Will Evans (1877 to 1954), also known as Awoshk’al or “Missing Tooth” to the Navajo, partnered with Joe Wilkins and Ed Dustin in 1898 to build Little Water Trading Post in Sanostee Valley, south of Shiprock, New Mexico. Filled with dry goods and groceries, Evans spent that first winter alone manning the shop, trading with the Navajo, and passing his time by painting. In 1917, Evans purchased the Shiprock Trading Post, and encouraged the Navajo to create weavings which he could easily sell along a newly formed and traveled road. These weavings, known as “Shiprock Yei”, depict attenuated figures situated against white backgrounds, a favorite style of Evans after witnessing a Navajo ceremony involving sandpainting.

In the 1930s, the Federal Government implemented the Navajo Livestock Reduction plan, whereby the government drastically reduced the sheep in the area for fear of overgrazing the land. This negatively impacted the Navajo weaving trade. Evans decided to redirect sales using his art and the Navajo craftsmen by building and painting furniture, bottles and trays, as well as the trading post itself, with Native symbols and designs.

Information courtesy of Cowan Auctions, Inc.

Henry Chee Dodge (Navajo, 1857 to 1947), was a prestigious political leader and businessman. While a boy, Dodge was orphaned while he and his family were on the Long Walk to Fort Sumner (1864 to 1866).

In 1868, he attended school at Fort Defiance, where he learned to speak, read, and write English. Dodge quickly became known as a reliable interpreter for both the federal government and, because he lived as a traditional Navajo, the Navajo. In 1883, Dodge was appointed head of the Navajo Tribal Police and later appointed Head Chief of the Navajo by the BIA. As the first chairman of the Navajo Business Council, Dodge was able to obtain the mineral rights to Navajo land. This provided significant funds for the Nation. From 1942-1946, he served as tribal chairman for the Navajo Nation, lobbying for better education and transition into the modern era. (Steve Pavlik, “Henry Chee Dodge” in Encyclopedia of North American Indians, 1996, Frederick E. Hoxie, ed. p.165-167)

Information courtesy of Cowan’s Auctions, Inc.

Asa Glascock (1898 to 1965), a native of Ralls County, Missouri, owned and operated a successful trading post located on North Third Street in Gallup, New Mexico from 1922 to 1957. He and his wife also managed a post in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, for several years during the mid-1950s.

Prior to becoming a trader, Glascock volunteered for the sheriff, serving as a member of the Gallup town posse when necessary and worked for the trans-continental railway. During his time with the rail, which ran through the middle of town, Glascock severely injured his right hand. This prompted his career change and he became a trader who spoke fluent Navajo.

Asa’s wife, Margaret Smith Glascock (1924 to 2002), assisted him with the day-to-day activities typical of any thriving store-ordering supplies, showing merchandise, taking jewelry for pawn, operating the cash register, and keeping financial records.

The post sold Navajo blankets, Pendleton blankets, pawn jewelry, glass beads, groceries, and household goods similar to those found in today’s small hardware stores. One original item however, surpassed all others: the beaded leather belts. The Glascocks sold the profitable belts to the National Park Service, as well as to dealers across the country.

The post had a long counter off to the side, where Czechoslovakian glass beads were sold. The Zuni purchased the colorful beads by the “whiskey shot glass” and hurried home to loom-bead vibrant strips in the requisite length. When finished, the beaders returned the strips to the post where Margaret, using her Singer, stitched the strips to commercially made leather belts. Her sons often helped her with the final phase of lacing white plastic around the edges. The belt orders dwindled when the Japanese began imitating the belts.

Glascock sold his post in 1957 and the family returned to a farm in Missouri where they, like the Navajo, kept a herd of sheep. (David Williamson to Meyn, February 16, 2015, and Mary Tate Engels, ed., Tales from Wide Ruins, 1996: 192).

Information courtesy of Cowan’s Auctions, Inc.

Baleen comes from a suborder of whales, Mysticeti, which includes, among others, humpback whales, gray whales, right whales and blue whales. What sets these whales apart is baleen. These whales do not have teeth, but have upper jaws filled with two rows of baleen plates fringed with fine baleen hair. These plates are so closely aligned that they act like a comb or a sieve; whales pull water across them, catching the small plankton they feed on in the baleen ‘hairs’. Baleen varies widely in size, as the sizes of the whales it comes from vary. The individual plates can be as small as 2 feet, but as large as 12 feet long! A single plate can weigh 200 pounds. Baleen is often called whalebone, which is a bit of a misnomer. Baleen is not bone, but rather keratin, the same protein that forms hair and fingernails in humans as well as horns and claws in animals.
Archaeology suggests that hunting whales was crucial to the Inuit way of life as early as 1000 A.D. In a landscape that offers so few materials, every part of a whale was used, including baleen. Because of the lack of wood for fires for boiling water, baleen was softened by soaking it in urine. Baleen had another property that made it valuable in the Arctic environment: it doesn’t not frost. As a result, it was deemed useful for all sorts of utilitarian purposes, such as fishing lines and sled runners.

A baleen sled with hide ties. (p4A item # D9763560)

Baleen’s price was closely linked to the fashion trends of England and Europe, being used for busks, pieces of a rigid material slipped into pockets in the front of a corset to keep it straight and upright. As small decorative objects that could be carved and were placed in a hidden place near the heart, busks were common sweetheart gifts, often beautifully decorated with delicate carvings. Baleen’s flexibility and durability also made it perfect for forming the hoops in hoop skirts. Baleen’s price was roughly at its highest when hoop skirts were at their widest.

Detail of the end of a scrimshaw baleen busk with delicately carved details. (p4A item # D9981258)
D9981258

A baleen basket with ivory finial carved in the shape of a diving whale’s tail. (p4A item # D9777078)

Sitting Bull, the man who would later become the Hunkpapa Sioux chief, was born in South Dakota, near the Grand River. His Lakota name was Tatanka-Iyotanka. In his thirties, he began to build his reputation as a warrior, leading war parties in Red Cloud’s War against a number of Dakota Territory forts. Although the U.S. negotiated with the Sioux in order to end the war and although Chief Gall signed the Treaty of Fort Laramie in July of 1868, Sitting Bull, who never trusted the government’s promises, refused to acknowledge the treaty and continued to lead raids in the area into the 1870s.

It is, however, the events of June, 1876 for which Sitting Bull is known: leading a large band of warriors (historians debate the numbers, but estimates range from 900 to 2000) against roughly 650 officers, troops and scouts, annhilating the advance troops. Of course, public outcry brought even more troops and scrutiny to the Sioux, and Sitting Bull was forced to retreat with approximately 200 Sioux to Canada during the spring of 1877. For several years Sitting Bull refused to surrender and offers of a pardon, but by 1881, the combination of the weather, hunger, and dwindling numbers forced him to return. After surrendering at Fort Buford, Sitting Bull and his band were transferred to Fort Yates, and later to Fort Randall, where they were held for nearly two years.

An O.S. Goff cabinet card portrait of Sitting Bull. (p4A item # D9994743)

Sitting Bull’s autograph on an autograph album page. (p4A item # D9961940)

In the late fall of 1890, James McLaughlin, the U.S. Agent in charge of Standing Rock, became concerned that the Ghost Dancers were about to leave the agency and that Sitting Bull might accompany them, potentially become a roving band with a prominent figure to promote rebellion. McLaughlin decided to send men to arrest Sitting Bull on December 15, 1890. Perhaps worried about not appearing in control, 43 men arrived just around dawn to arrest Sitting Bull. Some of Sitting Bull’s people encouraged him to resist, and perhaps concerned that the situation would get out of hand, members of the police began to attempt to use force. Members of Sitting Bull’s community were outraged. Catch-the-Bear, a Sitting Bull supporter, shot Bullhead, one of the policemen, setting off a round of gunfire that left Sitting Bull and six policemen dead along with seven Sioux. Two policemen would die later of wounds.

Sitting Bull’s body was taken to Fort Yates for burial. In 1953, his Lakota family had his body exhumed and moved so that he could be reburied closer to his place of birth, but there is some discussion that the body moved was not that of Sitting Bull.

Hollie Davis, p4A Senior Editor, January 29, 2010

Alexander Gardner was born in Paisley, Scotland on October 17, 1821. As a young man, he was interested in socialist ideas, especially the concept of cooperatives, the creation of a business venture operated by and to serve the needs of a particular group with a common interest. After the family moved to Glasgow, Gardner apprenticed himself to a jeweler and silversmith at the age of 14. After reading about the New Harmony cooperative community established in Indiana by Welsh socialist Robert Owen and his son Robert Dale Owen, Gardner helped establish the Clydesdale Joint Stock Agricultural and Commercial Company, with the goal of purchasing land in the United States where the members could form another cooperative community.

By 1850, the company had purchased land in Iowa, but Gardner never lived there, instead continuing to work in Scotland to raise more funds. By 1856, after five years as the owner and editor of the Glasgow Sentinel, a struggling paper that he had transformed into a huge success, Gardner opted to move his family – his mother, his wife and their two children – to the United States. However, after discovering that the Iowa community was battling tuberculosis and that many of his friends and family there were sick or dead, he opted to settle in New York.

Gardner’s interest in photography was born after a visit to the Crystal Palace Exhibition in London in 1851, where he encountered the photographs of American photographer Mathew Brady. He began to dabble in photography himself and to write about it in the Glasgow Sentinel, and in 1856, he contacted Brady in Washington, D.C. where he was operating a studio. Brady welcomed the opportunity to expand his presence in New York, and Gardner, fast becoming a great talent with the wet plate collodion process that was replacing daguerreotypes, was a perfect choice. His specialty was the large ‘Imperial’ plates, 17 by 20, and they commanded huge prices in the era with some selling for as much as $750.

By 1858, a relatively short time after beginning his relationship with Brady, Gardner had evidently impressed his employer so much that Brady asked him to move to Washington, D.C., where he would eventually oversee the gallery there until he became involved in war photography. Both men were perfectly positioned to capture the historic moments of the coming years, and the gallery flourished during the early years of the war, gaining a reputation for portraiture and thriving with the patronage of the high-profile, high-ranking military officials who visited the city and the vast numbers of soldiers under their command. Gardner is especially known for his photographs of Lincoln, capturing an image of the sixteenth president on the battlefield at Antietam and taking various portraits during Lincoln’s years in Washington. He also took the last known images of Lincoln, four days before his assassination, and documented the aftermath, photographing both the funeral proceedings and the assassination conspirators.

A silver print copy of Gardner’s final portrait of Lincoln, taken four days before his death. (p4A item # D9899713)

With photography still in the glass plate stage, Brady photographers like Gardner moved around in traveling darkrooms that were fully equipped to develop images. When one considers the conditions, Gardner’s Civil War photographs become all the more amazing. Later in the war, he traveled with Gen. Ambrose Burnside and Gen. Joseph Hooker, photographing events at Fredericksburg and Petersburg as well as the seminal battles at Antietam and Gettysburg, and in 1863, Gardner and his brother opened their own studio.

Almost a century later, Gardner’s photographs again created a stir when research by Frederic Ray indicated that several of Gardner’s Civil War images of two Confederate snipers were indeed just one sniper whose body was moved for the purposes of achieving a more dramatic position. Gardner and his assistants moved the body approximately 40 yards to get the photograph known as Home of a Rebel Sharpshooter. Evidence indicates that posing and arranging photographs was probably commonplace in the early days of the craft, and while modern scholars may be disappointed, viewers in the period would likely not have been bothered by this knowledge.

A stereoview image of Gardner’s Home of a Rebel Sharpshooter. (p4A item # D9934454)

Gardner’s albumen image of the hanging of Lincoln conspirators on July 7, 1865. (p4A item # D9889980)

A Gardner’s photograph of an Indian burial site from Scenes in the Indian Country. (p4A item # D9927541)

Gardner’s images remain very popular among collectors today, not only because of their quality and technical skill, but because of the historic moments they captured. Prices for his work can range from hundreds of dollars to tens of thousands (a copy of his Civil War volumes brought in excess of $86,000 p4A item # D9890316), and the value depends greatly on subject matter and condition.

Hollie Davis, p4A Senior Editor, August 12, 2009