De Lancey W. Gill, as photographer for the Smithsonian's Bureau of American Ethnology (BAE) from the 1890's until 1930, took more photographs of American Indians than all his predecessors combined. In 1884, Gill was hired as a paleontological draftsman by the United States Geological Survey's William Henry Holmes, and under his tutelage Gill's career flourished. He became head of the USGS illustrations division in 1889 and, then working under director John Wesley Powell, accepted the expanded duty of supervising BAE's illustrations work. The BAE had been established in 1879 to carry out ethnographic work which included studies of the American Indian; part of this work involved taking photographs of Indians who traveled to Washington, D.C. to meet with government officials
Gill originally had not been very involved with photography work, but when he transferred to the BAE in 1898 to continue illustration work for its publications, he also began to photograph Indians on a regular basis, as no one else was available to do the work. The author states that Gill never thought of himself first as a photographer; however, it is estimated that over the years he took 2,000 to 3,000 portraits of American Indians, including Geronimo and Chief Joseph. Gill retired in 1932 at the age of 73, and died in 1940. --from The Smithsonian Institution Archives
