The Enduring Navaho

by Laura Gilpin

"This is a book of superb photographs. Its portraits of individuals and family groups convey a quality of intimacy and serenity; its landscapes spread out the dramatic setting of desert, mountain, and canyon in which these people live; and its scenes of daily activity show many of the details of the way their life has been lived. Among the pictorial records of Navajo country and life, Miss Gilpin's volume deserves a special place. --American Anthropologist "This is not a brand new book, nor a best-seller here today and gone tomorrow. It is record of the Navajo people and their country, a book to keep and to refer to over and over again, always with deep pleasure. Do friends ask you about the Navajos? Send them this book, for it is the heart of the tribe. --The Navajo Times "This book can't be summarized successfully. It needs to be seen and read, and then savoured again and again for a joyous adventure in beauty and spirit. --Santa Fe New Mexican ". . . a touching tribute to The People, to their endurance and their adaptability, to their vanishing way of life and to the new one opening ahead of them. --Sacramento Bee A contemporary of Mary Austin, Mabel Dodge Luhan, and Willa Cather, Laura Gilpin was unique among women chroniclers of the Southwest because she worked in photography. She perceived the region as an environment for human activity rather than a place for untouched beauty, and her empathy for her subjects is evident in her work. Even in her eighties--ignoring the physical infirmities of age--she would camp overnight to be near a place she wanted to photograph at the break of day. The vast empty stretches of the southwestern desert did not deter her. She thought nothing of driving several hundred miles to make one image of a Navajo ceremony or making a long flight in a small plane to see a particular mountain peak. Gilpin's sixty-year career established her as one of the outstanding photographers of the twentieth century. Here are her pictures of the Navaho people and the stories of their lives in the 1950s and 1960s.

Genres: Nonfiction

321 pages, Paperback

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).