Elmo Scott Watson an American Photographer and Journalist

15 September 2017

Elmo Scott Watson an American Photographer and Journalist

     In the early 20th century Elmo Scott Watson an American photographer and journalist took many photographs of American Indian culture.  Watson was known for his journalism on western civilization. He later went on to become a college professor where he emphasized on the American Western history and journalism.  The photographs he took were widely used in the press around the U.S.  This was uncommon and was not liked by government because these photographs showed the inequality of judgment for the American Indians.  As seen in the photograph he took in the early 1900’s labeled “Catholic Blackfeet Indians entering St. Patrick’s Cathedral, New York, for worship on Easter Sunday”.  This photograph showed his concern that he had for the American Indians living in the time era.  This was an attempt to show how Americans and American Indians can coexist together.  

     These photograph that where taking can be misconstrued because he embraced the American Indian cultural.  He would set aside the differences of culture and showed that American Indians are good people too.  Many of his photographs showed how American Indians can live in America and are not a threat to society.  The Blackfoot Indians entering a catholic church in New York showed that Indians can have the same faith and beliefs as of a white man in that era.  The objective is to show the American people that American Indians can attend a catholic church and should not be isolated by their ethnicity.  This photograph is questioning why Americans and American Indians choose to separate themselves by race.  If they have the same beliefs then why are they being looked at as an outcast by the white men in this photograph.  Elmo Scott Watson was trying to raise the issue of the discrimination the white man has for American Indians.  He is showing that it was unreasonable to have negative perception of American Indians, for they are people too.  The culture and background American Indians have does not make them bad people, just different from the white man in this era.  This was viewed as destructive to the culture of the white American population, for they did not see it with an open preservative of American Indian culture and how they can have the same faith.  

     These photographs that Watson took were to show the how American Indians and whites live distinctly different ways, but can have the same beliefs. If appreciation, rather than disdain, these photographs can gain a better understanding of how the two races can coexist.  Instead of looking at them as savages the American people should see them as a part of their civilization.  Watson wrote many articles about these incorrect perspectives of the Indian culture.  Charles E. Rankin states in Savage Journalists and Civilized Indians that: