Oct 25, 2016 - Sale 2426

Sale 2426 - Lot 74

Price Realized: $ 4,750
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 4,000 - $ 6,000
(EDWARD S. CURTIS.)
Handbook of American Indians, Part 1, A-M, Bulletin #30 * Handbook of American Indians, Part 2, N-Z, Bulletin #30, North of Mexico.
Together, 2 volumes. Edited by Frederick Webb Hodge. Each is illustrated with halftone reproductions of photographs of Native Americans and signed by Curtis, in ink, on the front free endpaper. Tall thick 4tos, olive cloth. The first volume partially reinforced, binding heavily worn, lacks preliminaries, pp. vii-viii, and a blank (?) page at the end; with marginalia in Curtis' handwriting; and including a bound-in folded typewritten report to members of the American Anthropological Association, which is also annotated by Curtis. The second volume joints worn and backstrip torn, corners worn. EACH VOLUME IS SIGNED BY CURTIS.
Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, [1907]-10

Additional Details

From Edward S. Curtis; by descent to his daughter, Elizabeth M. "Beth" Curtis Magnuson (1896-1973); to Manford E. "Mag" Magnuson (Beth's husband); who gifted the volumes to Phil Allen.

A scarce 2-volume set of Curtis' personal reference books, which he purportedly carried in his saddle bags and referred to when photographing different tribes.

Published by the Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of Ethnology, each volume is labeled Bulletin #30. The first volume, which pertains directly to tribes Curtis photographed during his 30-year-long career, has brief annotations throughout by Curtis. This volume also contains Hodge's typewritten report, in which he details the A.A.A.'s updated nomenclature for tribes north of Mexico. ". . . each name should be chosen and used on its own merit as determined by philogogic correctness, historical and geographic usage, brevity, and general convenience . . ."