Photographs of Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and the Mexican-American Border Region
Collection
Call Number: WA Photos Folio 213
Description of Photographs
Photographs created by John Willis and printed as 98 inkjet color prints that document sites chiefly at South Dakota and the Mexican-American Border Region as well as Nebraska and North Dakota in 2018-2019, although predominantly in 2019.
Images at South Dakota principally relate to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation including the communities of Batesland, Kyle, Pine Ridge, Potato Creek, and Sharps Corner as well as other sites at South Dakota including the Black Hills, Interior, Manderson, Pierre, and Rapid City.
Events documented at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation include a fireworks celebration for the Fourth of July and a prairie fire at Pine Ridge, an automobile show at Kyle, and a powwow at Batesland. Portraits of Pine Ridge Indian Reservation residents include Duane Reddest, Emma Waters, Kathy Waters, and Thomas C. Casey, also known as Crash. Images at Pierre consist of interior views of the South Dakota State Capitol.
Images at the Mexican-American Border Region includes views of immigrants and settlements at Ambos Nogales (Spanish for "both Nogales"), which encompasses the two adjoining border cities of Nogales, Arizona, and Nogales, Sonora, as well as Boquillas del Carmen in Mexico and Big Bend National Park and Terlingua in Texas. A group of images document floral tributes to victims of a mass shooting on August 3, 2019, which were left at the site of the tragedy at the Cielo Vista Walmart in El Paso, Texas.
Images at North Dakota include a view of Lake Oahe as well as views of former camp sites near Cannon Ball, North Dakota, and at the eastern edge of the Standing Rock Indian Reservation for activists protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL).
Images at Nebraska document the site of the Whiteclay Makerspace, a planned community workspace in a repurposed liquor store at Whiteclay as well as a view of a Family Dollar store.
Images at South Dakota principally relate to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation including the communities of Batesland, Kyle, Pine Ridge, Potato Creek, and Sharps Corner as well as other sites at South Dakota including the Black Hills, Interior, Manderson, Pierre, and Rapid City.
Events documented at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation include a fireworks celebration for the Fourth of July and a prairie fire at Pine Ridge, an automobile show at Kyle, and a powwow at Batesland. Portraits of Pine Ridge Indian Reservation residents include Duane Reddest, Emma Waters, Kathy Waters, and Thomas C. Casey, also known as Crash. Images at Pierre consist of interior views of the South Dakota State Capitol.
Images at the Mexican-American Border Region includes views of immigrants and settlements at Ambos Nogales (Spanish for "both Nogales"), which encompasses the two adjoining border cities of Nogales, Arizona, and Nogales, Sonora, as well as Boquillas del Carmen in Mexico and Big Bend National Park and Terlingua in Texas. A group of images document floral tributes to victims of a mass shooting on August 3, 2019, which were left at the site of the tragedy at the Cielo Vista Walmart in El Paso, Texas.
Images at North Dakota include a view of Lake Oahe as well as views of former camp sites near Cannon Ball, North Dakota, and at the eastern edge of the Standing Rock Indian Reservation for activists protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL).
Images at Nebraska document the site of the Whiteclay Makerspace, a planned community workspace in a repurposed liquor store at Whiteclay as well as a view of a Family Dollar store.
Dates
- 2018-2019
Creator
- Willis, John, 1957- (Photographer)
Conditions Governing Access
The John Willis, Photographs of Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and the Mexican-American Border Region are the physical property of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Literary rights, including copyright, belong to the authors or their legal heirs and assigns. For further information, consult the appropriate curator.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Purchased from John Willis on the Walter McClintock Memorial Fund, 2020.
Arrangement
Organized into two series: I. Inkjet Prints, 13 x 19 inches (32.8 x 48.2 centimeters), 2018-2019. Inkjet Prints, 24 x 31 inches (61 x 78.7 centimeters), 2019.
Extent
6 Linear Feet (3 boxes)
58 broadsides
Language of Materials
English
Catalog Record
A record for this collection is available in Orbis, the Yale University Library catalog
Persistent URL
Overview
Photographs created by John Willis and printed as 98 inkjet color prints that document sites chiefly at South Dakota and the Mexican-American Border Region as well as Nebraska and North Dakota in 2018-2019, although predominantly in 2019.
John Willis (born 1957)
John Willis is a documentary photographer and emeriti professor of photography at Marlboro College in Marlboro, Vermont. His monographs include Recycled Realities, co-authored with Tom Young (Center for American Places, 2002), Views from the Reservation (Center for American Places, 2010), and Mni Wiconi - Water Is Life Honoring the Water Protectors at Standing Rock and Everywhere in the Ongoing Struggle for Indigenous Sovereignty (Staunton, Virginia: George F. Thompson Publishing, 2019). Willis has photographs in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, among others. He is also a co-founder with Bill Ledger of the In-Sight Photography Project, a photography outreach project to youth in Brattleboro, Vermont.
Processing Information
Collections are processed to a variety of levels, depending on the work necessary to make them usable, their perceived research value, the availability of staff, competing priorities, and whether or not further accruals are expected. The library attempts to provide a basic level of preservation and access for all collections, and does more extensive processing of higher priority collections as time and resources permit. These materials have been arranged and described according to national and local standards. For more information, please refer to the Beinecke Manuscript Unit Processing Manual.
Many discrete images share the same title throughout the collection.
Titled, signed, and dated by the photographer on versos of prints.
Titles in this guide are from the inscriptions by the photographer on versos of prints.
Each folder in the collection contains a single inkjet print.
Many discrete images share the same title throughout the collection.
Titled, signed, and dated by the photographer on versos of prints.
Titles in this guide are from the inscriptions by the photographer on versos of prints.
Each folder in the collection contains a single inkjet print.
- Arizona -- Pictorial works
- Batesland (S.D.) -- Pictorial works
- Big Bend National Park (Tex.) -- Pictorial works
- Black Hills (S.D. and Wyo.) -- Pictorial works
- Dakota Access Pipeline -- Pictorial works
- El Paso (Tex.) -- Pictorial works
- Fourth of July -- South Dakota -- Pine Ridge -- Pictorial works
- Immigrants -- Mexican-American Border Region -- Pictorial works
- Indians of North America -- Pictorial works
- Indians of North America -- Portraits
- Inkjet prints
- Interior (S.D.) -- Pictorial works
- Kyle (S.D.) -- Pictorial works
- Manderson (S.D.) -- Pictorial works
- Mexican-American Border Region -- Pictorial works
- Mexico -- Pictorial works
- Nebraska -- Pictorial works
- North Dakota -- Pictorial works
- Oahe, Lake (S.D. and N.D.) -- Pictorial works
- Photographic prints
- Photographs
- Pierre (S.D.) -- Pictorial works
- Pine Ridge (S.D.) -- Pictorial works
- Pine Ridge Indian Reservation (S.D.) -- Pictorial works
- Potato Creek (S.D.) -- Pictorial works
- Protest camps -- North Dakota -- Pictorial works
- South Dakota -- Pictorial works
- Standing Rock Indian Reservation (N.D. and S.D.) -- Pictorial works
- Texas -- Pictorial works
- Title
- John Willis, Photographs of Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and the Mexican-American Border Region
- Status
- Completed
- Author
- by Matthew Daniel Mason
- Date
- April 2021
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Part of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library Repository
Location
121 Wall Street
New Haven, CT 06511
Opening Hours
Access Information
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