The North American Indian

William Reese Company is honored to offer a complete original subscriber’s copy of Edward Sheriff Curtis’s monumental undertaking, The North American Indian. Originally from the collection of the Iowa State Library, the present set is copy number 341 of an estimated 272 finished sets. Notably, it is uniformly printed on the desirable Japanese vellum paper stock throughout, as issued, and with all plates present. The set is further enhanced by bespoke display furniture, a suite of original printed prospectuses, and a photogravure self-portrait of Curtis.

The North American Indian represents an extraordinary attempt to document the customs of Native American peoples at a moment of profound upheaval. Issued between 1907 and 1930, it grew to span 2228 photographs across forty volumes—twenty text volumes, and twenty portfolios with photogravure plates. Only the double elephant folio edition of Audubon’s The Birds of America equals Curtis in its massive ambition and execution in all of printed Americana.

Curtis set out to visit and photograph every tribe north of the Mexico border and west of the Mississippi. He collaborated with indigenous guides such as Alexander Upshaw, the son of an Apsaroke chief, and renowned anthropologists such as Frederick Webb Hodge. His ambition earned the support of powerful patrons, among them President Theodore Roosevelt, who would write the introduction to The North American Indian, and, crucially, John Pierpont Morgan, whose financial support made the endeavor possible.

In the end, Curtis’s grand project would take him over thirty years, cost him any modicum of financial solvency, and take an incalculable toll on his personal life. When the final volume of The North American Indian was issued in 1930, Curtis had almost completely faded from prominence, but he left behind a project that stands as one of the most ambitious in the history of Western Americana. His work preserved invaluable cultural information, including languages, rituals, and oral histories, that might otherwise have been lost as a consequence of forced assimilation and displacement. Today, The North American Indian stands as a tribute to the photographer’s genius and unquenchable resolve, in the face of all obstacles, to bring the project to a triumphant conclusion.

Further information on this set can be found in our most recent catalogue, or on our website.