A Danish Photographer of Idaho Indians: Benedicte Wrensted [Hardcover]

Joanna Cohan Scherer (Author), Bonnie Wuttunee-Wadsworth (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 15, 2006 | ISBN-10: 0806136847 | ISBN-13: 978-0806136844 | Edition: 1st

Winner of the Idaho Library Association Book of the Year Award

With A Danish Photographer of Idaho Indians, Joanna Cohan Scherer rescues from oblivion a remarkable photographer—Benedicte Wrensted—who greatly contributed to the visual legacy of the Northern Shoshone, Lemhi, and Bannock (“Sho-Ban”) American Indian tribes. This beautifully designed volume reproduces a substantial number of Wrensted’s photographs, along with a detailed description of each image, including the names of the subjects, their biographical data, and an ethnographic analysis of their Native attire.

Wrensted, a Danish immigrant, opened her photographic studio in Pocatello, Idaho, in 1895 and worked as a commercial photographer there until 1912. Not only did white residents of Pocatello frequent her business, but so did many Sho-Bans from the neighboring Fort Hall Indian Reservation, who came singly and with their families to have portraits made. Sometimes her Indian clients wore traditional Native clothing and sometimes western-style suits or dresses, but Wrensted allowed the choice to be their own.

A Danish Photographer of Idaho Indians redresses decades of neglect by restoring both Wrensted and her Indian subjects to a place in history—Wrensted as a distinguished photographer and her clients as named persons. Today, prints of many of Wrensted’s photographs survive, proudly on display in The Sho-Ban Museum and in family homes.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Joanna Cohan Scherer is the Anthropologist/Illustrations Researcher for the multivolume Handbook of North American Indians, Smithsonian Institution. She resides in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 172 pages
• Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press; 1st edition (July 15, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0806136847
• ISBN-13: 978-0806136844
• Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 8.8 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,250,406 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful book, May 30, 2006

By 

Noel Elliott (Silver Spring, MD United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Danish Photographer of Idaho Indians: Benedicte Wrensted (Hardcover)

This quality book will be a delight for a wide variety of purchasers, whether their interests lie in biography, history, photography, or Idaho Indians. It will serve as a sourcebook for scholarly research because of its very complete set of endnotes, bibliography, and index. Finally, the careful printing on glossy paper of its many high-resolution photographs makes it an art book of the first order. Awards: The book has been designated Idaho Book of the Year 2006 by the Idaho Library Association, has won a Smithsonian Institution Secretary's Research Prize for 2008, and has won the 2008 Collier Award from The Society for Visual Anthropology. (See the customer images.)

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A treasury of photographs rescued from history, August 6, 2006

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Danish Photographer of Idaho Indians: Benedicte Wrensted (Hardcover)

A Danish Photographer Of Idaho Indians is a treasury of photographs rescued from history. The pictures taken by Benedicte Wrensted, a Danish immigrant, came from the photography studio that she opened and worked in from 1895 to 1912. Both white and Native American residents of the area came to her, especially members of the Northern Shoshone, Lemhi, and Bannock ("Sho-Ban") tribes; some Native clients chose to wear traditional Native clothing while others preferred Western-style suits or dresses, yet Wrensted always let the choice to be theirs. Many of the Native photographs were later appropriated by books which stripped the names of the subjects. A Danish Photographer Of Idaho Indians restores names to the photographs, and features an extensive discussion of who the photographer and the subjects were, as well as varying Native attitudes toward being photographed. The wealth of quality black-and-white images as well as the thoughtful and objective analysis make A Danish Photographer Of Idaho Indians a "must" for Native American Studies shelves.