I review the webpage entitled “Images of the West”.
This webpage interested me because it had different lesson plans dealing with
Native Americans. The particular lesson plan I was reviewing had students analyze the influence of paintings and
photographs upon public attitudes towards western lands and the native
population. Evaluate
images as historical documents, and understand how the ideas of "a
promised land," "Manifest Destiny" and "the noble
savage", as well as become part of the visual iconography of the West. I
felt like this is an excellent resource for teachers who are teaching about
Native American history and culture. It is a unique way to teach the students
because they are analyzing photographs of Native Americans through different
artist. View the lesson plan through this link: http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/lesson_plans/lesson05.htm.
In particular this webpage was interesting for me because
it illustrated how to see different point of view from a variety of different
painters from that period in time. Painters such as George
Catlin (1796-1872), Albert Bierstadt (1830-1872), Thomas Moran (1837-1870), and
Frederic Remington (1861-1909). The paintings of Bierstadt and Moran, and the
documentary photographers influenced early conservation policy as well as the
concepts of "Manifest Destiny" and an era of progress. It was
also interesting to see the viewpoints of those artists with the work of
pioneers of western photography, among them, the early daguerreo-typists,
adventurers and entrepreneurs. One artist that really caught my
attention was Edward S. Curtis. He photographed dramatic portraits of
Native Americans at the
end of the era of expansion and consider whether, as some later anthropologists
have asserted, he falsified or distorted aspects of the Indians' lives and
cultures.
I read one of the text excerpts by Edward Curtis concerning the hunting of buffalo and some of the methods used. One of the methods was to use a man who was knowledgeable in the ways of the buffalo. He would don a buffalo skin and run in front of the herd. They would follow his lead and form a stampede. He would lead them to a cliff or pen where other natives were waiting to kill them. This must have been one brave man!
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