Early photos of the Blackfoot tribe show a beautifully idealized version of life on the plains

A city slicker gave presentations on his romanticized adventures illustrated with hand-painted photo projections

Blackfeet Indians on horseback. Accompanies lecture, “My Life Among the Indians” given in 1941. (Walter McClintock/Yale Collection of Western Americana, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library)

Typhoid fever changed Walter McClintock’s life. In 1895, the stricken Yale University graduate sought rest and recuperation at a North Dakota dude ranch and found himself drawn to the open expanse of the Great Plains. The following year, he joined a forestry expedition as a photographer and went west once again. This time it was the Blackfoot people who captured his imagination; when the expedition parted ways McClintock ingratiated himself with a nearby community, bought a lodge, and took a lot of photographs.

Sharing his Montana experiences became a de facto career, one which expanded into photographic exhibitions, two books, and an opera which was performed once, translated into German, in Berlin. By 1906, McClintock was touring the lecture circuit illustrating tales of life among the Blackfeet with magic lantern slides.

Tipi glowing with light from its inside fire. Accompanies lecture, “My Life Among the Indians” given in 1941. (Walter McClintock/Yale Collection of Western Americana, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library)

Using a magic lantern, these hand-painted glass plates projected soft, dreamy landscapes for audiences across America and Europe. McClintock began photographing the Blackfoot people as a means of preserving what he feared were their rapidly dying traditions. In doing so he captured his own fantasies of a world long dead. Indigenous tribes had already been driven onto reservations when these pictures were made. Bison had been driven to the brink of extinction, children were being forced into boarding schools, and the government was cracking down on religious rites and communal lands. McClintock just chose to frame his images around the poverty, the deprivations, and any hint of modern life. The idyllic Montana conjured up by these slides was preferable to the surrounding reality, not to mention the humdrum reality of the family carpet business waiting back in Pittsburgh.

McClintock began donating portions of his collection to institutions in the 1920s, including his alma mater, where he secured a recurring speaking engagement. It was a wise move, as glass plates were fading in the light of new technology. Film manufacturers were making great strides developing new processes, and in 1935 Eastman Kodak released Kodachrome, ushering in an era of accessible color photography.

Two Medicine Lake. (Walter McClintock/Yale Collection of Western Americana, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library)

Young girl in stream near chief’s tipi. Accompanies lecture, “The Camp of Brings Down the Sun” given in 1938. (Walter McClintock/Yale Collection of Western Americana, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library)

Tipis in snow in front of mountains with clear sky. Accompanies lecture, “The Blackfoot Indians: Their Hunting and Winter Customs” given in 1947. (Walter McClintock/Yale Collection of Western Americana, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library)

(Left) Cutbank trail. Accompanies lecture, “My Life Among the Indians” given in 1941. | (Right) “The Midnight Drink.” Accompanies lecture, “The Blackfoot Indians: Their Hunting and Winter Customs” given in 1947. (Walter McClintock/Yale Collection of Western Americana, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library)

Buffalo herd. Accompanies lecture, “A Blackfoot Ceremony of Adoption” given in 1938. (Walter McClintock/Yale Collection of Western Americana, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library)

Men on horses riding away from tipis. Accompanies lecture, “The Blackfoot Indians: Their Hunting and Winter Customs” given in 1947. (Walter McClintock/Yale Collection of Western Americana, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library)

(Left) Two seated drummers in tipi. Accompanies lecture, “Dances of the Blackfoot” given in 1936. | (Right) Sa-Ko-Uka-etsusin. (Walter McClintock/Yale Collection of Western Americana, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library)

Buffalo skull being handed into the sweat lodge. Accompanies lecture, “The Sundance” given in 1928 and 1935. (Walter McClintock/Yale Collection of Western Americana, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library)

River with mountains in distance. Accompanies lecture, “The Sundance” given in 1928 and 1935. (Walter McClintock/Yale Collection of Western Americana, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library)

Night-herder on Lookout Butte overlooking Old Man’s river. Accompanies lecture, “The Camp of Brings Down the Sun” given in 1938. (Walter McClintock/Yale Collection of Western Americana, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library)

Tipis on the prairie. Accompanies lecture, “Painted Tipis and Picture Writing” given in 1936. (Walter McClintock/Yale Collection of Western Americana, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library)