The Illustrated Indian:Cultural Contradictions

in the Indians of the Pictorial Press

John CowardFaculty of Communication

The University of Tulsa

Knowing & Seeing Before printing, books were hand-copied, which made them rare and expensive

Before photography, images were hand-drawn or printed by hand, but popular imagery was relatively rare and expensive

The Birth of the Visual In 1800, most Americans had no idea what politicians or other famous people looked like

This changed when the daguerreotype and other photographic technologies arrived in the 1830s & 1840s and started a visual revolution

The Penny Press The mass media “invented” in the 1830s with the development of the Penny Press in New York City

These one-cent newspapers catered to middle- and working-class readers with police and crime news, scandals, and sensationalism

The Appetite for News The Penny Press was the popular press; circulation soared in NYC and elsewhere

Editors began actively seeking news and employed reporters to find it

Reporters began competing for news Faster presses were developed to meet the demands of publishers

NP circulations rise Benjamin Day’s NY Sun reached 10,000 circulation little more than two years

James Gordon Bennett started the NY Herald for $500 in 1835 and reached a circulation of 20,000 in1836

By 1860, the Herald’s circulation was 60,000

Presses at the St. Louis Republic

1806: Screw press ran 35 copies per hour (both sides)

1827: Washington press ran 150 copies per hour

1853: Double cylinder Hoe press ran 1,200 copies per hour

1863: Eight cylinder Hoe press ran 10,000 copies per hour

The Visual Revolution In the 1840s, daguerreotypes amazed the public because they “captured reality”

Editors wanted images to help tell stories and sell newspapers and magazines

The problem: No technology existed to publish photographs in the newspapers until the 1890s

The Visual Revolution, Pt 2 The solution: Employ artists Newspapers hired illustrators and engravers to copy photographs or make drawings in order to illustrate newsworthy people and events

Enterprising editors developed a new product: the pictorial paper, combining the popular appeal of the Penny Press and the visual impact of the image

Rise of the Pictorial Press First American pictorial paper: Gleason’s Pictorial Drawing Room Companion, founded in Boston in 1852

First successful American pictorial paper: Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, founded in New York in 1855

Harper’s Weekly followed in 1857

Images and the Civil War The war was good for business The demand for images was high Leslie’s circulation climbed to 160,000 during the war; Harper’s climbed to 120,000

The pictorial press created a new editorial position: the “special artist” who drew images from the battlefield

The Illustrated Indian After the Civil War, the pictorial press sent artists west in search of excitement and action

Theodore Davis and Alfred Waud, both Civil War artists, covered Indians and the West

The Illustrated Indian, Pt 2 In the post-Civil War era and Gilded Age, the illustrated press was the major source of popular Indian imagery

Indian imagery varied, but war images dominated the popular imagination

Battles scenes were newsworthy and exciting

The Illustrated Indian, Pt. 3 Significantly, scenes of Indian warriors and Indian fighting supported and sustained a national ideology about the correctness of conquest and expansion

Indian war imagery cast Indians as obstacles to western expansion and enemies of civilization and progress

A Contradiction Indian war illustrations made sense as long as the fighting continued

The illustrations made less “news sense” as the Indian wars ended

Despite new ways of representing Indians, war imagery persisted and remained enormously popular

The Myth Lives On (And On) Manifest Destiny was (and is) a powerful part of our national myth

The myth depends on a deficient but worthy enemy

In the post-war pictorial press, Indians were most popular as colorful but deadly adversaries, even when the illustrations were made up

Pictorial Press Examples Theodore Davis travels west in 1865 His stage attacked by Indians in Kansas

Davis writes four stories about the attack and illustrates it twice, making it one of the most well-documented incidents of its kind

The stage attack becomes a visual cliché

Pictorial Press Examples

Henry Farny goes west in 1881 He took photos to improve his accuracy

His illustrations and paintings mostly non-violent, pastoral Indian scenes

Farny acclaimed in his lifetime, but largely forgotten or overlooked today

Pictorial Press Examples

Frederic Remington covers the Geronimo campaign for Harper’s in 1886

He saw no action but took photos, depicting Indians and other Western “types”

Following Social Darwinism, Remington creates detailed images of racially distinct Indian faces

Pictorial Press Examples Remington’s greatest success as an illustrator comes not from realistic images but from his imaginary drawings of Indian battles

In 1889, he published “The Last Lull in the Fight,” a “last stand” scene, one of several such imaginary drawings & another visual cliché

In 1890, he painted “The Last Stand,” a battle that took place when he was 15

Fact vs. Romance Despite the rise of photography and the “realist turn” in the Gilded Age, romantic notions of Indian conquest trumped realistic depictions of Indians and Indian fighting

Americans wanted—and the pictorial press delivered—the sizzle, not the steak