‘A Likeness made From First Hand Witness’?: The Discursive Position of a Purported Crazy Horse Photograph

<p>This dissertation is concerned with the ways in which photographs are discursively deployed and used in the writing of history. More specifically, it will consider how photos, and the historical, scientific, ethnographic and romantic discourses surrounding them, are used to erase or ‘make safe’ the traces of the radical resistances of dominated groups within colonial frameworks. The case explored here concerns the tintype photograph claimed as being of the Lakota chief and warrior Crazy Horse (c.1840-1877). Exhibited by the Custer Battlefield Museum in Montana, the claim that this photograph is of Crazy Horse is controversial. It is generally thought that no visual likeness of Crazy Horse exists; and his refusal to be photographed can be read as a practice of opposition to his assimilation into colonial narratives and accounts of American frontier history. In claiming the photo to be of Crazy Horse, the history of his resistance is rewritten and repositioned. This changes the way he becomes knowable and understandable within the contexts of (neo)colonial discourses and narratives, in which Native Americans are often relegated to the past, and appear either as casualties of the policies of Manifest Destiny, or as a romantic other which has been symbolically integrated into American mythic culture. This dissertation focuses on how the claim that this photograph is of Crazy Horse is made, and how the various associated cultural fields (photography, historiography, museology) are affected by, and play into, such a claim. This involves identifying the discursive processes and disciplinary mechanisms through which meaning is produced in relation to a particular cultural object. It considers the supposed photograph of Crazy Horse as an example of how history assigns significance to objects “in terms of the possibilities they generate for producing or transforming reality” (de Certeau, 1986:202), rather than as representations or reflections of reality.</p>

‘A Likeness made From First Hand Witness’?: The Discursive Position of a Purported Crazy Horse Photograph

<p>This dissertation is concerned with the ways in which photographs are discursively deployed and used in the writing of history. More specifically, it will consider how photos, and the historical, scientific, ethnographic and romantic discourses surrounding them, are used to erase or ‘make safe’ the traces of the radical resistances of dominated groups within colonial frameworks. The case explored here concerns the tintype photograph claimed as being of the Lakota chief and warrior Crazy Horse (c.1840-1877). Exhibited by the Custer Battlefield Museum in Montana, the claim that this photograph is of Crazy Horse is controversial. It is generally thought that no visual likeness of Crazy Horse exists; and his refusal to be photographed can be read as a practice of opposition to his assimilation into colonial narratives and accounts of American frontier history. In claiming the photo to be of Crazy Horse, the history of his resistance is rewritten and repositioned. This changes the way he becomes knowable and understandable within the contexts of (neo)colonial discourses and narratives, in which Native Americans are often relegated to the past, and appear either as casualties of the policies of Manifest Destiny, or as a romantic other which has been symbolically integrated into American mythic culture. This dissertation focuses on how the claim that this photograph is of Crazy Horse is made, and how the various associated cultural fields (photography, historiography, museology) are affected by, and play into, such a claim. This involves identifying the discursive processes and disciplinary mechanisms through which meaning is produced in relation to a particular cultural object. It considers the supposed photograph of Crazy Horse as an example of how history assigns significance to objects “in terms of the possibilities they generate for producing or transforming reality” (de Certeau, 1986:202), rather than as representations or reflections of reality.</p>

Reframing the Western Genre in Bande dessinée, from Hollywood to Ledger Art

In European Francophone Western comics, intermediality goes beyond the widely acknowledged visual influences from Western films. The different sections of this article outline in several case studies how Western bande dessinée often translates an intermedial web of pictorial and photographic hypotexts that have been researched to different extents. Finally, this paper explores a neglected perspective on the visual representations of the American frontier in comics: the artistic production of Native Americans, which is very much present in Western bande dessinée. Building on this analysis and following the lead of researchers that have surveyed some of the main historical developments of graphic narratives, this article posits that the critical and historical study of marginalised visual narratives such as Native American ledger art could feature more prominently in comics scholarship.

Frail Males on the American Frontier: The Role of Environmental Harshness on Sex Ratios at Birth across a Period of Rapid Industrialization

While sex ratios at birth (SRB) have been shown to vary within and across populations, after over a century of research, explanations have remained elusive. A variety of ecological, demographic, economic, and social variables have been evaluated, yet their association with SRB has been equivocal. Here, in an attempt to shed light on this unresolved topic within the literature, we approach the question of what drives variation in SRB using detailed longitudinal data spanning the frontier-era to the early 20th century in a population from the US state of Utah. Using several measures of environmental harshness, we find that fewer boys are born during challenging times. However, these results hold only for the frontier-era and not into a period of rapid economic and infrastructure development. We argue that the mixed state of the literature may result from the impact and frequency of exogenous stressors being dampened due to industrialization.

A great convergence: The American frontier and the origins of Japanese migration to Brazil

This article explains how the US westward expansion influenced and stimulated Japanese migration to Brazil. Emerging in the nineteenth century as expanding powers in East Asia and Latin America, respectively, both Meiji Japan and post-independence Brazil looked to the US westward expansion as a central reference for their own processes of settler colonialism. The convergence of Japan and Brazil in their imitation of US settler colonialism eventually brought the two sides together at the turn of the twentieth century to negotiate for the start of Japanese migration to Brazil. This article challenges the current understanding of Japanese migration to Brazil, conventionally regarded as a topic of Latin American ethnic studies, by placing it in the context of settler colonialism in both Japanese and Brazilian histories. The study also explores the shared experiences of East Asia and Latin America as they felt the global impact of the American westward expansion.

An Empire Fit for God’s Kingdom

Chapter 10 examines Franklin’s experience in London during Pennsylvania’s charter crisis of the 1750s, which positioned him to be the chief negotiator in London for American interests during the run up to the War for Independence. His politics were by no means simple since he admired the British constitution, the monarchy, and the British Empire. But the treatment he received in London turned him into a patriot and brought him home to assist the Continental Congress. Still, Franklin’s partiality to the British and his own desires to extend American influence westward made him congenial to Protestants who began to cooperate more consistently during the war and then after established ecumenical and missionary organizations to bring civilization to the American frontier.

The California Gold Rush: approaches to producing daguerreotype views. An examination of views in the Matthew R. Isenburg Collection at AMC Toronto

This thesis examines daguerreotypes of outdoor views made during the California Gold Rush from 1848 to 1856, now in the Matthew R. Isenburg Collection at AMC Toronto. The views were made for private commissions, public viewings, and as models for engraving. Daguerreotypists encountered a number of challenging working conditions in the field, different from those in galleries where portraits were taken. In analyzing 18 daguerreotypes from the Isenburg Collection, this thesis investigates how working conditions during the Gold Rush such as light, climate, and terrain, influenced daguerreotypists`s decisions when making views; these include the choice of camera apparatus, optics and aperture, variations in exposure times, and composition and vantage points. By considering the purposes of such views, and the photographer`s approaches to making them, the thesis explains the appearance of these early visual documents of the western American frontier.