1. The Illustrated Indian: Cultural Contradictions in the Indians of the Pictorial Press John Coward Faculty of Communication The University of Tulsa

2. Knowing & Seeing Before printing, books were hand-copied, which made them rare and expensive Before photography, images were hand- drawn or printed by hand, but popular imagery was relatively rare and expensive

3. The Birth of the Visual In 1800, most Americans had no idea what politicians or other famous people looked like This changed when the daguerreotype and other photographic technologies arrived in the 1830s & 1840s and started a visual revolution

4. The Penny Press The mass media “invented” in the 1830s with the development of the Penny Press in New York City These one-cent newspapers catered to middle- and working-class readers with police and crime news, scandals, and sensationalism

5. The Appetite for News The Penny Press was the popular press; circulation soared in NYC and elsewhere Editors began actively seeking news and employed reporters to find it Reporters began competing for news Faster presses were developed to meet the demands of publishers

6. NP circulations rise Benjamin Day’s NY Sun reached 10,000 circulation little more than two years James Gordon Bennett started the NY Herald for $500 in 1835 and reached a circulation of 20,000 in1836 By 1860, the Herald’s circulation was 60,000

7. Presses at the St. Louis Republic 1806: Screw press ran 35 copies per hour (both sides) 1827: Washington press ran 150 copies per hour 1853: Double cylinder Hoe press ran 1,200 copies per hour 1863: Eight cylinder Hoe press ran 10,000 copies per hour

8. The Visual Revolution In the 1840s, daguerreotypes amazed the public because they “captured reality” Editors wanted images to help tell stories and sell newspapers and magazines The problem: No technology existed to publish photographs in the newspapers until the 1890s

9. The Visual Revolution, Pt 2 The solution: Employ artists Newspapers hired illustrators and engravers to copy photographs or make drawings in order to illustrate newsworthy people and events Enterprising editors developed a new product: the pictorial paper, combining the popular appeal of the Penny Press and the visual impact of the image

10. Rise of the Pictorial Press First American pictorial paper: Gleason’s Pictorial Drawing Room Companion, founded in Boston in 1852 First successful American pictorial paper: Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, founded in New York in 1855 Harper’s Weekly followed in 1857

11. Images and the Civil War The war was good for business The demand for images was high Leslie’s circulation climbed to 160,000 during the war; Harper’s climbed to 120,000 The pictorial press created a new editorial position: the “special artist” who drew images from the battlefield

12. The Illustrated Indian After the Civil War, the pictorial press sent artists west in search of excitement and action Theodore Davis and Alfred Waud, both Civil War artists, covered Indians and the West

13. The Illustrated Indian, Pt 2 In the post-Civil War era and Gilded Age, the illustrated press was the major source of popular Indian imagery Indian imagery varied, but war images dominated the popular imagination Battles scenes were newsworthy and exciting

14. The Illustrated Indian, Pt. 3 Significantly, scenes of Indian warriors and Indian fighting supported and sustained a national ideology about the correctness of conquest and expansion Indian war imagery cast Indians as obstacles to western expansion and enemies of civilization and progress

15. A Contradiction Indian war illustrations made sense as long as the fighting continued The illustrations made less “news sense” as the Indian wars ended Despite new ways of representing Indians, war imagery persisted and remained enormously popular

16. The Myth Lives On (And On) Manifest Destiny was (and is) a powerful part of our national myth The myth depends on a deficient but worthy enemy In the post-war pictorial press, Indians were most popular as colorful but deadly adversaries, even when the illustrations were made up

17. Pictorial Press Examples Theodore Davis travels west in 1865 His stage attacked by Indians in Kansas Davis writes four stories about the attack and illustrates it twice, making it one of the most well-documented incidents of its kind The stage attack becomes a visual cliché

18. Pictorial Press Examples Henry Farny goes west in 1881 He took photos to improve his accuracy His illustrations and paintings mostly non- violent, pastoral Indian scenes Farny acclaimed in his lifetime, but largely forgotten or overlooked today

19. Pictorial Press Examples Frederic Remington covers the Geronimo campaign for Harper’s in 1886 He saw no action but took photos, depicting Indians and other Western “types” Following Social Darwinism, Remington creates detailed images of racially distinct Indian faces

20. Pictorial Press Examples Remington’s greatest success as an illustrator comes not from realistic images but from his imaginary drawings of Indian battles In 1889, he published “The Last Lull in the Fight,” a “last stand” scene, one of several such imaginary drawings & another visual cliché In 1890, he painted “The Last Stand,” a battle that took place when he was 15

21. Fact vs. Romance Despite the rise of photography and the “realist turn” in the Gilded Age, romantic notions of Indian conquest trumped realistic depictions of Indians and Indian fighting Americans wanted—and the pictorial press delivered—the sizzle, not the steak