HISTORY INTO ART AND ANTHROPOLOGY - Snite Museum of Art ...

FOREWARD
JOANNE M. MACK
For slightly more than a decade during the late nineteenth century, Father Eli
Washington John Lindesmith served as the first Catholic chaplain ever commissioned
in the U.S. Army during peacetime. 1 Assigned to Fort Keogh, Montana Territory,
he interacted daily and directly with infantry, cavalry, and Native American scouts—
primarily Cheyenne. He also traveled to important historic and natural-history sites.
Over time, he amassed a collection of objects that can be divided into six major
categories: military, Montana history, Native American ethnohistory, natural history,
personal, and religious. Father Lindesmith’s collection provides unique snapshots of
the Northern Plains during the 1880s; this exhibition and accompanying catalogue
highlight some of its most beautiful Native American works.
Outstanding among the items in the collection are the singular examples of beadwork
produced by the wives and sisters of Cheyenne scouts who, with their families, lived
at Fort Keogh. Lindesmith also purchased objects at the Crow Agency near the Little
Big Horn battlefield, which he visited twice while stationed at the fort. During his
eleven years there, he traveled west to St. Ignatius Mission on the Flathead Reservation
and from there into the Pacific Northwest. In addition, during one furlough
he went to upstate New York and Minnesota and on to Virginia, Pennsylvania, and
Washington, D.C. 2 On his travels, he purchased or received as gifts Native American
objects that he considered historically important and that also have artistic merit. The
part of his collection exhibited and catalogued here also includes Native American
objects he had either found or was given before arriving in Montana.
From the standpoint of art history, anthropology, and American history, a remarkable
feature of the collection is Father Lindesmith’s superb record keeping. For almost
every object he obtained, Lindesmith described the circumstances surrounding its
acquisition. If, for example, he bought an item, he duly noted exactly when and
for how much, and he often assessed what he considered its historical value. His
meticulous documentation includes account books, diaries, letters received and sent,
memoranda, sermons, and other written records.
Accompanying every object he donated in the late 1890s to several educational
institutions was a handwritten tag containing relevant facts. Unfortunately, among
them these institutions lost a great number of the original tags and some of the
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