After 1850, Americans swarmed to take in a raft of new illustrated journals and papers. Engravings and drawings of "buckskinned braves" and "Indian princesses" proved an immensely popular attraction for consumers of publications like Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper and Harper's Weekly . In Indians Illustrated , John M. Coward charts a social and cultural history of Native American illustrations—romantic, violent, racist, peaceful, and otherwise—in the heyday of the American pictorial press. These woodblock engravings and ink drawings placed Native Americans into categories that drew from venerable "good" Indian and "bad" Indian stereotypes already threaded through the culture. Coward's examples show how the genre cemented white ideas about how Indians should look and behave—ideas that diminished Native Americans' cultural values and political influence. His powerful analysis of themes and visual tropes unlocks the racial codes and visual cues that whites used to represent—and marginalize—native cultures already engaged in a twilight struggle against inexorable westward expansion.|
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Illustrating Indians in the Pictorial Press
Chapter 1. Posing the Indian: Native American Portraits in the Illustrated Press
Chapter 2. Illustrating Indian Lives: Difference and Deficiency in Native American Imagery
Chapter 3. The Princess and the Squaw: The Construction of Native American Women in the Pictorial
Chapter 4. Making Images on the Indian Frontier: The Adventures of Special Artist Theodore Davis
Chapter 5. Illustrating the Indian Wars: Fact, Fantasy, and Ideology
Chapter 6. Making Sense of Savagery: Native American Cartoons in the Daily Graphic
Chapter 7. Remington's Indian Illustrations: Race, Realism, and Pictorial Journalism
Chapter 8. Visualizing Race: Native American and African American Imagery in Frank Leslie's
Conclusion: Illustrating Race, Demonstrating Difference
Notes
Index
|
" Indians Illustrated is a good read that strongly contributes to our knowledge of American Indians' depictions and stereotyping while bringing the world of nineteenth-century printed press into our own homes." — American Indian Quarterly
"In Indians Illustrated , Coward not only has written a book that clearly and decisively achieves the primary objective of providing a history of the development and consequences of Native American stereotypes, but he also provides a framework useful for anyone who seeks to understand stereotyping of any group in American media."— Journalism History
"Coward provides a fascinating look at how powerful the visual image can be on the development of cultural attitudes."— Jhistory
| John M. Coward is an associate professor of communication at the University of Tulsa. He is the author of The Newspaper Indian: Native American Identity in the Press, 1820–90 .

Coward, John M

University of Illinois Press, Urbana, 2016

The history of communication, Urbana, 2016

United States, United States of America

Reprint, 2016

"Indians Illustrated is a social and cultural history of Indian illustrations in Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, Harper's Weekly, and other illustrated journals during the last half of the nineteenth century, the heyday of the American pictorial press. The pictorial press era, spurred in the mid-1850s by the transportation revolution, innovations in printing technology, and an expanded literary and pictorial market, was marked by a proliferation of detailed, realistic woodblock engravings, pictures of newsworthy people and interesting events from across the nation and the world. The pictorial press frequently depicted Indians and Indian life in popular but narrowly conceived ways. In pictures, Indians were simplified and presented in familiar and easily understood categories, usually as variations on the 'good' Indian/'bad' Indian stereotypes long established in Euro-American culture. Indian men were depicted as 'tall and copper-colored, with braided hair, clothed in buckskin, and moccasins, and adorned in headdresses, beadwork and/or turquoise' while Indian women were depicted as either Indian princesses or squaws. John Coward argues that these pictures helped create and sustain a host of popular ideas and attitudes about Indians, especially ideas about the way Indians were supposed to look and act. By describing and analyzing the various themes and visual tropes across the years of the illustrated press, this book provides a deeper understanding of the racial codes and visual signs that white Americans used to represent Native Americans in an era of western expansion and Manifest Destiny"--Provided by publisher

"Indians Illustrated is a social and cultural history of Indian illustrations in Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, Harper's Weekly, and other illustrated journals during the last half of the nineteenth century, the heyday of the American pictorial press. The pictorial press era, spurred in the mid-1850s by the transportation revolution, innovations in printing technology, and an expanded literary and pictorial market, was marked by a proliferation of detailed, realistic woodblock engravings, pictures of newsworthy people and interesting events from across the nation and the world. The pictorial press frequently depicted Indians and Indian life in popular but narrowly conceived ways. In pictures, Indians were simplified and presented in familiar and easily understood categories, usually as variations on the 'good' Indian/'bad' Indian stereotypes long established in Euro-American culture. Indian men were depicted as 'tall and copper-colored, with braided hair, clothed in buckskin, and moccasins, and adorned in headdresses, beadwork and/or turquoise' while Indian women were depicted as either Indian princesses or squaws. John Coward argues that these pictures helped create and sustain a host of popular ideas and attitudes about Indians, especially ideas about the way Indians were supposed to look and act. By describing and analyzing the various themes and visual tropes across the years of the illustrated press, this book provides a deeper understanding of the racial codes and visual signs that white Americans used to represent Native Americans in an era of western expansion and Manifest Destiny"-- Résumé de l'éditeur

2022-07-13