Library of Congress photos
Tapping for maple sap.
The Library of Congress is an excellent resource for Native American research and information – and many of those resources are now available in a digitized format, including an extensive number of photos.
You can search the LOC’s prints and photographs online catalogue to access these historical images. The URL for the site is: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/
On this page, we have also compiled several LOC image lots that directly depict 19th and early 20th century Ojibwe people and life. (Please note: This is not an all-inclusive list, and the Library of Congress has additional lots on the subject.)
In searching for additional resources, you can also search by keywords (i.e. Hole-in-the-Day, travois) and/or tribe names. (Tip: The Library of Congress uses a single spelling for each tribe, for example, the spelling Ojibwa is used instead of Ojibwe for search. If a tribe you are searching does not yield any results, see if there are any alternate spellings or names you can try.)
Not all lots and/or all photos in a lot are yet digitally available, but most lots have at least some of their photos available online.
Ojibwa/Ojibwe/Ojibway (Chippewa)-Related Library of Congress Lots of Historical Images With Lot Descriptions
LOT 12739
Title: Indians (possibly Ojibwa) posed in native dress, canoeing, and cooking
Date Created/Published: c1925.
Summary: Includes man posed wearing headdress, woman standing with bow and arrow, and woman holding up baby in cradle carrier.
LOT 12880
Title: Ojibwa camp life
Date Created/Published: c1913 April 5.
Summary: Images of Ojibwa camp life, probably in Ontario, Canada. Includes men on beach of Lake of the Woods, woman standing next to tepee, a family in a canoe, a man mending a canoe, a fish drying rack in front of a tepee, a corn drying rack, and a woman in canoe in a paddy of wild rice.
LOT 12961
Title: Winnebago, Omaha, Iowa, Sioux, Chippewa (Ojibwa), Pawnee, and Arikara portraits and camp scenes
Date Created/Published: 1865-1880.
Summary: Formal portraits of individual men and women, including named tribal chiefs, and groups in native dress, with some Euro-American influences. Also numerous camp scenes, and groups with tepees or travois, and groups at a (treaty or council?) tables. Two images show what may be the Winnebago agent’s large frame house, with Indians lined up nearby.
LOT 13022
7 Generation Games has additional photos from this lot available here.
Title: Native American portraits
Date Created/Published: c1908, c1912.
Summary: Portraits of Native American men and women, probably Ojibwa and Siksika (Blackfoot). Includes images of Ojibwa woman making birchbark vessels and boiling syrup, Ojibwa man in canoe, and Siksika men in “medicine lodge” and people on horseback with travois.