National Museum of the American Indian

N.A. Forsyth stereograph collection

Summary

Collection ID:
NMAI.AC.343
Creators:
Forsyth, N. A. (Norman A.), 1869-1949
Graves, C. H. (Carleton H.), -1943
Dates:
1902-1909
Languages:
English
.
Physical Description:
12 Stereographs
0.03 Linear feet
Repository:
This collection consists of twelve stereographic images depicting individuals from Pikuni Blackfeet (Piegan), Salish (Flathead), and Shoshone communities in the region of western Montana and eastern Idaho during the first decade of the twentieth century.

Content Description

Content Description
The N.A. Forsyth stereograph collection consists of eleven stereographic images taken by photographer N.A. Forsyth between approximately 1906 and 1909. Forsyth visited and documented life on a number of Native American reservations in western Montana, including the Pikuni Blackfeet (Piegan) and the Salish (Flathead). This collection also contains one stereographic image taken by photographer C.H. Graves in eastern Idaho in 1902 depicting a leader of the Shoshone people.

Arrangement

Arrangement
This collection is arranged into folders by cultural group.

Biographical / Historical

Biographical / Historical
Norman A. Forsyth was born in upstate New York in 1869, and at a young age moved west with his family to Nebraska. By the early years of the twentieth century he moved west again, this time to Montana, opening a photo studio there in Butte in 1904. Employed first by Underwood and Underwood and later by the Keystone View Company, Forsyth photographed landscape scenes of Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks which were sold as stereographs. Additionally, he also documented the daily lives of a number of Native communities of western Montana, including the Pikuni Blackfeet (Piegan) on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation and the Salish (Flathead) on the Flathead Indian Reservation. He died in 1949.

Administration

Author
Nathan Sowry
Immediate Source of Acquisition
This collection was donated by Rebecca Hawkins in 1966.
Processing Information
Processed by Nathan Sowry, Reference Archivist, in 2021.

Using the Collection

Conditions Governing Use
Permission to publish materials from the collection must be requested from National Museum of the American Indian Archives Center. Please submit a written request to nmaiphotos@si.edu. For personal or classroom use, users are invited to download, print, photocopy, and distribute the images that are available online without prior written permission, provided that the files are not modified in any way, the Smithsonian Institution copyright notice (where applicable) is included, and the source of the image is identified as the National Museum of the American Indian. For more information please see the Smithsonian's Terms of Use and NMAI Archive Center's Digital Image request website.
Conditions Governing Access
Access to NMAI Archives Center collections is by appointment only, Monday - Friday, 9:30 am - 4:30 pm. Please contact the archives to make an appointment (phone: 301-238-1400, email: nmaiarchives@si.edu).
Preferred Citation
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); N.A. Forsyth stereograph collection, NMAI.AC.343; National Museum of the American Indian Archives Center, Smithsonian Institution.

Related Materials
The Research Center Archives at the Montana Historical Society contains several hundred of N.A. Forsyth's stereographic images, while the Smithsonian Institution's National Anthropological Archives also contains a few dozen of Forsyth's photographic works.

Keywords

Keywords table of terms and types.
Keyword Terms Keyword Types
Shoshone Cultural Context Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Pikuni Blackfeet (Piegan) Cultural Context Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Salish (Flathead) Cultural Context Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid

National Museum of the American Indian
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Suitland, Maryland 20746-2863
nmaiarchives@si.edu