November is Native American Heritage Month, and this week we are highlighting a
collection of photographs taken by
John Alvin Anderson . The images were contributed to Nebraska Memories by the Nebraska State Historical Society, which scanned part of its collection of Anderson’s glass plate negatives. John A. Anderson was born in Sweden in 1869 and brought to Pennsylvania with his family in 1870. In 1883 he came to Cherry County with his father and brothers. He learned photography at an early age and took photographs of soldiers and natives living at Fort Niobrara and the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota. In 1889 he was the official photographer for the
Crook Treaty Council held by General George Crook with the Brule Sioux at the Rosebud Reservation.
In 1895 Anderson married and moved to the Reservation with his wife, where he opened a store and continued to photograph the people living there. He was able to photograph several chiefs, including this 1902 one of
Chief Two Strike , who was a member of a delegation to Washington, D.C. after the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890. He also took many photos of daily activities like cattle branding and butchering and of festivities like the
Grass Dance pictured at the top of this posting, which is still
danced today .
Setting aside a
time to honor Native Americans has been advocated for many years, and some states have done this. Although an official national holiday has never been enacted, in 1990 Congress passed a resolution designating November as National American Indian Heritage Month. The designation has been renewed each year since 1994. The Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum host the
Native American Heritage Month website linking to collections, images, audio, video and teacher guides documenting native history and traditions.
Visit
Nebraska Memories to search for or browse through many more historical images digitized from photographs, negatives, postcards, maps, lantern slides, books and other materials. Nebraska Memories is a cooperative project to digitize Nebraska-related historical and cultural heritage materials and make them available to researchers of all ages via the Internet. Nebraska Memories is brought to you by the Nebraska Library Commission. If your institution is interested in participating in Nebraska Memories, see
http://nlc.nebraska.gov/nebraskamemories/participation.aspx for more information, or contact
Beth Goble, Government Information Services Director, or
Devra Dragos, Technology & Access Services Director.
