The Flathead Indian Reservation photograph album contains 65 photographs of Native American men, women, and children on the Flathead Indian Reservation and in Missoula, Montana.
The album (30 x 26 cm) is a modern three-ring binder with brown faux leather covers. All the album’s images are unmounted snapshots that have been arranged inside plastic album sleeves. The snapshots are mostly either 10 x 7 cm or 10.5 x 16 cm.
The album begins with portraits of Native American individuals taken in the Higgins Block of downtown Missoula, Montana, including two portraits of a Native American man posing with his infant child in a cradleboard as well as an unidentified white man, and four portraits taken outside of “Al Green’s Shaving Parlor.” Other images likely taken in and around Missoula show up elsewhere throughout the album, including several group portraits with a white fence in the background that may possibly have been taken outside the residence of the photographer, Dr. C. W. Lombard. Many photographs also appear to have been taken at the Flathead Indian Reservation.
Images of particular interest include photographs showing Native American individuals and groups (including many families) wearing western and/or traditional clothing, infants in cradleboards, encampment and reservation scenes, and landscape views. While many portraits appear to be quite casual and relatively unscripted, several clearly staged photographs are present including a man and older woman posing with sheep heads, two women (one holding a mirror) combing their hair by a river, and two men playing cards in front of a tipi.
While none of the subjects photographed in this album are identified by captions, an older man appearing in two photographs (one posing with a child on a hobby horse and another posing with a group in downtown Missoula with a child in a hand-pulled wagon) has been identified through research as Baptiste Kakashee, also known as Judge Phte and Kil-Ki-Chee.
The Flathead Indian Reservation was established in western Montana through the Treaty of Hellgate in 1855 and became the home of the Flathead (Bitterroot Salish), Montana Kootenai (Ksanka), and Pend d’Oreilles (Kalispel) tribes. Together, they constitute the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Nation.
Dr. Charles Wadsworth Lombard was born in Ohio in 1847. Following service with the 3rd Minnesota Infantry Regiment during the Civil War, he later moved to Missoula, Montana, in the 1870s and established a successful dentistry practice. He was also an active amateur photographer and was known to have produced numerous portraits of Native Americans. Some of the Native American portraits that appear in this collection were reproduced in the supplemental pages of the December 17th, 1899 issue of The Anaconda Standard. Dr. Lombard passed away in 1905.
