Book Census
A new project aims to track the existing books from Edward S. Curtis’ influential project The North American Indian.
In recognition of the 150th anniversary of the birth of photographer Edward S. Curtis, an ambitious effort to catalog all of the published sets of Curtis’ epic 20-volume masterpiece The North American Indian has been launched. The book set, one of the most expensive publishing endeavors ever completed, are highly collectible and treasured among scholars, institutions and private collectors.
Curtis, who received initial funding and support from financier J.P. Morgan and by selling lavishly expensive subscriptions, initially set the price for his 20-volume set of books in 1907 for $3,000, with a deluxe edition selling for $3,850. Today a full set in good condition can fetch as much as $1 million, with an auction record previously set at $2.8 million. A limited edition run was expected at 500 sets, but fewer than 300 were published due to the extremely high cost of the books and the prolonged, decades-long publication cycle—volume 1 was published in 1907, and Volume 20 was not published until 1930. Curtis did not keep a master subscription list, and different historical documentation about the project provides conflicting information.
The Curtis Census will determine, as accurately as possible, the actual number of complete or partial sets that were printed, the present locations and any provenance that can be documented. The project is complicated by the fact that some copies of the books and portfolios are thought to have been unbound and the contents dispersed in order to sell the highly valuable prints. In addition to seeking information about books or sets of The North American Indian, the census also maintains a “Mysteries” page on its website, where it asks for the public’s help in locating missing book sets. Anyone with information about current owners of any of the books may contact the census by visiting www.curtiscensus.com.
The census was conceived and is directed by Tim Grey havens, a Seattle-based writer, researcher and photographer. In 2017 he started both the Curtis Census and the North American Photographic History website, a place where students, academics, scholars and independent researchers of the history of photography in North America can connect with each other.