The Images section features photographs, postcards, and different types of artwork, as well as reproductions of images that appeared in newspapers, magazines, and other publications. These images all reflect the Carlisle Indian School students, facilities, and staff. Images available here are drawn from files housed at the U. S. National Archives, from collections of Carlisle Indian School materials housed at various archival repositories, and from a variety of published sources. Visitors to this website are also invited to share copies of photographs from their own personal and family collections; please contact us if you have images you would like to contribute.
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Studio portrait of Jason Betzinez.
Format: Photographic Print, B&W
Repository: Cumberland County Historical Society
The guard house with three figures, probably two men and one boy, standing in front. One man is leaning on what appears to be a tree stump. Poles for electrical wires are visible behind the building.
Previous cataloging assigns a date of 1897 to this image but it is not clear what this is based on.
This image appears in John N. Choate's Souvenir of the Carlisle Indian School (Carlisle, PA: J. N. Choate, 1902). It was also used to create postcards, see Related Images below.
Format: Glass Plate Negative
Repository: National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Studio portrait of seventeen unidentified male students in school uniforms with one white man in the center of the group.
Previous cataloging has interpreted the caption to indicate the group is Cheyenne and that the date is January 1890.
Format: Glass Plate Negative
Repository: National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Studio portrait of two unidentified female students.
Format: Photographic Print, B&W
Repository: Cumberland County Historical Society
View of students and instructors posed with wheels in front of a brick building with the sign "Blacksmith and Wagon Shop."
Note: The Cumberland County Historical Society has three copies of this image: PA-CH1-068b, PA-CH3-013a, and BS-CH-054.
Format: Photographic Print, B&W
Repository: Cumberland County Historical Society
Studio portrait of fifteen unidentified male students and seven unidentified female students with one white woman. Previous cataloging identifies this group as "Miss Adams' Class."
There are no records for a teacher named Miss Adams. This is probably teacher Clara C. McAdam who taught between 1890 and 1893.
Format: Glass Plate Negative
Repository: National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Studio portrait of thirteen unidentified male students and five unidentified female students. Previous cataloging identifies them as from the Pawnee nation.
Format: Glass Plate Negative
Repository: National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Group portrait of ten male students, nine in baseball uniforms with "Indians" on the front, some holding bats. One student is posed in the center, not in uniform.
Format: Glass Plate Negative
Repository: National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
View of the exterior of a brick building with the sign "Blacksmith and Wagon Shop," with a wagon and a white man in front and two men in the doorway.
Format: Photographic Print, B&W
Repository: Cumberland County Historical Society
Studio portrait of an unidentified female student.
Format: Photographic Print, B&W
Repository: Cumberland County Historical Society
Studio portrait of teacher Alice M. Seabrook.
Format: Photographic Print, B&W
Repository: Cumberland County Historical Society
Portrait of nineteen unidentified female students with a white woman, presumably a teacher, posed on the school grounds.
Format: Glass Plate Negative
Repository: National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Studio portrait of an infant posed in a cradleboard.
This is a photograph of a photograph with the handwritten caption "Kiowa Pappoose." This image may have been taken of page 34 of Album 2 of the "Indian School Albums" now in the collection of the Cumberland County Historical Society (PA-CH2-034b), or it may have been taken before the print was added to the album.
This photograph was originally taken by Frances Benjamin Johnston, probably at the Hampton Institute in 1899 when Johnston was there taking photographs of the Native American students. The image in the album may be a copy of the Johnston image, included among the images of Carlisle students, or it may be a copy made by Choate of the Johnston image, copied here again by Choate.
Version 2 of this image, linked to in Related Images, is a print produced by Choate's studio. There is no indication that Choate credited Johnston for the original image. This was one of the photographs offered as a premium beginning in 1890 to subscribers of the school's Indian Helper newspaper, as were other photographs produced by (the others originally taken by) Choate. Those advertisements refer to this image as "pretty faced pappoose in Indian cradle."
Copies of the Johnston image are held by the Library of Congress (https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/98519390/) and the Museum of Modern Art (https://www.moma.org/collection/works/57142).
Note: The National Anthropological Archives has two different negatives, both images of the same print with the handwritten caption. They are NAA 73477 (NAA INV 06825100) and NAA 73527 (NAA INV 06830100).
Format: Glass Plate Negative, Photograph, Reproduction
Repository: National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Students working in the print shop.
Format: Photographic Print, B&W
Repository: Cumberland County Historical Society
Second school building with many students on the porches and lined up to enter.
This building was built in 1888, replacing the original school building.
Format: Glass Plate Negative
Repository: National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Studio portrait of teacher Marianna Burgess.
Format: Photographic Print, B&W
Repository: Cumberland County Historical Society
Portrait of thirteen unidentified male students and twelve unidentified female students dressed formally and posed on the school grounds.
Format: Glass Plate Negative
Repository: National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
View of four buildings used as workshops on the school grounds.
Format: Photographic Print, B&W
Repository: Cumberland County Historical Society
Portrait of thirteen male students, most in athletic gear. The student in the center is holding a football with a "P" on it.
Note: Previous cataloging for this image identifies the team as the "Pirates."
Format: Glass Plate Negative
Repository: National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Portrait of thirteen male students, most in athletic gear. The student in the center is holding a football with a "P" on it.
Note: Previous cataloging for the National Anthropological Archives version of this image identifies the team as the "Pirates."
Format: Photographic Print, B&W
Repository: Cumberland County Historical Society
Portrait of ten unidentified male students and thirteen unidentified female students posed with two white women, presumably teachers, on the steps outside a brick building.
Format: Glass Plate Negative
Repository: National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Portrait of T.J. Morgan, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, posed with Richard Henry Pratt and the school's teachers on the school grounds.
The school newspapers reported a visited by Morgan to the school in February of 1890. It's possible that this photograph was taken at that time although the weather does not appear very wintry.
The people and the way they are posed is almost identical to another sitting of this group in images: PA-CH2-027 and 10-A-06.
Format: Glass Plate Negative
Repository: National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Portrait of T.J. Morgan, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, posed with Richard Henry Pratt and the school's teachers on the school grounds.
The school newspapers reported a visited by Morgan to the school in February of 1890. It's possible that this photograph was taken at that time although the weather does not appear very wintry.
The Cumberland County Historical Society has two copies of this image: PA-CH2-027 and 10-A-06. They identify Commissioner Morgan as being seated in the second row, fifth from the left.
Format: Photographic Print, B&W
Repository: Cumberland County Historical Society
Portrait of male and female students posed on steps of a building on the school grounds, with a white man standing at left. The caption says that these are "Piegan from Blackfeet Agency, Montana, entered Carlisle in November 1889 and March 1890."
The caption for the National Anthropological Archives copy of this image says that the students arrived in November 1889 and gives a date for the image of March 1890.
Format: Photographic Print, B&W
Repository: Cumberland County Historical Society
Portrait of male and female students posed on the steps of a building on the school grounds, with a white man standing at left. The caption on the Cumberland County Historical Society copy of this image states that they are "Piegan from Blackfeet Agency, Montana, entered Carlisle in November 1889 and March 1890." Previous cataloging for this copy interprets the caption as saying that these students arrived in November 1889 and that the date for this image is March 1890.
Format: Glass Plate Negative
Repository: National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution