Audstermania: Photography/Culture: Edward Curtis' Photographs of the Last Remaining Native American Tribes

Photographer Edward Curtis set out to document the last of the native american tribes before they faded away forever. Curtis' odyssey took 30 years and became the most extensive photographic series that has ever been undertaken by one person in history with 40,000 images. Up till that point, the natives were often depicted as savages or a lost people, but his photographs dispelled this misconception. With JP Morgan as his benefactor, Curtis' mission was to capture all the tribes in their primitive ways before they faded away, as they eventually did. He visited 80 tribes in all. Curtis would eventually have to go to the hide-outs where native people were relegated to at the dawn of the 20th century, as the frontier was pronounced closed and roads are stitching up the rest of the country. They are considered pathetic vanquished people, and the general thought was that they'd be gone within a generations time. The last remaining native americans are now immortalized in his hauntingly beautiful portraits and landscapes.