The Idaho Indian war

Archive record

1 photographic print on cabinet card mount. | Three native American men, all seated, full-length, facing front.

About this photograph

The Library of Congress holds this cabinet card photograph showing three Native American men, seated and facing the camera. The archive title refers to the Idaho Indian war and dates the image to 1877, but the record does not identify the men by name or nation, nor does it name a photographer.

Photographs of Native people from this era were nearly always made by non-Native photographers working for government surveys, commercial enterprises, expositions or ethnographic projects. The sitters rarely had control over how the resulting images were used or circulated. Archive records from this period routinely credit the photographer while leaving subjects unidentified or labelled only by their nation. When names were not recorded at the time, they are typically lost.

The cabinet card format, with its photograph mounted on stiff card stock, was a popular commercial style in the late nineteenth century.

Compiled from the catalogue record and reference notes on the formats and events involved. The archive record above is the primary source.

About the format

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