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

PREFACE
JOANNE M. MACK
For Father Eli Washington John Lindesmith, his extensive collection of disparate
artifacts represented a visual record of everyday life in the American West and in
his native state of Ohio from the mid-1800s to the early 1900s that could be shared
with the public and used for educational purposes. Because he maintained detailed
records concerning the acquisition of each item as well as its historical and cultural
context, the collection also is anthropologically significant. In addition, many of
the objects in the collection are beautifully made, so they can be appreciated for
their artistic merit. Although Lindesmith gathered and preserved a wide variety of
items, the present exhibition and accompanying catalogue focus on fine beadwork,
weaving, and painting by Native Americans—primarily the Northern Cheyenne.
Father Lindesmith built most of his collection during a period of enormous
upheaval and transition for the people of the Northern Plains, Native American
and Euro-American alike. The so-called Indian wars were coming to an end, and
Native Americans were being forced to live on reservations and adopt Euro-
American cultural practices while abandoning their own. The Battle of the Little
Big Horn was fought in 1876, just four years before Lindesmith arrived at Fort
Keogh in the Montana Territory, and the Massacre of Wounded Knee occurred
in 1890, shortly before he retired from the U.S. Army and left the military installation.
Around the same time, Euro-Americans were changing the face of the West,
building towns and cities, some of which grew and exist today and others that
have all but disappeared. Trappers and explorers gave way to families who came
west to homestead.
In 1880, when Father Lindesmith arrived in the Montana Territory, there were so
few ministers and priests that he was asked to perform baptisms, weddings, and
funerals for both Catholics and non-Catholics in the area surrounding the fort. 1
When he left in 1891, to return to Ohio, churches were being built and staffed by
ministers and priests. Ursuline nuns established schools on the Crow and Cheyenne
reservations during Lindesmith’s early days at Fort Keogh, and by the time of his
departure—two years after the territory became a state—there also were schools
for Euro-American children not only at Fort Keogh and in Miles City but also in
towns across Montana.
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