About the Curator
In the summer of 2010, Michelle A. Delaney was named the Director of the Consortium for Understanding the American Experience at the Smithsonian Institution. Before assuming her directorship, she was the Curator in Photographic History at the National Museum of American History. Her interest in American visual culture and photography spans the early Daguerreian-era through contemporary photojournalism with a heavy emphasis on pictorialism and photography of Washington, D.C. She is also an Associate Editor for Visual Culture for The Papers of William F. Cody project at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West.
Delaney graduated with her B.A. from Manhattanville College and earned her M.A. from George Washington University. She is currently finishing her Ph.D. at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland. Her dissertation focuses on a cohesive interpretation of the visual record of William "Buffalo Bill" Cody and his Wild West, focusing specifically on art and advertising. Working closely with the Käsebier Collection at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, Delaney considered writing about Käsebier's photographs for several years before publishing her first book, Buffalo Bill's Wild West Warriors: A Photographic History by Gertrude Käsebier (2007). Her second book is The Scurlock Studio and Black Washington: Picturing the Promise (2010).
About the Project
While based on Delaney's book, this thematic research collection is more than an adaptation of Michelle Delaney's 2007 book Buffalo Bill's Wild West Warriors: A Photographic History by Gertrude Käsebier. As Associate Editor for Visual Culture for The Papers of William F. Cody, Delaney wanted to add Gertrude Käsebier's valuable photographs of some of the Sioux participants in Buffalo Bill's Wild West to the ever-growing William F. Cody Archive, and Douglas Seefeldt, Senior Digital Editor for the Papers of William F. Cody and history professor at Ball State University, wanted to inaugurate Cody Studies, a digital scholarship platform, with an interpretive work. This project includes new research and converts aspects of the previous scholarship into forms better suited to the digital medium. Some of these elements include an interactive timeline of Käsebier's life and a dynamic gallery that enhances both the interpretation and searchability of the photographs and the authors's arguments.
Unless otherwise indicated, all photographs are used with permission from the Gertrude Käsebier Collection held in the Photographic History Collection at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History.
This project is funded through a generous donation from Forest Fenn through the Papers of William F. Cody at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody, WY. This donation funded the time and expertise of Rebecca Wingo, a doctoral student at the University of Nebraska—Lincoln, to work closely with Delaney and Seefeldt to build the digital project.
Additional support came from the Smithsonian Institution through Delaney's time and expertise, and the use of Käsebier's photographs and documents. The University of Nebraska's Center for Digital Research in the Humanities (CDRH) provided technical support throughout the project. The CDRH's Digital Resources Designer, Karin Dalziel, generously provided the basic CSS for the site, and the majority of the design is her creation.
Recommended citation:
Delaney, Michelle A. and Rebecca Wingo. "'I Shall Be Glad to See Them': Gertrude Käsebier's 'Show Indian' Photographs." Cody Studies, edited by Douglas Seefeldt. Cody, WY: The Papers of William F. Cody, 2012. http://codystudies.org/kasebier/index.htmlContact Us
| Michelle A. Delaney Director, Consortium for Understanding the American Experience Senior Program Officer Office of the Under Secretary for History, Art, and Culture Smithsonian Institution P.O. Box 37012, MRC 052 Washington, D.C. 20013-7012 delaneym@si.edu |
Rebecca Wingo Department of History University of Nebraska-Lincoln 612 Oldfather Hall Lincoln, NE 68588 rebecca.wingo@gmail.com |
Douglas Seefeldt Senior Digital Editor, The Papers of William F. Cody Department of History Ball State University Burkhardt Building, room 200 Muncie, IN 47306 wdseefeldt@bsu.edu |
