Visual Materials
A Pioneer crossing the desert, 1895, Mojave, California
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Butterfield Stage Route, Colorado Desert, California, 1889
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A covered wagon pulled by three burros, with two men inside. A portion of a camp tent can be seen at right.
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Pioneers crossing the Little Colorado in Arizona, 1885
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A wagon pulled by burros and men on horseback crossing a river.
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Playing a Lone Hand. Crossing the Arizona Desert near Colorado River. Pioneers of 1886
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This set of photographs by Frederick Monsen focuses on Native Americans of the Southwest in mostly candid views taken in Pueblo communities, approx. 1886-1911. Photographs include portraits, ceremonies, dances, pueblos, livestock and scenes of daily activities. A smaller portion of the collection consists of landscapes, cliff-dwellings, ruins, gold miners, wagons and scenes of pioneer life in the West. Some photographs were made by Monsen while he was with U.S. Geological Surveys (including the Brown-Stanton survey of 1889), and others during his own photography trips. The majority of Native Americans pictured are Hopi and Navajo, but there are also Paiute, Apache, and Pueblo Indians. There are a few views of Mojave Indians of Southern California, and natives of Baja, Mexico. There are several views of Indian children, shown with and without clothes, in their daily activities. Scenes of non-Indian Western life include men in covered wagons on trails, gold prospectors and stagecoaches. There are many artistic landscape views of canyons, buttes and mesas; Death Valley; salt beds; ancient ruins; cactus and other desert plants. Unusual subjects of note are three photographs of skeletons in the deserts of Arizona and one view of the covered bodies of prospectors being carried on burros. The prints are all signed by Monsen and have typed or handwritten captions on the back, written by Monsen.
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The Mojave Desert, California. Bringing in the desiccated bodies of two prospectors who perished from thirst in Death Valley
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A man with two burros that are each carrying a cloth-wrapped dead body.
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A Grub Stake Prospector on the Mojave Desert, not far from Death Valley, California, 1889
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A man walking in the desert alongside a burro loaded with camp supplies.
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