Thursday, June 14, 2018

Library Acquires Important Artwork depicting Native Americans

By Frank Boles

The Clarke Library recently acquired a copy of George Catlin’s lithograph, “O-Jib-be-Ways,” a late addition to his American Indian Portfolio. The acquisition was made possible by the Alice C. Webb Memorial Endowment.


Catlin’s American Indian Portfolio, published in London in 1844, is rightly hailed as a milestone in the visual documentation of Native Americans. The Portfolio contains the results of Catlin’s years of living with and traveling among the Great Plains Indians. From 1832 to 1837, he traveled west and spent the summer months sketching tribal people. Then, during the winter, he completed his pictures in oils. The more than 500 paintings he created were unique, both in their breadth and also in the sympathetic understanding that his images constantly demonstrate. A selection of images from this body of work were published in the North American Indian Portfolio in an effort to reach as wider audience.

Catlin was concerned about the question of who his audience was, because his income came largely from ticket sales generated by exhibiting his work. He spent from 1837 to 1852 touring the United States, England, France, and Holland with his collection of paintings and examples of Indian crafts, allowing the curious to view his exhibit for a fee. His exhibit was sometimes augmented by members of Indian tribes who were also part of the show.

Although all of the images found in the original Portfolio are of Native people who lived west of the Mississippi River, for individuals interested in Native American who lived east of the Mississippi River, there is an important coda to this work. In the early 1870s, the British publisher Chatto & Windus bought the copyright to the Portfolio, as well as the original printing plates, and in approximately 1875 issued a reprint edition. To make the reprint more saleable, it included six new images, for which printing plates had been created at the time the first edition appeared but which had never been used. These six images included the one acquired by the Clarke Historical Library, “O-Jib-be-Ways.”

How this image came into existence is a story unto itself. The Ojibwas in Catlin’s image were not painted in America, but rather in England. Victorian England’s fashionable elite developed a taste for viewing “exotic” peoples – paying admission to see non-Europeans, dressed in “native” clothing. In 1843, an enterprising showman found a group of Ojibwas from the western end of the Great Lakes willing to leave their homeland and sent them to England.

Catlin was also in London, where the profit from showing his paintings had begun to decline seriously. Learning of the Ojibwas, he decided to “improve” his show by renting the nine Native Americans from their original manager for one hundred pounds sterling a month. Subsequently they appeared twice a day in Catlin’s rented gallery space. London newspapers reported that “the audience stood amazed and delighted with the wildness and newness of the scene that was passing before them.”

The combination of the paintings and living Ojibwa people made the exhibit a great success. The group was invited to appear before Queen Victoria, to both perform for her Majesty and dine with the Queen. The Queen later thanked her guests by sending them twenty pounds sterling and a length of a plaid in the royal tartan, presumably to be made into blankets.

Catlin was quite sensitive to the charge that he was exploiting the troupe merely to make money. He pointed out that they were a people “with reasoning facilities and shrewdness like our own,” who had a written contract. He added, “I have undertaken to stand by them as their friend and advocate – not as wild beasts, but as men, laboring in an honest vocation amid a world of strangers … for the means of feeding their wives and little children.”

The portrait Catlin painted of the traveling group includes includes symbols corresponding to individuals Totem or signature. Catlin's descriptions and translations, printed on the work, are as follows. "1.) An-que-wee-zaints, the boy chief. 2.) Pat-au-ah-quat-a-wee-be, the driving cloud, war Chief. 3.) Wee-nish-ka-wee-be, the flying Gull. 4.) Sah-man, tobacco. 5.) Gish-e-gosh-gee, the moon light night. 6.) Not-een-a-akm, strong wind, interpreter. 7.) Wos-see-ab-e-neuh-qua, woman. 8.) Nib-nab-e-qua, child. 9.) Ne-bet-neuh-qua, woman."

Catlin’s more than 500 original paintings were eventually acquired by the Smithsonian Institution, but were destroyed in a fire that swept the Institution’s building in 1865. What remains of his work are the prints from the Portfolio.

CMU Class Trees


By Frank Boles

Recently, toward the end of the commencement ceremony I was attending, my ears picked up when Provost Michael Gealt reminded the graduates that a maple tree, then in a container located in front of the building, would be planted on campus in their honor. As the provost spoke about the tree, I was thinking, “and you do know that we have mapped all of the existing class trees on the Clarke Historical Library’s website – right?” As if on cue, the provost shared with the graduates that if they would like to see where the other class trees are planted, they should visit the Clarke’s website.



Sometimes things do work out!

A project several years in the making, the ”Trees Planted in Honor of Graduating Classes” page of the Clarke website, traces the history of a tradition begun in 1994, when a Blue Spruce was planted in honor of the graduating class. A google map uses a gold pin to locate each tree and show a picture of it.  In addition, information is included about the tree species as well as a link to supply more information about that species of tree.

The map also includes information about a few trees that have been removed. And to the Class of 1997, really at the time a Mountain Ash seemed like such a good idea! Nobody had ever heard of an Emerald Ash Borer (Agrilus planipennis). Native to Asia, the insect was first detected in Canton, Michigan in 2002. Since then, this invasive species has made Michigan the epicenter of the borer infestation, devastating the state’s Ash tree population.

To view the map with a chronological listing of the trees, visit this link.

To each graduating class, we’ll think of you whenever summer heats envelopes the campus. Thanks for the shade!

Congratulations to Autumn Pinkley and Lilah Haines, Clarke Student Employees!

The Clarke Historical Library would like to congratulate two of our student employees. Autumn Pinkley and Lilah Haines have been awarded scholarships from the University Libraries’ Scholarship Committee. The two awardees submitted essays as part of the scholarship process.

The University Libraries has two scholarship opportunities for library student employees. The Library Student Employee Scholarship was established in 2010 and the Helen Holz Rooney Endowed Award began in 2013. Both scholarships were established to support academic expenses of exemplary CMU Libraries’ student employees. The Clarke Staff is very proud of Autumn and Lilah for receiving these well-deserved awards. We think they are definitely exemplary!

If you would like to know more about how you can help with gift giving to Central Michigan University, please visit the following website click here.