Beyond the Reach of Time and Change: Native American Reflections on the Frank A. Rinehart Photograph Collection

The Rinehart series of photos of Native Americans in their traditional dress is recognized as one of the finest collections of American Indian portraits and as one of the best photographic documentations of Indian leaders of that time. Bobbi Rahder, former curator and archivist of the Haskell Cultural Center and Museum where the Rinehart Photograph Collection is housed, describes in the introduction to the book the personal connections to the past that several Native American students at Haskell Indian Nations University have made upon discovering their ancestors among the collection's photographs. Other essayists, such as Julie Cajune, look at photographs of ancestors from the Flathead Indian Reservation and feel the pain the delegation must have felt when the Indian Congress to the exhibition became less about educating the white attendees about Indian culture and more about serving as curiosity and entertainment for the public to generate revenue for the organizers.