Counter-witnessing Blackfeet Erasure in Beinecke's Walter McClintock collection of colored slides
The investigation proposes critically analyzing the editing processes involved in negatives, photographs, and colored slides depicting Blackfeet communities as part of the Walter McClintock collection at Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Salvage ethnographer and photographer Walter McClintock would erase elements of acculturation to promote the idea of a pristine and idealized indigeneity, supposedely “untouched by white civilization.” For that purpose, elements such as trains, Western clothing, wagons, and whole villages were systematically erased in the original negatives. The research consists in cataloguing the negatives, comparing them with the later edited colored-slides, analyzing erased elements and, consequentely, bringing silenced stories to the surface.
Research supported by the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library Fellowship for Graduate Students.
Spring/Fall 2022 (Ongoing)
