Explanation of Gallery Tags
The tags used in the gallery are designed to increase the searchable advantage of Gertrude Käsebier's photographs, drawings, and documents. The tags are divided into several categories, including "Individual(s)," "Concept(s)," "Subject(s)", "Theme(s)," and "Portrait View(s)".
Individual(s)
The names of individual people in the photographs and authors of the drawings are tagged where known. Several of the photographs were labeled with more than one name over time. The uncertainty of these names is indicated with a "(?)". The list of names displays first on the search page to give primacy to the men and women who sat for Käsebier and often became her friends.
Concept(s)
The Concept section gives the user insight into "invisible" elements of the photographs, documents, and drawings that the curator sees when examining the images.
- Candid - In truth, none of the photographs in this collection are candid in the way modern users would interpret this term. The camera Käsebier used required longer exposure times, so her photographs always show posed figures. However, some of the poses intentionally appear to capture the sitter off-guard. Käsebier's insertion of this candidness creates a different experience for the viewers who would not typically see unposed Native Americans.
- Cultural Transition - Through her photographs, Käsebier sought to capture the Sioux in a moment of cultural transition as they crossed between the Wild West and Pine Ridge Agency. By that definition, all of the photographs could be labeled as such, but only those that intentionally show this dichotomy are labeled (i.e. images with the New York skyline in the background or the prominent badges of the policemen for Buffalo Bill's Wild West camp).
- Direct Gaze - Often quite arresting, these photographs feature a sitter or sitters looking directly at the camera. The photographs illicit a different response from the contemporary viewer that deviates from the portraits standard to photography of Native Americans at the turn-of-the-century.
- Education - Some images are labeled "education" to indicate that the sitter attended a government-run boarding school, not to indicate a lack of education on the part of any other sitter. While we do not have a complete listing of the Lakota "Show Indians" who attended boarding school, it remains significant enough to mention for the ones we do know.
- Intimacy - Intimacy is a rather ambiguous term. In the case of Käsebier's photographs, intimacy exists primarily in the relationship of the Sioux sitters to Käsebier herself as she stood behind the camera lens. The act of photographing children, for example, is an extremely intimate endeavor as the trust it took for the Sioux women to allow their children to be photographed was hard-earned on Käsebier's part. She reported in Everybody's Magazine in 1901 that it took her nearly three years to photograph any children. ("Some Indian Portraits") Other instances of intimacy occur in the gaze between the sitter and Käsebier, or even between the sitters themselves, as in the photograph of American Horse and his wife.
- Published - Few of Käsebier's photographs of the Sioux performers in Buffalo Bill's Wild West were published. It is therefore significant to mark the ones that were. The majority of these were published in Everybody's Magazine in 1901.
- Raw - This tag refers to Käsebier's desire to photograph "a real raw Indian for a change. The kind [she] used to see when [she] was a child." ("Some Indian Portraits"). These photographs show the Sioux with minimal regalia or in atypical poses that defy the standard set for Native American portraiture.
- Other - Other tags are relatively self-explanatory, but do not belong with the "visible" elements listed under the "Subject(s)" tags.
Subject(s)
With little exception, the subject tags comply with Library of Congress subject headings. These are the "visible" and physical elements of the photographs.
Theme(s)
The curated divisions between the themes of the photographs are outlined in the Themes Section.
Portrait View(s)
This category divides the photographs by their pose and composure.
