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Edward S. Curtis began his career as a portrait photographer in Seattle in 1892.  In 1896, while America continued its Westward expansion, the ambitious young photographer set out to document in text and photographs every American Indian tribe west of the Mississippi River.  His dream came to fruition through a series of fortunate encounters, most notably President Theodore Roosevelt, who arranged an introduction to financier J.P. Morgan and later wrote the foreword to the first volume.

Morgan offered Curtis $75,000 over five years to execute The North American Indian portfolio.  However, Curtis vastly underestimated expedition and production costs.  The proposed five-year project actually took nearly 30 years and eventually cost Morgan nearly $400,000.  Curtis photographed 80 tribes, exposed over 40,000 negatives and recorded 10,000 songs on an early Edison wax-cylinder recording instrument.

This complete set of The North American Indian, Curtis' masterpiece, comprises Portfolios and Text Volumes 1-20. The set was originally subscribed to by the industrialist Lammot duPont and later gifted to the Wilmington Institute Library.  This document of immense historical importance will be offered in the Photographs sale on October 8.