Moon (Carl) Photographs of Indians of the Southwest and Oklahoma, 1904-1917

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Summary

Title:
Carl Moon Photographs of Indians of the Southwest and Oklahoma, 1904-1917
Dates:
1904-1917
Creators:
Moon, Carl, 1878-1948.
Abstract:
This collection of photographs by photographer Carl Moon documents Native Americans living in Arizona, New Mexico and Oklahoma between 1904 and 1917. The primary tribes represented are Hopi, Navajo and Taos Pueblo Indians, but there are also Osage, Apache and several other Southwestern tribes. There are many portraits, as well as posed, romantic scenes depicting storytelling, hunting, weaving, or playing instruments. Additional candid views show people in their daily activities, pueblos, and dance ceremonies.
Extent:
293 photographs in 17 oversize portfolio boxes: prints (approx. 13 x 16 inches) on oversize mounts (approx. 22 x 26 inches). Also includes a typescript index by Carl Moon and 1 box of ephemera and newspaper clippings.
Language:
The records are in English .
Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], Carl Moon Photographs of Indians of the Southwest and Oklahoma. The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

Background

Scope and content:

This collection of photographs by photographer Carl Moon documents Native Americans living in Arizona, New Mexico and Oklahoma between 1904 and 1917. In a letter to Henry Huntington, Feb. 12, 1923, Moon describes these photographs as "a complete collection of my Indian pictures made from the beginning of my work in 1904 to 1917. It includes … the pick of the Fred Harvey collection that I made for them during the period of my contract with them, 1907 to 1914, and my own collection made since the latter date."

Moon mostly traveled by himself, and spent time getting to know his subjects before photographing them. He seems to have made a series of shots of his subjects, sometimes with different attire or props, and sometimes assigning different titles to the photographs (see images 214, 225, 235, for example).

Besides the portraits, there are scenes of Indians in their daily activities, including baking bread in outdoor ovens, gathering water in pots, riding horses and tending livestock. There are also views of the Hopi Snake Dance, and the Corn Dance at Santo Domingo.

Almost all of the photographs are signed "Karl Moon" – his name until 1918, when he changed the spelling to Carl. Many of the prints are also stamped "copyright Fred Harvey" which indicates they were made while Moon was under contract there, 1907-1914. Moon also copyrighted many of his own works, and a dated copyright stamp is embossed in the prints. The copyright date does not always indicate the year the photograph was made – it could be several years later (see image 214, for example).

Other items in collection

Box 18:

- Typescript introduction and index to the photographs, titled "A Brief Account of the Making of this Collection of Indian Pictures," by Carl Moon, 1924, 54 pp.

- Newspaper clippings related to Moon, 1904-1936 (bulk 1911-1923).

- Exhibition brochure for artist Thomas Moran, mentioning "Karl Moon," 1916.

Biographical / historical:

Carl E. Moon (originally spelled Karl) was born in Wilmington, Ohio in 1878. After graduation from high school, he served two years with the Ohio National Guard before apprenticing with various photographers in Ohio, West Virginia and Texas. He moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1903, where he set up a photography studio and began making "art studies" of the Native Americans of the Southwest, both in photographs and in oil paintings, sometimes living for weeks at a time in Navajo villages. From 1905-1906, Moon had a short-lived partnership in Albuquerque with businessman Thomas F. Keleher, called the Moon-Keleher Studio. After the partnership dissolved, Moon continued working, photographing carefully selected Indian "subjects" in a romantic, posed style. His photographs began appearing in magazines and he exhibited at the Museum of Natural History in New York. President Theodore Roosevelt invited Moon to exhibit his Native American photographs at the White House.

In 1907, Moon signed a contract with the Fred Harvey Company to produce photographs for what would be the Fred Harvey Collection of Southwest Indian Pictures. Beginning in 1911, he operated out of El Tovar Studio in the Grand Canyon. While employed by the Fred Harvey Co., he also worked as a photographer for the Santa Fe Railroad. For seven years, from 1907 to 1914, Moon photographed the native people of the Southwest, in his studio and in their villages. His images appeared (often uncredited) in brochures and publications for both companies.

Moon resigned from Fred Harvey Co. in 1914, and he and his second wife, Grace Purdie Moon, moved to Pasadena, California, where he continued to work as a photographer and painter. In 1923, Henry E. Huntington purchased from Moon 293 large, mounted photographic prints and 12 oil paintings (12 more paintings were purchased in 1925). This remains the largest and most complete collection of Carl Moon's work extant.

In 1924, Moon began work on "Indians of the Southwest," a set of 100 of his finest prints. Published in 1936, only ten copies were ever produced. With his wife Grace, he also wrote and illustrated many children's books about the Indians of the Southwest. Moon died in 1948, in San Francisco, at the home of his daughter.

Acquisition information:
Purchased by Henry E. Huntington from Carl Moon, 1923.
Rules or conventions:
Finding Aid prepared using Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Bibliography:

Sources consulted:

Driebe, Tom.<em>In Search of the Wild Indian: Photographs and Life Works by Carl and Grace Moon.</em>Moscow, Pa.: Maurose Publishing Co., 1997.

Faris, James C.<em>Navajo and photography: a critical history of the representation of an American people.</em>Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1996.

Moon, Carl. "A Brief Account of the Making of this Collection of Indian Pictures," 1924. (Part of this collection), Huntington Library.

About this collection guide

Collection Guide Author:
Finding aid prepared by Suzanne Oatey.
Date Prepared:
© 2014
Date Encoded:
Machine readable finding aid encoded by Suzanne Oatey in 2014 and updated by Diann Benti in May 2014.

Access and use

Restrictions:

Open to qualified researchers by prior application through the Reader Services Department. For more information, contact Reader Services.

Terms of access:

The Huntington Library does not require that researchers request permission to quote from or publish images of this material, nor does it charge fees for such activities. The responsibility for identifying the copyright holder, if there is one, and obtaining necessary permissions rests with the researcher.

Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], Carl Moon Photographs of Indians of the Southwest and Oklahoma. The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

Location of this collection:
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, CA 91108, US
Contact:
(626) 405-2129
reference@huntington.org
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