The William F. Cody Archive: Documenting the life and times of Buffalo Bill

Commentary on "Sioux Indians drawing in Käsebier's Studio"

As part of the research on the Käsebier Collection, I wanted to bring to the attention of more of the general public per se, looking at these images, the fact that the Sioux Indians were definitely part of what was a cultural transition, a real change in the ways of their life. The fact that the Indian Wars were over in 1890, only 1890, and that these men in 1898 were performers with the Wild West show. These two men sitting in Gertrude Käsebier's studio, glancing out of a window for the metropolis of what is New York City at the turn-of-the-century, it appears like they could be drawing. But what they're thinking, what they're exposed to as a part of being part of the Buffalo Bill Wild West troupe, so different from what they know as traditional life on the land. How the U.S. and how the government was treating the Indians post-wars, and beginning to think about how these men and women would be part of what is a larger America, even as they were forced to live on reservations.