Looking at discipline, looking at labour: photographic representations of Indian boarding schools ERIC MARGOLIS Native American children were subjected to a rigidly enforced regime of acculturation in a federally funded system of Indian boarding schools. This paper explores the peculiar iconography of photographs of these Indian schools, hundreds of which can now be found in Internet archives. The advent of searchable photograph archives on the Internet makes possible new forms of visual ethnography analogous to a kind of archeology. Photographs can be examined and meanings imputed based on documentary evidence and theoretical understandings. First, a brief introduction to Indian schools will be provided. Then I will examine four documentary projects, each of which had its own representational agenda: first, Richard Pratt’s use of photographs as a propaganda-of-the-image to garner support for Carlisle and other Indian schools; second, Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) documentation efforts that included panorama photographs and a collection of shots from the Pacific Northwest by Ferdinand Brady that emphasize labour; third, Frances Benjamin Johnston’s photographs representing Indian schooling as progressive education; and finally a recently discovered album of vernacular photographs from the Sacaton school in Arizona. The goal will be to describe the ‘circumstances and milieus’ in which the photographs were made. In the conclusion I will turn to issues of sociological theory and meaning. INTRODUCTION In April 2003, just as this article was being completed, a class action lawsuit was filed on behalf of some 100 000 Native Americans who, from 1890 to 1978, were forced to attend boarding schools run by the U.S. government. Alleging sexual, physical and emotional abuse, the suit seeks damages in the amount of $25 billion (Blair 2003). The photographs and analysis that follow help make clear the conditions that led to the suit. The origins of this project lay in thousands of photographs of schools found on websites. 1 The advent of searchable photograph archives on the Internet makes possible new forms of visual ethnography analogous to a kind of archaeology. The photographs were not collected systematically by these archives. Some come with careful documentation: date, photographer, context and intended meaning have been carefully preserved. 2 Others were torn from their original sites and sedimented like rubble washed down by a flood or artifacts looted from tombs. Photographs have been unearthed and as with frescos and cave paintings, meanings have to be imputed based on documentary evidence and theoretical understandings. As in archaeology, some artifacts are found in abundance while others are rare or missing. For example, Indians in school are particularly well-represented compared with Latinos or Asian Americans. However, only certain kinds of photographs were made, thus one can find many shots of Indian boarding school students posed in class, but few in their dormitories. Figure 1 is typical of many posed shots of Indian children in the archives, note the sign on the wall, ‘LABOR CONQUERS ALL THINGS’. Photographs like this one raise important theoretical questions about both photography and schools. This paper explores the peculiar iconography of Indian schools. In her perceptive chapter on documentary entitled ‘Who is Speaking Thus?’ Abigail Solomon-Godeau set forth a project for those who would use photographs in social and cultural research: …individual documentary projects, themselves the product of distinct historical circumstances and milieus, ‘speak’ of agendas both open and covert, personal and institutional, that inform their contents and, to a greater or lesser extent, mediate our reading of them. It is properly the work of historians and critics to attempt to excavate these coded and buried meanings, to bring to light these rhetorical and formal strategies that determined the work’s production, meaning, reception, and use. (Solomon-Godeau 1991: 182) Following Solomon-Godeau’s suggestions I want here to examine the photography of Indian boarding schools. As context, I first provide a brief introduction to Indian boarding schools. Then, I will examine four documentary projects, each of which has its own VST (gamma) VST38361.3d 10/3/04 21:37:35 Rev 7.51n/W (Jan 20 2003) The Charlesworth Group, Huddersfield 01484 517077 8 Eric Margolis is a sociologist in the Division of Educational Leadershipand Policy Studies at Arizona State University. His article, ‘ClassPictures: Representations of Race, Gender and Ability in a Century of SchoolPhotography’ (Visual Sociology Vol. 14,1999) was reprinted in Education Policy Analysis Archives http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v8n31/.He has produced visual sociology projects including photography exhibitions,multimedia and video programmes. Visual Studies, Vol. 19, No. 1, 2004 ISSN 1472-586X printed/ISSN 1472–5878 online/02/020085–07 # 2004 International Visual Sociology Association DOI: 10.1080/1472586042000204861