Visual Materials
Navajo blankets, bows and arrows
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Drawing of Navajo blanket loom
Visual Materials
Photograph of a drawing of a loom.
photCL 275 fld. 33 (13)
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Navajo Blanket Weaver, Arizona
Visual Materials
This set of photographs by Frederick Monsen focuses on Native Americans of the Southwest in mostly candid views taken in Pueblo communities, approx. 1886-1911. Photographs include portraits, ceremonies, dances, pueblos, livestock and scenes of daily activities. A smaller portion of the collection consists of landscapes, cliff-dwellings, ruins, gold miners, wagons and scenes of pioneer life in the West. Some photographs were made by Monsen while he was with U.S. Geological Surveys (including the Brown-Stanton survey of 1889), and others during his own photography trips. The majority of Native Americans pictured are Hopi and Navajo, but there are also Paiute, Apache, and Pueblo Indians. There are a few views of Mojave Indians of Southern California, and natives of Baja, Mexico. There are several views of Indian children, shown with and without clothes, in their daily activities. Scenes of non-Indian Western life include men in covered wagons on trails, gold prospectors and stagecoaches. There are many artistic landscape views of canyons, buttes and mesas; Death Valley; salt beds; ancient ruins; cactus and other desert plants. Unusual subjects of note are three photographs of skeletons in the deserts of Arizona and one view of the covered bodies of prospectors being carried on burros. The prints are all signed by Monsen and have typed or handwritten captions on the back, written by Monsen.
photCL 312
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Navajo man (blanket in background)
Visual Materials
A collection of glass plate and film negatives by amateur photographer and Los Angeles real estate broker George P. Thresher focusing on the American Southwest and Native Americans of the region, particularly of Arizona, and the Gila River crossing area, from ca. 1898 to 1910. The majority of the Thresher Collection contains images of towns and sites in Arizona, including Phoenix, Mission San Xavier del Bac, Montezuma Castle, Peach Springs, and adobe ruins. Photographs of Texas are well represented in the collection, including many views of Missions San Concepcion, San Antonio de Valero (the Alamo), San Francisco de la Espada, and Mission San Jose y San Miguel de Aguayo. There are also images of Colorado (Garden of the Gods, Pike's Peak, and Castle Rock), New Mexico (Santa Fe, Tesuque, and possibly Laguna), and unidentified pueblos. Notable portraits from California are of Victoriano, chief of the Soboba Indians, and his unnamed third wife. There is a separate and very interesting sequence of images depicting the Mount Beauty Mine and its operations in San Diego County, California. A small assortment of lantern slides is at the end of the collection showing Indians of Arizona, California, and New Mexico.
photCL 449
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[Indian man with bow and arrows with an arrow in his mouth]
Visual Materials
These studio portraits are of Native Americans from southwestern Arizona, and were probably taken in Bonine's photography tent in Yuma, 1880-1883.
photCL 200
