The Enduring Navaho

by Laura Gilpin, Black and White Photographs (Illustrator)

Within the boundaries of their 25,0000-square-mile reservation, more than 100,000 Navaho People, the largest tribe of Indians in North America, are striving for existence on a land not productive enough to sustain their increasing population. They are striving not only to exist, but also to meet an encroaching way of life with which they are, in a large measure, unfamiliar.

Genres: Nonfiction

Hardcover

First published October 1, 1969

About the author

Laura Gilpin, (born April 22, 1891, Colorado Springs, Colo., U.S.—died Nov. 30, 1979, Santa Fe, N.M.), American photographer noted for her images of the landscape and native peoples of the American Southwest.

On the advice of photographer Gertrude Käsebier, Gilpin went to New York City in 1916 to study at the Clarence H. White School of Photography (1916–18). In her early work Gilpin practiced the Pictorialist style, which imitates the effects of painting. Returning to Colorado in 1922, she turned to commercial work, mainly architectural photography and portraiture. She also published guidebooks, providing both images and text. From 1942 to 1945 she worked as the chief photographer for Boeing Airlines in Wichita, Kan., and from 1946 to 1968 she photographed the Navajo people, documenting their way of life in her eloquent platinum (and sometimes silver) prints. This project culminated in the publication of The Enduring Navaho (1968). Gilpin next traveled to New Mexico, where she photographed Pueblo Indians and the Canyon de Chelly region, near Santa Fe. Among her books of photographs are The Pueblos (1941), Temples in Yucatan (1948), and The Rio Grande (1949).

From the the Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Reviews

[Pam Escarcega · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book is well researched and tells the story of a government debacle that caused pain and suffering for tens of thousands of Navajo and Hopi people.

[David Iverson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Photography book of navajo people and stories of their life in the 1930s.

[Judy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had just finished reading Spin A Silver Dollar, and since I was in the "Navajo mood" I decided to read Gilpin's book. While I learned a lot, I was hoping for more. I wanted to come away with a stronger sense of what it was like to be a Navajo. I especially enjoyed the passages where she described her own experiences. (Many of Gilpin's images were made into postcards, which is where I first came across her name.)

[Sarah Sammis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful photographs and a straightforward account, including modern day (well, modern for the time when it was written).