Curtis, Edward S, photographer. The farmer. New Mexico, ca. 1905. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/94513353/.
After students research and learn about the forced removal of Native peoples, Edward Curtis, and fry bread, they will look closely at the photograph and consider why the photograph is titled “The farmer” and how it is connected or disconnected to how we think of farmers today.
Native Americans make up a significant portion of rural populations in the US; however, they are often excluded from the homogenous population usually connoted by the term “rural.” Researching and exploring the tensions of Edward Curtis’s larger body of work, including the photograph titled “The farmer” and the difficulty forced removal created for Native farmers, allows for nuanced understanding of rural peoples.
- What details do we notice in the photograph? What do they reveal/tell us?
- How do the titles of work influence our understanding of them?
- How, if at all, is “The farmer” an apt title for this photograph?
ELA Standard
8.CC.4: Analyze the purpose of information presented in diverse media and formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively, orally) and evaluate the motives (e.g., social, commercial, political) behind its presentation.
Social Studies Standard
8.H.1 Identify the major Native American groups of eastern North America, and identify cause and effect relationships between European settlers and these Native American groups that led to conflict and cooperation.
Students read a wide range of print and non-print texts to build an understanding of texts, of themselves, and of the cultures of the United States and the world
- Read students Fry Bread by Kevin Noble Maillard and review/discuss the food scarcity Native people faced when they were forcibly removed from their homelands.
- Split students up into small groups and have them Google “American farmer.” Have them take note of the images that appear. Who is there? Who is missing? What do they notice about the way the subjects of the photographs are dressed? Do they think these images are an accurate representation of American farmers? Why/why not?
- As a whole class, allow students to share their findings. Then discuss, “What can we learn about people and culture from photographs?”
- Project the image of the “The farmer” without telling students the title of the image and ask them to read it closely, offering to the class what they notice about the photograph.
- Ask students what they infer from the picture. Who is the subject? What is he doing? Where does he live?
- When they have exhausted their noticing, tell them the title of the photo and the historical background: it was taken in 1905; the man is Hopi. Ask students how it changes what they see. Does anything become clearer or less so?
- After finishing the discussion, invite students to choose to write a letter from the subject of Curtis’s photograph to one of the following: (a) farmers today; (b) Curtis; (c) modern American people. What would he want them to know? What wisdom might he offer? What questions might he have for them?
Curtis, Edward S, photographer. The cornfield, ca. 1906, December 19. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2003652704/.