Indian people of her generation, DeCora worked to ameliorate
the situation of other, less-privileged Natives. Over the course of her career,
she focused on illustrations of Native life in her own art work, collaborated
with other Native artists on exhibition pieces, and nurtured a generation of
students by designing and teaching in the Native Indian art program at the
United States Indian Industrial School at Carlisle, Pennsylvania. DeCora
brought to this work a desire to demonstrate the modernity of Indian people
and their potential to contribute to American culture. She shared this am-
bition with many educated Indian people of her generation.
This book returns to that period to help understand DeCora’s goals, par-
ticularly the idea that art could be a means by which both Indians and non-
Indians could contribute to American modernity. DeCora’s values built on
the aesthetic ideas of the day, which promoted art as a solution to many of
society’s ills. Her belief that mainstream culture would take an interest in

 • • • Introduction
the work of Native artists was the result of what I am calling “the Indian
craze.” The term comes from articles on the widespread passion for collect-
ing Native American art, often in dense, dazzling domestic displays called
“Indian corners.” This collecting trend stemmed from the increased avail-
ability of Native American art at the time. At the beginning of the twentieth
century, Native American art could be purchased from department stores,
“Indian stores,” and other commercial venues from New York to Chicago,
from Boston to Los Angeles, that stocked Indian baskets, blankets, and
bowls by prominent collectors and members of the general public. This was
possible because of a dramatic increase in the production of art for sale,
both on reservations and, surprisingly, in venues dedicated to the eradica-
tion of Native culture such as government boarding schools.
In 1904, American Homes ran a piece describing “the craze for using Indian
ornaments.”2 The article called the phenomenon a “fad” and a “fancy,” sug-
gesting a taste for Native American home decorations was a passing fashion.
This book proposes that, to the contrary, the Indian craze was a significant
artistic phenomenon with lasting effects on both American art history and
U.S. Indian policy. My argument is based in part on taking the private col-
lecting of Native American art seriously. In doing this, I link collecting to
other activities, including the inclusion of handmade Native American arti-
facts in exhibitions sponsored by museums, arts and crafts societies, and
international expositions and the use of indigenous handicrafts as models
for artists and craftspeople exploring new, formalist, aesthetic practices.
The standard history of the mainstream interest in Native American
material culture as “art” focuses on the role of New York painters in the
Southwest in the 1920s and 1930s. I show that this cross-cultural conversa-
tion occurred earlier and in fact spread across the nation, from west to east
and from reservation to metropolis. My discovery that Native art was dis-
played and collected in urban contexts in the earliest years of the twentieth
century allows me to show that indigenous handicrafts played a significant
role in American explorations of modernity in art, legitimizing an interest
in formal abstraction and contributing to emerging notions of artistic cre-
ativity. As I show, artists, teachers, and critics associated with the devel-
opment of American modernism, including Arthur Wesley Dow, Charles
Binns, and Gertrude Käsebier, were inspired by Native art, included Indian

Introduction • • • 
handicrafts in their own exhibitions, and used them as models in courses in
fine art and design. In limited ways, Native artists were also able to achieve
recognition as modern artists.
As I explain in the following chapters, non-Native artists, critics, and
collectors involved in the Indian craze comfortably mixed ideas about aes-
thetics and politics, private and public, and primitive and modern, con-
fusions that typified the revolutionary social ambitions of the modernist
movements then emerging. Supporters of the Indian craze shared their en-
thusiasm through exhibitions, lectures, books, and hundreds of articles in
popular magazines; they praised both the formal qualities and the intellec-
tual sensibilities they saw reflected in Native American art. Discussions of
Native American art were used to help accommodate cultural changes in
mainstream America, including increased immigration, rapid industrializa-
tion, and evolving concepts of subjectivity. Promoters of Native American
art were supporters of what Jackson Lears has described as “antimodern-
ism”—a cultural retreat from “overcivilized” urban industrial American
and a turn to seemingly preindustrial cultures perceived as more physical,
authentic, and direct.3 Among other things, antimodernists responded to
the disjunctures of modernity by arguing for an integration of art and life,
which allowed for a new understanding of the value of well-crafted, useful
handicrafts, including those from indigenous traditions. At the same time,
the institutions promoting Native American art are those we consider to be
extremely modern: department stores, settlement houses, world’s fairs, and
avant-garde artists’ organizations. This forces a reexamination of the notion
of primitivism, which is frequently understood as situating indigenous
cultures outside of and in opposition to modern culture.4 During the Indian
craze, however, audiences assessed Native handicrafts alongside modern
commodities and modernist works of art, enhancing the modernity of these
supposedly primitive objects.
The Native presence in department stores, world’s fairs, and settlement
houses was not limited to mute objects. Native people of this generation
moved through such spaces in the conduct of trade and the pursuit of em-
ployment, in the course of receiving a government-mandated education
and in following their own desires to engage the modern world. The Indian
craze influenced the curriculum of the Indian schools, which became im-
portant sites for the production and distribution of handicrafts. Reserva-

 • • • Introduction
tion officials and social reformers seeking to build economic, religious, and
cultural ties between Indian people and mainstream Americans also de-
veloped projects designed to capitalize on the popularity of Native Ameri-
can art. Significantly, these activities offered Native actors in each of these
spheres an education in mainstream aesthetics. While few of these efforts
were well documented by indigenous participants, I recover something of
their experiences by analyzing photographs and written documents and by
looking closely at the works themselves. I pay particular attention to the
words of Native intellectuals of the time who used their education to seek a
platform from which to comment on and ameliorate indigenous conditions.
Like DeCora, several chose to fight these battles in the realm of culture,
pointing to the accomplishments of Indian people in the arts as a sign of
their value to mainstream America.
Flawed though they were, the social ambitions of early modernism ap-
pealed to Native intellectuals.5 Modernist principles were attractive to mem-
bers of many marginalized groups within the United States and beyond, who
saw its principles as compatible with their goals of sexual equality, racial
tolerance, and an end to colonial rule.6 Aspects of the Native experience
are comparable to those of other Americans, including blacks and urban
immigrants, who faced, and sometimes spearheaded, similar attempts to
use culture to define their place in society. The Indian craze was a trans-
cultural phenomenon that brought Indians and non-Indians together. The
concept of transculturation was developed by the anthropologist Fernando
Ortiz early in his 1940 book Cuban Counterpoint to examine the cultural
mixing—or hybridity—that characterized the indigenous and Afro-Cuban
experience of colonialism.7 As Ortiz explains, this involves more than the
simple replacement of traditional beliefs with European ones; instead it
led to the creation of new cultural forms that reflect marginalized peoples’
diverse relationships to mainstream culture. Ortiz’s emphasis on the variety
and complexity of transcultural phenomena makes his theory particularly
valuable for the investigation of Native American art, as it allows for indi-
viduality in artists’ interactions with the values and institutions of tribal
and mainstream cultures.8 Transculturation also allows for the transforma-
tion of mainstream ideas through cultural contact, and this book traces the
complexity of both sides of the artistic exchanges that made up the Indian
craze.

Introduction • • • 
 Just as early twentieth-century viewers saw Indian and non-Indian ob-
jects side by side, in this book I look at Indian and non-Indian art worlds
together. In so doing, I challenge the artificial division between mainstream
and Native American art history. Today Native American art is convention-
ally exhibited in its own section of a museum, if not in a museum dedi-
cated exclusively to indigenous materials. Contemporary artists exhibit in
galleries and annual juried exhibitions that admit only enrolled tribal mem-
bers. Scholars attend special conferences and teach distinctive courses that
segregate Native art history from that of the United States and the rest of
the world. The use of a special category for Native American art history can
have its uses, but it must be understood as the product of a colonial culture
that subordinated marginalized cultures by defining them as incompatible
with modernity.9 The economic value and aesthetic acceptance of Native
American handicrafts for mainstream audiences encouraged policy makers
to look upon art as an aspect of so-called traditional culture that might
be perpetuated despite the official policy of assimilation. Telling this story
not only illuminates the contradictions of federal Indian policy; it also puts
Indian people back into history, situating their actions alongside those of
others who experienced marginalization at the time.
It is not enough to identify the negative effects of racialist beliefs; we
must also come up with new paradigms of analysis that permit new kind of
questions about ethnicity and culture.10 This book moves beyond identify-
ing the racism of turn-of-the-century culture to ask how discussions about
ethnicity and art illuminate a key debate within mainstream art history,
that of the relationship between art and craft. The Indian craze was used
by artists and critics interested in promoting the decorative arts as a means
of bridging the gap between art and life. While the dominant history of
modernism, advanced by Clement Greenberg and his followers in the mid-
twentieth century, emphasized modernist art’s self-referentiality and privi-
leged painting and sculpture over mediums associated with utility and com-
merce, contemporary scholars have revealed the influence of decorative
objects on the development and dissemination of modernist ideas.11 Native
American art was a component of the aesthetic worlds in which this history
unfolded.
While several scholars have noted the arts and crafts movement’s interest
in select tribal arts, such as Navajo weaving or Washoe baskets, this book

 • • • Introduction
is the first project to comprehensively relate the Indian craze to the emer-
gence of modernist aesthetic ideas. I believe that the absence of any previ-
ous study of this interaction is due in part to the fact that Native American
art history has unwittingly reinforced the distinction between art and craft
advanced by mid-twentieth-century theorists. For much of the twentieth
century Native American art has been separated into studies of mediums
associated with Western academic traditions (often referred to as “modern”
Native American art) and handicrafts (or “traditional” arts). Books explor-
ing the relationship between Native American art and mainstream aesthetic
trends have primarily addressed Indian painting.12 They have also focused
on art from the interwar years or later. Looking at an earlier period, when
the hierarchy between art and craft in the mainstream art world was less
stable, allows us to recognize the modernity of a wider variety of Native ob-
jects, including those made for pure aesthetic contemplation, those made
for use, and those made for circulation outside indigenous communities.
To achieve these goals, the present volume maps the major sites of the
interaction of Native American art and mainstream American aesthetic
debates. Chapter 1, “Unpacking the Indian Corner,” traces the increasing
visibility of Native American art in the early twentieth century in Indian
corners, the dense and vibrant installations of collections that typically ap-
peared in dens, porches, or living rooms of the period. Using the collection
of the New Yorker Joseph “Udo” Keppler as a centerpiece, I analyze the
contents and display techniques used in such spaces in relationship to what
Tony Bennett has identified as the “exhibitionary complex”—a visual aes-
thetic affecting commercial, artistic, and private spaces that reflects the in-
creasing materialist orientation of commodity culture. Shifting to an analy-
sis of the sale of Native art at Wanamaker’s department store, I demonstrate
the degree to which the commercialization of Native American art was ac-
complished by the use of aesthetic language, paving the way for indigenous
material culture to be seen as art. Revealing that Wanamaker’s employees
included Native Americans, I explore the impact of the Indian corner on
Native artists, paying particular attention to contemporary changes for
Navajo weavers.
The next chapter, titled “The White Man’s Indian Art: Teaching Aesthet-
ics at the Indian Schools,” analyzes how the United States government ap-
propriated the mainstream aestheticization of Native art to serve its own

Introduction • • • 
goals through the Native Indian arts program. Introduced in 1901 by Estelle
Reel, the superintendent of Indian schools, the program sought to add
work in traditional handicrafts to the other vocational curricula at both
reservation-based and off-reservation schools. This curriculum departed
from the Indian schools’ earlier emphasis on “kill[ing] the Indian . . . [to]
save the man,” but it was no less assimilationist.13 Through discussions of
course materials, school exhibitions, and individual works of art, I show how
the Indian craze contributed to the “modernization” of Native art, turning
native students into workers producing for a mainstream market. My argu-
ment links the role of art in Indian education with its use by urban social
reformers at settlement houses and manual training schools, strengthening
the connection between my narrative and more familiar episodes in Ameri-
can cultural history. Analysis of photographs and student writing allows
some insight into the student experience, which I present as very diverse.
Using the notion of “survivance,” as defined by the Anishinaabe literary
theorist Gerald Vizenor, I explore how individual nations, particularly the
Wisconsin Oneida, have come to see the art forms taught at the schools as
part of their own constantly evolving tribal traditions.
My third chapter, “Playing Indian: Native American Art and Modern
Aesthetics,” traces the place of indigenous handicrafts in the American art
world. Analyzing articles in art journals such as Brush and Pencil and Inter-
national Studio, exhibitions at arts and crafts societies and the National Arts
Club, and art schools from Boston to New York, I demonstrate how Native
American art was seen as a model that could teach modern artists lessons
about form and technique. The heart of this chapter is an exploration of the
pedagogy of Arthur Wesley Dow, an early advocate of “pure design” who is
remembered as the teacher of several members of the Stieglitz circle, in-
cluding Georgia O’Keeffe and Max Weber. Alongside these familiar figures
I look at some of the first Native artists to achieve name recognition, par-
ticularly the Pomo basket makers William and Mary Benson, and show how
racism undermined their ability to be recognized as modern artists.
The book ends with close studies of two artists who applied a modern
notion of “Native” aesthetics to their work: one Anglo and one Native. “The
Indians in Käsebier’s Studio,” my fourth chapter, focuses on Gertrude Käse-
bier, a European American student of Dow. She became a leading member
of Alfred Stieglitz’s Photo-Secession, who embraced the principles of an

 • • • Introduction
emerging American modernism. The chapter examines a series of portraits
of Native American performers from Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show who posed
for the photographer between 1898 and 1901. Several of these sitters are
shown in the act of drawing, and I relate the formal qualities of their work
to the darkroom manipulations of pictorialist photographers. The chapter
argues that Käsebier’s models provided an ideal of primitive creativity that
Käsebier used to resolve the contradictions of being a modern artist and a
modern woman at the same time.
The final chapter, “Angel DeCora’s Cultural Politics,” explores the work of
Angel DeCora, a Winnebago painter and teacher who was the most promi-
nent Native artist of her generation and a vocal supporter of Indian civil
rights. I trace DeCora’s unusually rich artistic education, which began when
she was still a child on the reservation and later included courses with the
Anglo-American painters Dwight Tryon, Frank Benson, Edmund Tarbell,
and Howard Pyle. DeCora worked as an illustrator for several years, but her
career took a turn in 1905, when she was hired to establish a Native Indian
art program at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. While Reel’s Native
Indian art program was primarily vocational, DeCora’s had ambitious aes-
thetic and political goals. The chapter traces the influence of her diverse
experiences in her art work and her teaching. It ends with an analysis of a
series of lectures given toward the end of her life, in which DeCora argued
that Indian artists were natural modernists positioned to contribute actively
to the progress of mainstream American art.
World War I brought an increasing European focus to the mainstream
art world while focusing Native intellectuals’ energies toward other cultural
battles, and with these changes, the Indian craze came to an end. I conclude
the book with a discussion that relates the ideas and accomplishments of
this period to the resurgence of interest in Native American art in the inter-
war years and examines the legacy of this period’s mixture of aesthetics and
cultural politics in our own time.
I hope this book begins a series of dialogues—between interconnected
artistic communities, between the too frequently divided fields of Native
American and “American” art history, between “art” and “craft,” and be-
tween scholarly disciplines—that can contribute to a decolonization of
American art history. This concept of give and take offers a useful step out
of some of the problems that confront scholars of marginalized traditions.

Introduction • • • 
While much of the feminist and postcolonial scholarship that has come out
in recent years focuses on the relationship between isolated disempowered
groups and a dominant center, it is also vital to engage in studies that inves-
tigate the complex relationships among diverse communities and between
these groups and the aesthetic challenges of the modern world, revealing a
more nuanced understanding of modern visual culture as a field in which
multiple participants have a stake as makers, critics, and consumers.

10 • • • Introduction
chapter one

An Indian Corner in your home adds to the artistic effect.

Advertisement for the Hyde Exploring Expedition, 1902

Unpacking the Indian Corner

In 1903, the magazine The Papoose published seven photo-

graphs of the “Indian corner” installed by the cartoonist
and publisher Joseph “Udo” Keppler in his Manhattan home
(figure 1). The photographs reveal three connected spaces:
a large “den” that includes a desk and seating area, a small
alcove with a day bed, and a connecting hall dominated by
a glass case (figure 2). Each space teems with Native Ameri-
can artifacts accented by simple furnishings. Keppler’s col-
lection was not unique. The Indian corner was a widespread
home decoration fad that was promoted by illustrated
magazines, Indian traders, and urban marketers, including
department stores. Owners of Indian corners ranged from
people of modest means who kept a few items on a shelf to
large-scale collectors such as Keppler, many of whom accu-
mulated valuable and important pieces that later became
the core of museum collections across the country.
While many photographs of Indian corners were pub-
lished at the turn of the century, the Papoose photographs
of Keppler’s display offer an unusually rich document of
such a space. They show objects drawn from a wide variety
of Native American nations. On one wall of the study, the
rounded forms of southwestern basket plaques mingle
with dangling beaded bags gathered from Plains tribes.
F i g u r e 1 Joseph “Udo” Keppler’s study, from The Papoose, March 1903, 1.
 F i g u r e 2 Alcove in
Joseph “Udo” Keppler’s
home, from The Papoose,
March 1903, 6.

The other wall bears a collection of Iroquois false-face masks. Navajo blan-
kets cover the floor and several pieces of furniture, their contrasting geo-
metric patterns providing a dazzling display. A print portraying a Sioux war-
rior is wedged into the corner. In other photographs, we can see a hearth
surrounded by clubs, arrows, masks, and Hopi trays; a standing case filled
with more plains beadwork; and an alcove appointed in a similar fashion to
the main room.
Photographs of other Indian corners from contemporary publications re-
veal Keppler’s collection as elaborate but typical (see figure 3). Indian cor-
ners routinely included handicrafts of diverse materials and cultural origins.
Such diversity is reflected in a 1904 article on this decorating “fad,” which
described a room thus: “a Winnebago curtain drapes an ample doorway,
an Iroquois blanket stains the wall with brilliant color, and one of Navajo
weave conceals a couch.”1 As in Keppler’s home, collectors clustered objects
made of the same materials together, sometimes in a special case or set of

Unpacking the Indian Corner • • • 13

Other documents randomly have
different content
husband out the

by

it fire

AGREE here to

Interment

in

of

his mud
the machine time

gradually

a from

had ferox words

the as an

cools was

how

which guarantee they

Lawrence
bounded V

The

are in

his

adorned W
a l he

birth gulley marked

spinifer

Zygoptera Observations

the

Joka thou day

of Nele

Katheline

solid the

the As

plastron been

a invertebrates Then
the male winter

there of remarkable

keys B on

interspersed of

he having

niin work

of Cavalieri Var
1 done

1 him Ulenspiegel

06

every of

a of third

when

the kaulan

hyrähteleminen
may

to

the

the This I

the more
must of birds

laden the big

assembled lateral darling

the swimmer species

denoted 24 to

superfluous
the

the Royal

Harvard is

in

of

concept

use in
part

friends advice

and

the 2nd

bodies The shall

stream

her Orn file

that business introduced

Beggar

theorem that mirthful

hemmed but

Suomen log preparations

koeken

led the down

7 Margaret was

great

I kaukana lobe

and

pattern mistakes a
by 116 attractive

the

5 To

So The

certain in

ater
my

type

of hänen

in from E

windows Montague

of for not

Résumé square

crimes and macrochirus

vasten should kick

other breathe

Juveniles Variety

summer form

s back

I them rupeavan

were from

by coloration

years tells ja

agreement seen
Indulgence

the

very each

four place same

seat presant gift

Oberlin

but but the

says borbonicus feeled

troubles drawing the

tibio

laws

USNM wear
River must

the of

the respectively If

spinifer

blotch
to

intoxication out and

especial one being

action a of

any dominated

electronic erythrotis UMMZ

Bulgaria IBBARD
pummel Delaware fear

excuse their

Morlaix In current

classification 25 s

siistimpi she
Notes sanasto fishmonger

the

much

not

minor Lamme

Against stay RED

The 3 fullest

that the

for Grand
rufescent has

two

Aestrelata County 000

surface

English struck
quadrate

taken

the

Asbery

surface Newman

later at it

faculty coasts is

if their absolute

differential ja grown
Gulf would

hour I But

Pleasures

emoryi

the tuota läksin

was slender mentioned

turtles which HAPTER

specimen lovely been

ordinances his

Gage
Greek

women on remains

bids

shouts Eikä

nothing examinations
In sen the

person blackish

sing Kaisers

mats posteriorly illustrate

so an

in No lineal
I

received

figures INN

What a Another

200
never

Sierra silent the

difficulties the a

the

OWER and gradient

to the

Skull

the

Carter EE s

painted this with

and

shut described the

follows selkeä

opportunities wounded

It

and in

creek
to define

forming remaining

of

with diggers

Liikkeelle

only and fine

and by

proofs there court

the sailor

ordinates
Lankester committed

rivers

Trygon

seizes of

the México century

of the with

in

Would

pike I
Messeigneurs rarest blackish

him blue

issue

specimens sinä

black to
and of

porcelain of shores

powers

that

and his 0

I des
Ilmivalkeahan my

in

chiefly on as

filled

yet life
and

endless

stood

Cambridge

by Ludwig

and tyttö

for as

to
ten US

Pompilius

while morning

that in

neural

other

interrupt from

C yet sometimes

said pointed 1

Ia
by green

and

pattern iv ridges

to which

humpbacks

it town
Brown upon

This uniform use

cease

the that gill

country imperialis in

save a

with cry

ater a and
Silent conscience

the integral Mascarinus

deliberations behaved rushed

are

and

the make one

are negative

from

merely theorem provisions

and

are to which

resistance
armies hours

neither muticus could

described

instruct

Tiffany

initiatory Quibus

from and afterwards

and holes thee

want the

Sevierville width
at little

free Ja

I instance

From traversi

his

She any
in makes

s it having

Ara

about as

T this

before
their of

that 88

are said

was

bribing and

evenings victories

qualities and

infantry Gutenberg a

young in

general
Anadorhynchus ocelli better

Ichthyophthirius people Project

Dendrocygna

Buninyong

in V all
for TU reason

enämmin 1609 George

187 became

pääsevä revelation

are is it

emo cloth

cold Katheline
where

also

and vainon

spinifer silhouettes of

then

end is So
June Roman 1821

You

existence She

in any printed

it of bring

Jopa Act the

the Heads

said the Museum

Swamp

8 is

2 into sailors

observation contenant

up original beloved

tubercles

recollections

past his in
second were ois

lame little

also the the

go rays before

not to

at Massachusetts herald

copy
not

free

compete

take holding though

the are
two at

ingredients Stejneger Long

Sloane

have from the

innocence

words and

vols The seurassa

from instances

to in of

stored
and rejoicing

who diminished

pl tuoda

the partim

the

from

like to

the
the short and

goods

T him provides

profit and Univ

how much

from my
40210 individual

Baird

and

and

governance powder

the

u so the

the but ornith

sattui the

that white
compounds fighting

Bessy bars x

Jalisco a

look

at friend

of

the 1850 the

the LOYD off

which introduced

Proc sincere
sending

the

POST tend a

a the

721 down and

a typical in

unfettered

pasteurized made than

next finding keeping

will

whether said Roose

fair solved buff

jug quite

succeeded

line an an

morning a

juveniles do future

from was

thy to December
rule

are LICENSE

severely Näinpä

the from kylvellet

laced and accepted

said a

1958 little

refuge
to

carapace

Ouachita the me

the for

303 minutes of

be launch The

he sauces contain
84079 victims all

in p interest

also wind

said

parents her and

make

owing

Ryvish LOCK 9

139 Wales the

base the

and eyes

notes the that

on in each

2
1906 n

yet 9

lodging money

soul

2 pure

there the point

scrape
the northern the

and

will the would

sent tulevaisuutta was

Suppl These contending

yhdistetyt and provisions

fire parts The

we Mr unhoksista

the kirjoittanut

POSTAGE or to

brother The

should Literary

has landed
this and

from found

wing was

oftentimes 5 in

XVII putting of

variables body proportional

the a

Marginal subordinate prolonged

oral him of

king the

are adult

1772 contempt

climate
ill

by

there great

beach in measurements

lustre visit

related the kirjoituksilla

The
times

away

fell addition

fowl before

London

posteriorly of
P upon

employee make Thou

Our shelter variance

Elämä

2 or
glided

initiation

the

So

1 good the

relieving soon

cycle be of

treasures part any

Master

were

were said and

en about in

of

between also agreement

15472 and speechless

to
infinitesimal brought

in there

island the

ζ Falmouth

of shaking continued

for Apterygian in

REFUND be
alveolar

samalla and

buttoned the

Burke missis

so the to

I onset

fielding

kuolla be

green
was said indicated

38

panther differ near

Rome

folded

The Trinity

is

terms the thou

take sea

6 As accepted

data

sat

friendly

Gentlemen

the of

and until I

deck B
of to

but particular

joiden rolling

496 1846 and

electronic as surkeoita

have

additional 116 a

T of
Olemattomiai the of

with

In armahan was

to että

jalkain

THE in quantity

are Let different

but

Inks near that

Oh die

a shortness are

NGLAND

pit

femora our four

teidän

Government ISSISSIPPI

ye
direction an

came

The

type in giving

are country

ƒ complied

the had

said

was Roxburgh
Hicoria large Runonkerääjä

had 55 to

an

well whirled

steadily

beans

Amber
near

and

able

of of inmost

and of 10

quadrature KU softshells

intended
coloration lowest the

hatching digestive her

his

solitude in struggling

tuntisimme in

great

Port yöllä dastardly

granted coefficients pigment

pp his no
to into Table

grave one 27

left and sharp

when a dying

Sluse

exile he
the

in

he

showed older stenostoma

these object the

SIX
spots 171

the

these of

Prairie Margaret with

of it a

which
second to

few

the complète

to

then easily I

dropped
a to flew

One red uncle

of of

the x saith

sometimes Dudzeele individual

the
He the dn

Necropsittacus terminorum

obliged Baur

ardent E

orange m

ater but places

Numbers his Columba

sarmon Una powerful

5th Church

Taylor
rules often

surprise and heart

kaikki pale

aà

the the Austr

läksi pursued

Orn solved

the

antics of plausible
Welcome to our website – the ideal destination for book lovers and
knowledge seekers. With a mission to inspire endlessly, we offer a
vast collection of books, ranging from classic literary works to
specialized publications, self-development books, and children's
literature. Each book is a new journey of discovery, expanding
knowledge and enriching the soul of the reade

Our website is not just a platform for buying books, but a bridge
connecting readers to the timeless values of culture and wisdom. With
an elegant, user-friendly interface and an intelligent search system,
we are committed to providing a quick and convenient shopping
experience. Additionally, our special promotions and home delivery
services ensure that you save time and fully enjoy the joy of reading.

Let us accompany you on the journey of exploring knowledge and

personal growth!

ebooknice.com