Scope and Contents note

Portraits of Native Americans made by Charles Milton Bell in his Washington, DC studio. Depicted individuals include Red Cloud, Oglala; Spotted Tail, Brule; Quanah Parker, Comanche; Nawat, Arapaho; Scabby Bull, Arapaho; Wolf Robe, Cheyenne; D. W. Bushyhead, Cherokee; John Jumper, Seminole; Plenty Coups, Crow; Rushing Bear, Arikara; Gall, Hunkpapa; John Grass, Sihasapa; Lean Wolf, Hidatsa; Chief Joseph, Nez Perce; and Lone Wolf, Kiowa; as well as people associated with Pawnee Bill's Wild West Show. The collection also includes copies of some images by other photographers, including G. G. Rockwood and F. T. Cummins.

Biographical/Historical note

Charles Milton Bell (circa 1849-1893) was the youngest member of a family of photographers that operated a studio in Washington, DC, from around 1860-1874. Bell established his own studio on Pennsylvania Avenue in 1873 and it rapidly became one of the leading photography studios in the city. Bell developed the patronage of Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden, who sent Native American visitors to the studio to have their portraits made. Bell also made photographs of Native Americans for the Department of the Interior and the Bureau of American Ethnology.

Local Call Number(s)

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Addl. KW Subj

Location of Other Archival Materials

Copy prints previously filed in MS 4661 have been relocated and merged with Photo Lot 80. These are also copy prints of Bell negatives that were acquired from Boyce and form part of this collection.

Location of Other Archival Materials

Additional C. M. Bell photographs held in National Anthropological Archives Photo Lot 4420, Photo Lot 24, Photo Lot 60, Photo Lot 81-44, Photo lot 87-2P, and Photo Lot 90-1.

Custodial History note

When the C. M. Bell studio finally closed in 1909, its entire collection of negatives was acquired by another Washington photographer, Isaac M. Boyce. Boyce separated out the Native American negatives and attempted to sell them to the Bureau of American Ethnology. It was not until the 1950s, however, that the Bureau finally bought the negatives from Boyce's son, William.

Custodial History note

The set of prints that make up this collection was prepared as working material in the task of identifying the photographs of the Boyce collection. Prints were given arbitrary numbers when they were accessioned into the archives, with numbers 266-341 going to the oversize plates. All of the plates in the collection appear to have been copied in the 1950s shortly after their purchase; copies of the non-oversize plates were originally filed in MS 4661 and copies of the oversize plates were filed in Photo Lot 80. There was a project in 1998 to copy and conserve many of the oversize plates in a larger format and these copies were also added to Photo Lot 80.