The period from late 1908 through 1912 would be the most high-profile of Forsyth’s life. Two weeks after the roundup incident he appeared at the offices of The Missoulian, announcing himself as “The Champion Buffalo Rider of the World”,[1] and the following year he posed for a rare stereograph of himself which bears the same self-deprecating title. He would also incorporate into his letterheads and advertisements a fanciful sketch of himself tipping his hat while sitting atop a bison.
In addition to his return to the roundup in 1909, Forsyth continued his canvassing work for Underwood & Underwood, and as evidenced by his advertisements in The Missoulian he redoubled his sales efforts for his own sets.
Those efforts would continue throughout 1910. The year started with an exhibition in Butte with the grand collective title “The Montana Stereoscopic Library”,[2] and ended with a series of illustrated lectures at the Orpheum Theater, which utilized single frames of his stereographs and a magic lantern projector. His subjects were “Buffalo Roundup”,[3] “Glacier Park”[4] and “Montana Indians”.[5] On December 1st, as part of the Orpheum Theater’s 3rd anniversary special program, he delivered a one-off lecture titled simply “Butte”, which was breathlessly previewed in the Butte Inter Mountain.
“At the picture shows you have travelled with the machine to every part of the world … As you have viewed sights taken in other cities, so you may sit and see unfolded before your eyes familiar views of the greatest mining camp in the world. The pictures are the work of Mr. N.A Forsyth and show Butte in all its glory above and below ground”.[6]
Between his exhibition and lectures, 1910 would prove a watershed year for Forsyth. That February The Butte Miner published an article on Morrison Cave featuring six of his photographs,[7] and in April he succeeded in chartering a Northern Pacific train for regular excursions to the cave,[8] an enterprise which would outlast his career as a photographer by almost a decade. There were reports of sales of “The Montana Stereoscopic Library” to the Butte Free Public Library[9] and the State Historical Library in Helena.[10]
But arguably the most significant event of the year went almost unnoticed. On July 23rd The Butte Inter Mountain noted Forsyth’s return from “…a delightful trip to Browning, the Great St. Mary’s Lake and Lake McDonald”. [11] We can confidently date the majority of Forsyth’s Blackfeet images to this trip. In fact in many cases it is possible to narrow the date even further, to the week of July 4th, 1910. On July 3rd, the Great Falls Daily Tribune reported:
“From parties who were in the city last evening from Browning, it was learned that nearly 1,000 Blackfeet Indians had gathered near that place for the purpose of celebrating the Fourth of July in a manner according to their tribal ideas of such an event”.[12]
The 1883 Code of Indian Offenses had criminalized almost all indigenous religious and cultural activities, and to circumvent these restrictions many tribal nations held ceremonies on July 4th, when law enforcement would be reluctant to shut them down. This was the case near Browning in July 1910. We can place Forsyth in the city that month, and his presence at this particular event also explains the conspicuous abundance of 46 Star flags in the Blackfeet set.
1911 saw a change in priorities, with Forsyth increasingly preoccupied by his excursions to the Lewis and Clark Caverns; visits were reported in the Butte papers throughout that spring and summer. But he continued to tour and document the state when opportunity allowed. On June 11th he photographed Eugene Ely land the first airplane ever seen in Butte at the city race track;[13] on July 25th he left for Glacier National Park,[14] continuing the process of building a collection that would ultimately be outnumbered only by his Butte stereographs; on September 30th he photographed another young aviator, Cromwell Dixon, the main attraction at that year’s State Fair at Helena.[15]
1912 marks Forsyth’s last year as a commercial photographer. That summer he attended another July 4th celebration, this time at Camas. According to several reports, he was personally invited by Chief Rocky Boy to photograph a gathering of “Crees from Canada, Flatheads, Blackfeet, Nez Perce, Kootenai, Pend Oreille and other tribes”.[16]
In September he attended the Crow Fair,[17] where he took some of the last stereographs he would publish under his own imprint. These images, and those taken at Camas, would be included in one of his final sets, “Montana Indians”, which combined six years’ worth of portraits taken throughout the state.
Of course Forsyth was not the only white man with a camera to be found in Indian Country at this time, and in assessing the images he took on the reservations, questions regarding his motives are perhaps inevitable. Stereographs and postcards of Native Americans were enormously popular at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. But before accusing Forsyth of simply cashing in, as some have done,[18] it is important to consider both the influence of F.E. Peeso, and what we know of Forsyth himself, the man who forsook his religious calling after visiting Yellowstone, and wrote of “A spirit of worship … never known before”.[19] Alongside any commercial considerations, Forsyth’s Native American stereographs were informed by genuine inquisitiveness, and an affinity, at least on his part, born of a profound spiritual attachment to the landscape. The vast majority of his indigenous portraits, even the most formal, are framed by that landscape. In Forsyth’s vision, they are inseparable.
This is most clearly expressed in the stereoview “The Real American and the Simple Life”, taken in 1907,[20] and published as part of his Flathead set. It differs from the majority of his Native American views, which focus on the ceremonial aspects of indigenous culture. But in some ways it is the quintessential Forsyth view, a juxtaposition of the epic and the everyday – the everyday in this case being the Salish family in western clothing camped on the shore of McDonald Lake, the Mission Mountains forming a majestic backdrop.
[1] “Caught On The Run About Town,” The Daily Missoulian, Missoula, (MT), Nov. 22, 1908
[2] “Forsyth’s Wonderful Photo Collection,” The Butte Inter Mountain, Butte, (MT), Jan. 26, 1910
[3] Advertisement, The Butte Inter Mountain, Butte, (MT), Nov. 16, 1910
[4] Advertisement, The Butte Inter Mountain, Butte, (MT), Nov. 23, 1910
[5] “At The Orpheum,” The Butte Inter Mountain, Butte, (MT), Feb. 1, 1911
[6] “Anniversary Day At Orpheum,” The Butte Inter Mountain, Butte, (MT), Nov. 30, 1910
[7] “Morrison Cave – An Underground Cavern Of Crystalline Wealth,” The Butte Miner, Butte, (MT), Feb. 27, 1910
[8] “Railroad Notes,” The Butte Inter Mountain, Butte, (MT), Apr. 18, 1910
[9] “Free Public Library To Have Picture Machines,” The Butte Miner, Butte, (MT), Apr. 10, 1910
[10] “Forsyth’s Wonderful Photo Collection,” The Butte Inter Mountain, Butte, (MT), Jan. 26, 1910
[11] “Personal Mention,” The Butte Inter Mountain, Butte, (MT), Jul. 23, 1910
[12] “Blackfeet Will Hold Big Fete,” Great Falls Daily Tribune, Great Falls, (MT), Jul. 3, 1910
[13] “Eugene Ely, In Spectacular Flight, Tops the Continental Divide As Thousands Cheer,” The Butte Miner, Butte, (MT), Jun. 12, 1911
[14] “Personal,” The Butte Miner, Butte, (MT), Jul. 25, 1911
[15] “Boy Aviator Flies Over Rocky Mountain Divide,” The Helena Independent, Helena, (MT), Oct. 1, 1911
[16] “Sundance In Montana,” Lead Daily Call, Lead, (SD), Jul. 5, 1912
[17] “Butte in Brief,” The Butte Miner, Butte, (MT), Sep. 25, 1912
[18] Prof. William E. Farr is a particularly harsh critic of Forsyth. In his book “The Reservation Blackfeet, 1885-1945: A Photographic History of Cultural Survival” (University of Washington Press, Seattle, WA, 1984), he brusquely dismisses Forsyth’s Blackfeet stereoviews as lacking any cultural or historical value, while mistakenly referring to him as N.F. Forsyth throughout.
[19] “In The Yellowstone,” The Prod: A Journal of Encouragement, Lincoln, (NE), Mar. 1902
[20] “Salish Indians at McDonald Lake. Western Montana, 1907.” Contact sheet held in the Keystone-Mast Collection at the University of California, Riverside