Photos Chronicle Native Americans 1889-1891

AURORA, Ill, March 22, 2007- Aurora University will host In Citizen's Garb: Southern Plains Native Americans, 1889-1891, an exhibit of 53 black and white photos, March 27-April 27.

The display is free to the public at the Schingoethe Center for Native American Cultures at Dunham Hall, 1400 Marseillaise Place in Aurora. An opening reception is from 4 to 7 p.m. on Tuesday, March 27. Center hours are 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesdays, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday through Friday, and 1 to 4 p.m. Sundays.

The exhibit explores the ways dress -and life- changed for the Kiowa, Comanche, and affiliated tribes during the 1880s and 1890s. Indian reservations in Oklahoma and Indian Territories opened during this era, coinciding with large-scale efforts by the United States government to force western Native American tribes to adapt Euro-American ways.

Some of the photographs show obvious -yet powerful- details of the acculturation process. Images of Native Americans in both citizen and native dress reflect the transition that occurred between the tribes' past and their radically different future.

Photographs in the exhibition are modern restrikes made from original glass negatives made by William J. Lenny and William L. Sawyers. They were among the many white entrepreneurs quick to capitalize on the romantic lure of the tribes.

Lenny and Sawyers set up shop in Purcell, Okla., one of many towns that sprang up on former Indian lands, to make photographs of formerly "wild Indians" for eastern consumption, where there was a great appetite for images of the West.

In Citizen's Garb is curated by John Hernandez, director of the Museum of the Great Plains in Lawton, Okla. The exhibition is organized by Museum of the Great Plains and toured by ExhibitsUSA, a national division of Mid-America Arts Alliance, a private, nonprofit organization founded in 1972.

The purpose of ExhibitsUSA is to create access to an array of arts and humanities exhibitions, nurture the development and understanding of diverse art forms and cultures, and encourage the expanding depth and breadth of cultural life in local communities.

Call (630) 844-7843 or visit www.aurora.edu/museum for more information.

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