American Indian Histories and Cultures

American Indian Histories and Cultures, scheduled for release in fall 2013, will present material from the Newberry Library’s Edward E. Ayer Collection, an extensive archival collection on American Indian history. The content ranges from early contacts with European settlers through the expanded occupation of the American west, up through the Indian political movements of the mid-20th century. The collection covers a wide geographic area with a primary focus on North America and Mexico. This digital resource will complement The American West, an earlier digital collection from Adam Matthew compiled from the Newberry’s Everett D. Graff Collection of Western Americana.

Content

The digital collection is planned to encompass:

• Manuscripts (treaties, speeches, petitions, diaries, travel journals, ledger books, correspondence, legal documents)

• Artwork (illustrations, sketches, watercolors, oil paintings, American Indian art, including rare ledger books)
• American Indian Newspapers covering the 1960s to 1990s
• Rare printed books
• Photographs
• Maps

The publishers note the specfic extent of materials to be included from the Ayer collection:

Ayer Manuscripts

• No. of documents: c. 800
• No. of pages: c. 100,000

Ayer Art

• No. of items: c. 2,400

Ayer Maps

• No. of pages: c. 300

Ayer Modern Manuscripts

• No. of documents: c. 7
• No. of pages: c. 6,000
• Example Collections: Bureau of Indian Affairs relocation records [manuscript] 1936-1975; Carlos Montezuma papers [manuscript] 1888-1936; Thomas Lee Ballenger papers [manuscript] 1730-1968

Ayer Photographs

• No. of collections: c.55
• No. of images: c. 4,665
• Types of images: American Indian portraits; American Indian life;  group sittings

Ayer Printed Books

• No. of titles: c. 250
• No. of pages: c. 20,000
• Rare Books

American Indian Newspapers from the Ayer collection

• Nine titles (c. 250 issues) covering  the 1960s to 1990s: Akwesasne Notes; The Oglala War Cry; Shannon County News; The Indian; Crazy Horse News

Subject areas

• American Indians and the European Powers

• American Indians and the US Government
• Indigenous Peoples of Mexico
• Military encounters
• Cultural encounters
• Missionaries and education
• Trade
• Civil Rights Movement and political activism

Relation to other Digital Collections

This collection complements and will be fully cross-searchable with The American West, as noted above. Additionally, there will be some overlap with selections the Newberry Library has digitized and made available in a standard open access digital collections interface. (See Digital Resources from the Newberry Library.) However, the publishers note that there will be less than one percent overlap between this digital collection and the approximately one thousand images mounted by the Newberry.