Picturing Indians: Photographic Encounters and Tourist Fantasies in H.H. Bennett’s Wisconsin Dells (review)

The last few years have seen a significant volume of work on representations of Native Americans in all kinds of media, from contemporary popular culture to historic artifacts of all kinds. In particular, there has been a growing interest in the analysis of historical photographs, many rarely if ever seen since they were first circulated.

Steven D. Hoelscher’s book is a welcome addition to this body of scholarship. At first glance it might be taken for a “coffee-table” book; the volume is beautifully produced, with many stunning images reprinted from H.H. Bennett’s original negatives of the late 19^th century, as well as well-chosen illustrations from multiple other sources. However, the book is far more than a catalog of images. Hoelscher is known from his geographical work on the cultural construction of tourist destinations, and this book will add to his reputation

The book is an analysis and interpretation of the photographs of Henry Hamilton Bennett, of Kilbourn City, Wisconsin, in the area now known as the Wisconsin Dells. He served in the Union army in the Civil War (the book includes a photograph of him in his uniform), and began his photographic career in 1865 as the war ended. The Dells were becoming known as an attractive site for people to escape the city, and Bennett established a studio, where he sold souvenir postcards and portraits to tourists. As Hoelscher explains, he first focused on dramatic landscape photos, many of which are reproduced here. He was also a photographic innovator, developing a stop action shutter that allowed him to take clear images of movement, which had previously not been possible. His most famous stop-action photo, “Leaping the Chasm” (1886) captures his son in mid-air, jumping from one rock formation to another (reproduced on page 33). He was also a pioneer in the development of stereoscopic photos, and his images sold in the thousands, establishing his regional and national reputation.

It was Bennett’s interest in landscape, as well as the lucrative market in souvenir images, that led him to Native Americans. Toward the end of the 19^th century, photographic interest in Native Americans was intense, with the generally-accepted view that the “vanishing race” should be documented before they disappeared. All over the country, photographers such as Edward Curtis, Roland Reed, Joseph Dixon and many more were photographing Indians for the purposes of art, political activism, and (very frequently) tourism. Like others, Hoelscher argues that the dominant photographic discourse of the time viewed Indians as essentially an element in the natural landscape, who were a source of great fascination for tourists, whether in the Southwest or Wisconsin.

Bennett produced many photos that depicted the local Native people, the Ho- Chunk (Winnebago) as interesting parts of the landscape. He then moved toward images of them as central subjects, ranging from studio portraits to relatively candid shots of people engaged in various activities from farming to playing traditional games. Some were for consumption by tourists, others were commissioned as part of official documentation for museums and so on, and others were bought by the Native families for their own use. Hoelscher provides cultural and geographic background of the Winnebago people, telling the sad tale of colonial domination and forced removal. He shows that Bennett, while being well aware of the situation, was clearly committed to the idea of assimilation and the inevitable disappearance of Indian culture: “his photographs served as visual evidence of a vanishing race—and even as a justification for this increasingly powerful ideology . . . his visual message was unambiguous: at the very center of Ho-Chunk life, he wanted readers to know, was a setting sun” (p. 99).

The role of photography in reinforcing the image of the vanishing Indian is well-documented across the literature, and tends to suggest a very passive...