W. H. Jacoby

[grahamew]

One of the many benefits of being a lurker in the Plains Indian Seminar group is that you get to see some great images and one of the members pointed out that there was a collection of W. H. Jacoby photographs on ebay.

Jacoby worked in Minneapolis during the 1860s from two addresses but the text on the back of the images tells us that he was at 61 and 63 Bridge Square, Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he worked from 1869-70 (or, of course, he was selling images from this address that he took while working at the previous one between 1865-7 (Bridge Square and Second). They are a group of images taken among the Santee, clearly agency people (you can see the children with short hair and suits of clothes), but which group, I don't know. I have seen one of these photos elsewhere labelled as Red River Sioux.


Au-Su-Ka-Do




Red River Ox Carts


Sioux mother


Indian views on the St Croix...








Ba-Te-Cee - The Baptist?

[grahamew]

Mike Cowdrey has just posted on PIS and I hope he doesn't mind me paraphrasing his thoughts because he reckons these were taken prior to 1861 because, from evidence from other works, Jacoby never left the environs of Minneapolis; he suspects Jacoby was selling on copies of photographs made by an earlier photographer, because most of the Santee had left or been ejected from Minnesota by the end of the Sioux War and Jacoby didn't arrive there until 1861. He also notes were no caravans of Red River Metis in Minnesota after the war started in 1861 - and he thinks there may be two series of photos: one of the Sioux and one of the Metis, while suggesting Red Wood or Lower Dakota Agency as probable locations. He sees the tipis as structurally different - though I would point out that if you look carefully, you can see a cart in the background of the shot with the two men kneeling in front of the tipi and in the one where they're walking towards the foreground.

As I said, I've seen one of the Indian photos identified as Red River Sioux, which might imply that this is a mixed Metis/Dakota group and in The Handbook of North American Indians, the photo is dated 1868,the location identified as Fort Abercrombie, Dakota Territory and the people as Wahpeton and Sisseton.

Anyone got any more on these wonderful photos?

Edit: I've seen Fort Abercrombie and Mendota referenced as possible locations and dates up to 1875. Jacoby's firm was working in Minnesota from 1861 through to the 1890s - his son, Charles, had takne it over in 1888. The Minnesota Historical Society identifies the image with the woman and the child at the door of the tipi as 'Camp of the Dacotas, Dacota Territory,' and dates it circa 1880