American Art Collaborative

In 1835, after his visit to Oklahoma, George Catlin journeyed up the Mississippi by steamer from New Orleans to Fort Snelling in present-day Minnesota, bringing his wife, Clara, on a western “tour” for the first and only time. Tribes of the Upper Mississippi and Great Lakes region, such as the Ojibwe/Chippewa shown here, had been increasingly pressured by European traders, war, and United States expansion since the eighteenth century. Well before Catlin’s arrival, the upper midwestern tribes had incorporated woven cloth and elaborate beadwork into their dresses