MEDIA
Indian Wearing Traditional Clothing in American History Class
Original Author: Frances Benjamin Johnston
Created: 1899 or 1900
Medium: Gelatin silver photographic print

Crow Creek Sioux Tribal Member Wearing Traditional Clothing in American History Class

Louis Firetail of the Crow Creek Sioux tribe wears traditional clothing and stands next to a bald eagle in an American history class at the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute (later Hampton University). The institute was founded in 1868 to educate the formerly enslaved; within a decade the education of Native Americans also became part of the school's mission. This image was taken in 1899 or 1900 by Frances Benjamin Johnston, a well-known photographer from Washington, D.C. Johnston was commissioned by the school's second principal, Hollis Burke Frissell, to document the institute and its students for the Paris Exposition of 1900.