Skip to main content

De Cost Smith Collection

 Collection — huntington box: 59
Identifier: 9174

COLLECTION DESCRIPTION

Includes correspondence, newspaper clippings, photographs, notebooks, brochures, manuscripts, maps, paintings, and sketches. Focus areas of the notes for articles, speeches, and books cover a wide variety of topics including the Onondaga Indians and their reservation, festivals and culture, Sitting Bull using a telephone, Tendoi The climber, articles by Elizabeth Custer, Moravian missions, history of Amenia, N.Y., Fort Buford, manuscript regarding Indian attitudes towards African Americans, Low Dog, Jean Francois Millet and his Indian paintings, Stockbridge, Karl Bodmer, Indian costumes, and articles from Century and Antiques Magazine. Correspondence from the United States Indian Service, Luther Kelly, B. M. Graff, Edgar S. Cameron, and the Linnaean Society of New York. Pamphlets include information on saddles, big game hunting, and Iroquois mythology. Maps, from the late 1800s, are annotated by Smith with the paths he traveled by wagon. Maps include Oregon, Indian reservations of the United States, and western and southwestern United States. Oil paintings, charcoal and pencil sketches, of Indians and reservations.

Dates

  • 1880-1943.

Creator

Language of Materials

Collection material in English

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

DeCost Smith was born in Skaneateles New York. His devotion to Indian subjects in his artwork gained him appreciation and allowed him to continue to record their lives and customs.

Extent

1 cubic feet. (1 cubic feet.)

Abstract

Includes correspondence, newspaper clippings, photographs, notebooks, brochures, manuscripts, maps, paintings, and sketches. Focus areas of the notes for articles, speeches, and books cover a wide variety of topics including the Onondaga Indians and their reservation, festivals and culture, Sitting Bull using a telephone, Tendoi The climber, articles by Elizabeth Custer, Moravian missions, history of Amenia, N.Y., Fort Buford, manuscript regarding Indian attitudes towards African Americans, Low Dog, Jean Francois Millet and his Indian paintings, Stockbridge, Karl Bodmer, Indian costumes, and articles from Century and Antiques Magazine. Correspondence from the United States Indian Service, Luther Kelly, B. M. Graff, Edgar S. Cameron, and the Linnaean Society of New York. Pamphlets include information on saddles, big game hunting, and Iroquois mythology. Maps, from the late 1800s, are annotated by Smith with the paths he traveled by wagon. Maps include Oregon, Indian reservations of the United States, and western and southwestern United States. Oil paintings, charcoal and pencil sketches, of Indians and reservations.

COLLECTION ARRANGEMENT

Original Huntington Free Library box numbers have been retained.

RELATED MATERIALS

Also see collection #9134.

Physical Description

Correspondence, Newspapers, Photographs, Printed Materials

General

Contact Information:
Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections 2B Carl A. Kroch Library Cornell University Ithaca, NY 14853 (607) 255-3530 Fax: (607) 255-9524 rareref@cornell.edu http://rmc.library.cornell.edu
Compiled by:
Evan Fay Earle
Date completed:
March 2006
EAD encoding:
Evan Fay Earle March 2006
Status
Completed
Author
Compiled by Evan Fay Earle
Date
March 2006
Language of description
Undetermined
Script of description
Code for undetermined script

Repository Details

Part of the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections Repository

Contact:
2B Carl A. Kroch Library
Cornell University
Ithaca NY 14853
607-255-3530
607-255-9524 (Fax)