If this is Thursday it must be postcards, 469

 

 

 

 

Three Brothers, chiefs of the Kagwantan, Tlingit, Southeastern Alaska, 1906

[photo:  Case and Draper]

 The Case and Draper photographic studio of Southeastern Alaska is credited with the 1906 picture of three brothers on this unused Garfinkel Publication postcard.  At the bottom center of the reverse is:  FPC28.  The card was printed in Canada.

The three brothers in the photo are not named but were chiefs of the Kagwantan, or burnt house people, one of the Tlingit clans, and are each holding a raven rattle.  Two are wearing “Chilkat blankets, highly esteemed robes of nobility,” according the blurb on the reverse of the card.  Chilkat weaving uses one of the most complex weaving techniques and a blanket like one of these could take a year to make.  Today sheep wool might be used but when these blankets were woven the primary materials would have been mountain goat wool, dog fur, and yellow cedar bark.  The designs are traditionally in ovoid, U-form, and S-form shapes, highly stylized and contain clan crests, figures from oral history, and often animals.  Dominant colors are yellow and black with blue as a secondary color.  The weavings are done on looms that have only a top frame and vertical supports.  Vertical sections are completed instead of moving horizontally from end to end.  This system tends to break the designs into vertical columns.  Northwest Coast art is mostly bilaterally symmetrical.  Fringes and buttons are sometimes added decorations.  In addition to blankets the weavings are used for robes, dance tunics, aprons, leggings shirts, vests, hats, and wall hangings.  The blankets worn in the picture would traditionally be used at potlatch ceremonies.

William Howard Case and H. Horace Draper formed a partnership in 1898 and had a photographic studio in Skagway, Alaska.  In the beginning they worked out of a tent that allowed them to travel and take photographs.  They became popular for “Documenting the unknown” and eventually had a store that sold curios, photographic equipment, and souvenirs and well as their own work.  

Case was born in Iowa in 1868 and lived in South Dakota and Oregon before going to Alaska during the Klondike Gold Rush of 1898.  His partnership with Draper was dissolved in 1907.  Case moved to Juneau where he opened his own studio.  He died in 1920 and was survived by his three children.  Case’s studio was taken over by E.C. Adams.  

Herbert Horace Draper was born 1855 in Rockford, Illinois.  His family moved from Michigan to Oregon when he was 19.  He also went to Alaska during the 1898 Gold Rush.  He married a local school teacher.   After the partnership with Case was dissolved, he continued to run the studio under the name Draper and Co. until his death in 1913.  Draper’s studio was acquired by Keller Brothers Drug Company.

Digital images of their work can be found at Orbis Cascade Alliance and the Alaska State Library.  

For additional information, see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_&_Draper
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilkat_weaving