THE “INDIAN” AS AN ELITE STATUS SYMBOL

The practice of collecting “Indian” items is integrally tied to the history of American consumerism; Native-made and -inspired products have been available in department stores since they were first opened in New York in the late nineteenth century.Footnote ¹⁹ As the popularity of such decorative items, homeware and designer fashions increased, so did concern that Native arts might be tainted by consumer influence.Footnote ²⁰ The federal government established a board for monitoring and determining the “authenticity” of Indian items produced for sale shortly after the Indian Arts and Crafts Act (IACA) was passed in 1934.Footnote ²¹ The Indian Arts and Crafts Board (IACB) conducted studies of Indian art from various regions, and then set specific standards for evaluating different categories of items, even making improvement suggestions.Footnote ²² The Act and the board, designed to help develop tribal economies through the sale of marketable cultural goods, were largely run by wealthy Euro-American patrons and art enthusiasts. Native involvement on the board was minimal; from its inception until the mid-1960s, it was headed by René d'Harnoncourt, an American art curator of Austrian, Czech and French descent. Rather than protecting Native art from Euro-American influence, the IACB granted non-Native art aficionados authority over determining how Indigenous art and crafts should be produced.

The many advertisements for exhibitions and auctions of Indian art prominently displayed in the New York Times in the early 1950s attest to the continuing popularity of such items among Manhattan socialite circles. This is exemplified by a small 1952 announcement titled “Old Pottery Shown for Modern Homes.”Footnote ²³ Address details for an exhibition of Southwest Native items for sale were included, alongside an image of a bowl and a two-foot human-shaped sculpture covered in geometric patterns. The items were described in terms of their exoticism, referring to them as “decorative accessories to give a pleasing contrast to modern furniture” and “primitive pieces.” The value of the items was thus determined by their unfamiliarity, presented as curious and distant contrasts to the modern, upper-class New York home. Though prices were not listed, it is safe to presume that these “old, hand made [sic]” pieces came at significant expense.

Such advertisements for Indian art sales frequently appeared in the lifestyle sections of the Times, alongside reporting on fashion, food and domestic consumables. This one appeared alongside an advertisement for fur trim garments, a report on non-union cloak manufacturers, and an “Ode to Baked Beans.” The gendered nature of marketing consumer goods is thus reflected in Times writing on Indian art in the period. This section of the paper, like the women's magazines that became popularized in this era, presented several short pieces and a variety of photographs.Footnote ²⁴ These examples, aimed at a distinctly female audience, demonstrate that the gendered nature of buying “Indian” homeware identified by historian Elizabeth Hutchinson in the late nineteenth century continued into the 1950s.Footnote ²⁵

Reporting on Indian art and commodities, however, expanded beyond the confines of typically gendered spending, also addressing a specialist collector's audience specifically seeking not just any “Indian” items, but elite, authentic products untarnished by European influence. The IACB's guidelines in determining the “authenticity” of Indian art were regularly printed by the Times throughout the 1950s and into the 1960s. For instance, in December 1952 the Times Sunday Magazine ran a how-to report for collecting Indian goods in the Southwest by Thomas B. Lesure, titled “Hunting for Indian Bargains.”Footnote ²⁶ The guide spurned the “trashy hodge-podge of tawdry knickknacks and spurious goods” to be found in Arizona and New Mexico, advising tourists to contact reputable dealers through chambers of commerce. These authorities were certainly presented as preferable to trading directly with Indian sellers themselves, as Lesure noted: “while trading with an Indian may be picturesque, it's not usually profitable for tourists. The Indians have learned a few lessons from the white man.” Lesure thus presented Native involvement as not only unnecessary in the purchase of Indian commodities, but potentially harmful for American tourists. Moreover, this statement insinuated that outside influence had not only tarnished Indian crafts, but Native people as well.

The implication remained that Native items like rugs, pottery, jewellery, leather goods and dolls were appropriate and interesting decorative items for an American home. The article distinguished between items made by Native artisans for their own use and things like “ash trays, cigarette holders, key chains … which are seldom used by the Indians themselves,” but also stated boldly that “all of these products – actually made by the Indians themselves – are fine handicraft work and authentic goods.”Footnote ²⁷ Authenticity, then, hinged on the tribal affiliations of the maker rather than on the cultural significance of the product. The report contained detailed instructions for purchasing Hopi “Kachina dolls,” including price and size guidelines, as well as a note that “true Kachinas are made only by the Hopi Indians from the roots of cottonwood trees.” It also advised looking for dolls that seem “rough around the edges,” as these were more likely to have been produced with the “simple implements” marking traditional Hopi craftsmanship. The description of these dolls was predominantly focussed on their appearance and production methods, providing little indication of their significance for the Hopi themselves. Their original purpose was only vaguely outlined in a side note, stating that larger dolls were “actually used by the Indians themselves in teaching youngsters about the various supernatural beings in their religion.”Footnote ²⁸

For the Hopi, these figures – called tithu – are significant ceremonial objects, depicting the katsinam, benevolent spirit beings responsible for rain and fertility.Footnote ²⁹ The figures, which are given to girls during ceremonies, became an important source of income for Hopi Pueblo in the 1930s and remain so; Hopi artists create different items for ceremonial use and for sale to outsiders, carefully selecting imagery appropriate to each audience.Footnote ³⁰ As Lesure's article demonstrates, there was little awareness of such issues in 1950s public discussions of Native-made consumer commodities. By advising tourists to buy these items from “reputable” non-Native sellers, the act of consuming an Indian item was divorced from its original cultural context. This highlights one of the key issues of cultural appropriation; as items are coopted from an Indigenous group, their original significance is distorted and even lost. Furthermore, the Native artists and artisans who made these products are removed from the creative process. Lesure's buying guide included only one image of a Native person, coupled with the caption “Navaho silversmith at work.” Not only was the Navajo artist unnamed, but he was pictured concentrating on his silverwork, his face turned away from the camera. His identity and background were inconsequential, apart from his tribal membership, adherence to techniques required by the IACB, and production of objects for Euro-American buyers.

Times writing on Native art and artefacts in the 1950s reflects the contemporary trend of relying on Euro-American mediators to determine the “authenticity” and value of a Native-made product. Press reporting often focussed on these collectors rather than on Native artists, as demonstrated by a 1954 report on Harry R. Bowlby, a rug salesman described as “wearing the insignia of a Pueblo Indian chief.”Footnote ³¹ While Lesure's 1952 guide provided tips for spotting “authentic” or “traditional” crafting techniques, Bowlby appears to have influenced the Navajo weavers he purchased rugs from, encouraging them to adopt new colors and designs into their works. As the reporter here stated, “Although gray, black, white and brown are still dominant in the collection being shown, more red and blue are seen this year.”Footnote ³² No clear explanation for this addition of color was provided, hinting only that Bowlby's Euro-American buyers were interested in a broader range. Indeed the article recommended purchasing rugs from Bowlby, quoting a customer as complaining, “We have to come to New York to get an attractive Indian rug.”Footnote ³³

Further Times reports attest to Bowlby's dominance in the New York market for Navajo rugs. A 1956 article on Bowlby carried the foreboding headline “Young Navajos Spurning Rugs as Way of Life.”Footnote ³⁴ Bowlby's comments in both pieces were consistent, emphasizing that the rugs he selected for sale were “traditionally” crafted, according to the techniques developed in “prehistoric times,” on the “same crude looms that were used long before the Pilgrims ever saw Plymouth Rock.”Footnote ³⁵ The earlier article indicated that Navajos could include a broader range of colors and new designs in rugs for sale to mainstream buyers, as long as they worked with a knowledgeable Euro-American guide in doing so. However, to maintain “authenticity,” production techniques could not be changed; in the 1956 article, Bowlby expressed his disappointment in young Navajos not “learning the craft.” The implication was that Native artists and artisans could not engage with new techniques without Euro-American guidance, as they otherwise risked being found “inauthentic” or “fake.”

Bowlby's account of Navajo weaving as unchanged since the precolonial era, however, was based on false premises. In fact, Navajo weavers adopted upright looms from Pueblo peoples and wool from Spanish colonists in the sixteenth century.Footnote ³⁶ By insisting that only certain techniques were authentic, white intermediaries like Bowlby exerted control over production and obstructed the agency of Native artists to alter their methods. Perhaps the “young Navajos” Bowlby claimed were spurning weaving were instead rejecting the paternalism of an East Coast art dealer. This marginalization of Indigenous artists supported the settler colonial process of termination, in this case supplanting Navajo knowledge of weaving with false Euro-American conceptions of static “Indian” culture. As some tribes lost their legal status, the Indian art market attempted to restrict their cultures to reproducing collectibles for upper-class white consumption.

While the Times did not write about Native artists in reports on Indian products, the paper did on occasion identify them for other purposes. For instance, in a one-paragraph August 1956 report titled “Indians on Way to Sweden,” the Times noted that “Mr. and Mrs. Lorenzo Smith, a Navaho Indian couple,” were travelling to Sweden “to demonstrate traditional Navaho craftsmanship.”Footnote ³⁷ No information on the Smiths’ art was included in the short Associated Press newswire, instead merely noting that the couple had enjoyed their first airplane ride. The work of these Navajo artists was not considered of interest to readers, but the fact that a Native couple were travelling overseas was jarring enough to warrant public attention. As the controversy over Bethany Yellowtail's design in 2015 demonstrates, this distancing of individual Native American designers from their own products has continued into the twenty-first century. As Times reporting shows, Indian art was not presented as the intellectual property of Indigenous designers or communities, but rather as generic “Indian” or tribal material without clear copyright. This conception of Indian art creates space for non-Natives to emulate or directly copy the work of Indigenous artists with few repercussions, enacting tangible harm despite appearing innocuous.

The significance of the gap between Native artists and their work created by reporting is immediately evident when compared to articles describing the work of non-Native designers inspired by “Indian” themes. In 1954, the Times published a short piece on Italian-born silversmith Frank Patania, displaying a focus wholly different to the anonymized representation of Native artists. Rather than just describing his pieces, the article detailed Patania's childhood in Italy and move to the Southwest, as well as describing his style as reflecting the “art of the Indians,” and stating that he was inspired by “Indian lore and art.”Footnote ³⁸ The short report did not specify whether Patania had any active links to Southwest tribes, instead focussing on his shops in Tucson and Santa Fe – both called “Thunderbird.” Unlike reports on Indian artists, the Times attributed Patania's work to his individual merits, skill and vision.

While in the 1950s the federal government claimed to promote a policy of “equality” for American Indians, such representation – or lack thereof – of Indian artists reveals a persistent dehumanization of Indigenous individuals and groups in Times reporting. Moreover, press reporting highlights a critical tension in mainstream American perceptions of Native peoples – their art and items were considered interesting and worthwhile, but only to the extent that they were separate and exotic, produced by specific tribes and looking identifiably “Indian.” This implied boundary was the legacy of attempts to maintain Native “authenticity” by defining it as design distinctly linked to the American continent, untainted by European influence. Native artists were largely presented as an unidentifiable mass, rather than as creative individuals. The treatment of Native Americans in the art world also attests to this; in 1958 Yanktonai Dakota painter Oscar Howe was disqualified from the Philbrook Museum's Annual Contemporary American Indian Painting competition for submitting a piece deemed “not Indian” by judges.Footnote ³⁹ Howe, who described his work as rooted in Dakota visual traditions, wrote to the Philbrook questioning whether Native artists were to be “dictated to as the Indian always has been, put on reservations and treated like a child, and only the White Man knows what is best for him.”Footnote ⁴⁰ Though the Times did not report on this controversy, Howe's letter demonstrates that while Native voices were marginalized in the press, Native artists did not passively accept Euro-American control over their work.

Taken out of context, the widespread interest in perceived “Indian” cultures demonstrated by Times reporting on Native art and commodities stood in apparent contrast to the federal aims of termination. Fascination with the perceived markers of “Indianness” appear instead to indicate public support for the continued existence of Native cultures and tribal identities. In the early 1950s total Native acculturation would have endangered the production of “authentic” Native art. However, the marginalization of Native perspectives and overlooking of Indigenous agency in the creative process supported the aims of termination. Inherent in this conception of authenticity was the belief that Indigenous cultures are static rather than living and developing. As such, it was only possible to create supposedly “authentic” tribal art and consumer items if “traditional” techniques and designs were followed – the agency of Indigenous artists to develop these was as such denied. Such static markers of “Indianness” could be retained within a broader American identity, as supporters of termination like Watkins envisioned.

In the late 1950s and the 1960s this interest expanded into a veritable boom in popularity of Native arts, dances and fashions, encompassing an audience beyond the upper-middle-class elites that Native commodities were marketed to in the early 1950s. As the market for items increased, a shift in the ways in which “Indian” crafts and items were presented to American buyers also occurred. Moreover, New York Times reporting demonstrates that Native items shifted from being items marking exclusive, upper-class sensibilities, to becoming a more integral part of American domesticity and identity. Into the 1960s, consuming “Indianness” became an increasingly mainstream activity. But although markers of “Indianness” became more widely consumed, Native perspectives continued to be marginalized in public discourses surrounding consumption, and the question of “authenticity” was largely forgotten.

FROM ELITE TO MAINSTREAM: THE RISE OF “INDIAN” FASHION

The shift of “Indian” consumer items becoming more accessible to buyers is evident in the changing nature of reporting on Native products in the New York Times. Though purchasing guides for Native art and artefacts continued to appear, these reports noted an increased tourist interest in small curios and the threat this presented to continued “authentic” production. For instance, an April 1963 Times article extensively quoted BIA commissioner Philleo Nash on the issue of counterfeit Native jewellery.Footnote ⁴¹ Though attempting to address the issue of “imitations of Indian crafts … mass-produced by machinery” in a serious manner, the article was coupled with a heavily stereotyped title: “On the Warpath against Bogus Indian Art.”Footnote ⁴² Despite the article itself describing the difficulty of eliminating counterfeit Native items from the market, the issues were framed within the usual stereotyped language of “Indianness.” Furthermore, little sense of the harm of this imitation market to Native economies was given in the text. Though Nash briefly stated that counterfeit crafts denied Native artists “a much-needed source of income” and were a threat to “the standards of fine Indian craftsmanship and the very existence of true Indian handicrafts,” the main focus of the article was on harm to the consumer: “Moreover, the public is being cheated of dollars and cents and given a false idea of Indian arts and crafts.”Footnote ⁴³ The article included five tips for identifying “authentic” goods, including purchasing only from reputable sellers, asking for the name and tribe of the artist, checking certificates of authenticity, and finally consulting the Indian Arts and Crafts Board. As such, in the 1960s the Times continued to defer to white authority in reports on buying “Indian.”

This article, published ten years after the 1952 “Hunting for Indian Bargains” piece described above, demonstrates that while tourist interest in “Indian” items may have increased, the government's Arts and Crafts Board maintained control over determining the authenticity of such products. At no point did the article include commentary from a Native artist or tribal member, or suggest speaking to such a person. It even claimed that some tribes cheated buyers: “Some Indians themselves are not above foisting-off inferior products on a public anxious for Indian souvenirs.”Footnote ⁴⁴ Condemning Pueblo potters’ production of cheaper “low-grade” pottery “to meet a tourist demand for small curios,” this article did not present Native peoples as valid participants in a consumer economy. Such guides homogenized Native arts and crafts, removing them from their Indigenous cultural context and granting Euro-American consumers and authorities control over their value.Footnote ⁴⁵ While recognizing and encouraging public interest in “Indian” commodities, the article simultaneously marginalized Native people in favour of mainstream American buyers. Reporting on Native-produced items thus did not substantially change in the 1960s, following similar patterns to earlier twentieth-century reporting.

However, beginning in the late 1950s, Times reporting increasingly encouraged the integration of “Indian” items into American homes not just as exotic curiosities, but as markers of authentic “Americanness.” Curator Ann Tartsinis has demonstrated that early 1900s designers sought out ethnological collections for inspiration in creating uniquely “American” styles.Footnote ⁴⁶ Times reporting demonstrates that the idea of “Indianness” setting US design apart from its European counterparts was promoted with renewed vigour in the Cold War atmosphere of American exceptionalism. The Times frequently printed articles describing how New Yorkers integrated Native items into their homes and fashions.Footnote ⁴⁷ In 1959, the Times even ran a list of department stores, showrooms and galleries where “Indian” items could be purchased, under the title “Tribes Influence Décor for Home.”Footnote ⁴⁸ The piece, which was printed in the “Food, Fashions, Family, Furnishings” section of the paper and was clearly aimed at female readers, stated unequivocally that “the influence of the North American Indian today is not confined to the reservation.” Noting the growing popularity of Native crafts, the article indicated that “Indian culture” neatly counteracted the harshness of modern homes. Navajo rugs were presented as particularly homely, stating that “the abstract designs and soft, earthy tones of these rugs impart a warm feeling to modern décor.”Footnote ⁴⁹ These “Indian” items were not presented as “primitive” or alien, but rather as contributing a more homely feel to otherwise sparse contemporary interior design. Moreover, though the article mentioned showrooms and galleries, the inclusion of some department stores offered options for buyers outside socialite circles to find items within their price range.

Similarly, a 1967 article entitled “New Yorkers Dine on Legacies of the Indian, from Aztec to Zuni” focussed on the efforts of Mrs. Dockstader, the wife of Museum of the American Indian director Frederick Dockstader, to integrate Indian items into her home. The article was accompanied by a photograph of Dockstader wearing a “modified Pueblo” dress and buttering “adobe bread” in a dining room decorated with Southwest Native textiles and a “Navajo wall hanging.”Footnote ⁵⁰ Framed by the wording of the title and including four recipes from the 1965 cookbook The Art of American Indian Cooking by Jean Anderson and Yeffe Kimball, the article demonstrated to readers how they could – quite literally – consume “Indianness” to affirm their socialite status. Kimball, an acclaimed painter, presented herself as Osage despite being born to two white parents. Writing to a colleague, Mr. Fred Dockstader joked that Kimball's Indian heritage was “99 percent showmanship”, but he never publicly commented on the matter.Footnote ⁵¹ It is unclear whether Mrs. Dockstader knew of Kimball's background. Nevertheless, like Kimball, Mrs. Dockstader adopted exotic “Indianness” to affirm her status within New York, though stopping short of claiming to be Native. As the Times reported, Dockstader employed “Indian” items to host “one of the most unusual ‘occasional’ tables in Manhattan.”Footnote ⁵² This line, coupled with the photograph and recipes, shows that Dockstader's adoption of Native recipes into her dinner parties was unusual and exotic. The article appeared in the “Real Estate” section of the paper, with a heavy focus on the ways in which Dockstader communicated her social standing through her domesticity. Consuming “Indianness” could, in the 1960s, still mark an elite status, but the inclusion of printed recipes for corn puffs and adobe bread made the reproduction of Dockstader's “Indian” consumption attainable by the general public reading the Times.

Moreover, the article blurred the boundaries between “Indian” and American cooking. Presenting her as an expert on Native cuisine, the article quoted Dockstader on the typical diets of tribes across the continent: “There were the farming tribes such as those in New England, the Southwest and Southeast … Where they lived, corn and corn products such as meal and hominy were widely used … By contrast, the people who lived on the plains and plateaus were nomads.”Footnote ⁵³ Notably, she referred to American Indian diets as a thing of the past, showing no awareness of contemporary Native cuisine. This distanced Native culinary culture from mainstream American society, presenting it as not only “exotic,” but also historical. However, the article also highlighted ways in which Native ingredients and cooking styles had influenced Euro-American diets: “The contribution of the Indian to the diet of the world has been extraordinary … the flavour of sage, which occurs so often in American stuffing for poultry, fish and meats, derives directly from early Indian cookery.”Footnote ⁵⁴ By emphasizing this point, the article identified the influence of Native cultures on modern American diets, presenting these elements as having enriched national – and international – food trends.

A tension exists in such reporting: it indicates that Native cultures were interesting due to their exoticism, but also that they had contributed to building a uniquely “American” national identity. This 1960s press phenomenon supports Jean and John Comaroff's contention that consumer interest in the ethnic qualities of Native products works to break down simplistic distinctions between “savage” and “civilized.”Footnote ⁵⁵ Indeed, though the 1960s interest in Native-inspired products grew from a fascination with “exotic” or “primitive” cultures, it was at its core integrationist, with consumers seeking ways in which to include “Indianness” in their mainstream lifestyles by bringing Native items into their homes. Paradoxically, integrating aspects of Native cultures into everyday American life could transform them from “exotic” to average American fare, diminishing their appeal. As Dockstader pointed out, Indigenous herbs like sage were so integrated into American food as to be considered ordinary. This problem remained unrecognized in press reporting on the matter.

The tension between the “exotic” and the ordinary is most clearly marked by the boom in Native-inspired fashions in the termination period. While supposedly “Indian” fashions had existed before this period, from the late 1950s onwards they became more widely available and distinctly detached from concerns of authenticity, as well as drawing increasing press attention. In the first half of the twentieth century, elite white women like Mrs. Dockstader sought legitimacy by wearing authentic Indigenous items. Between 1947 and 1956, Frederick H. Douglas, a member of the IACB, even ran a travelling fashion show displaying Indigenous clothing from ethnological collections to American audiences. Between 1947 and 1956 the show, which featured white women adorned in dresses and accessories of varied Native origins, ran 180 times across the country.Footnote ⁵⁶ However, the fashion show drew niche audiences and was not widely known about – the Times only ran two small announcements with no photographs.Footnote ⁵⁷ Perhaps due to the considerable expense of dressing in Native-made clothing, this trend did not catch on.

Deloria has demonstrated that “playing Indian” became popular among counterculturalists in the 1960s and early 1970s, as a method of opposing past and contemporary US imperialist action.Footnote ⁵⁸ The same period saw the growth of the Red Power movement, with Native activist occupations of, for instance, Alcatraz (1969–70), the Bureau of Indian Affairs offices (1972) and Wounded Knee (1972), drawing increasing media attention to the issues of American Indian sovereignty and treaty rights.Footnote ⁵⁹ However, examining Times reporting reveals that the wider popularity of “Indian” fashion had little to do with protest or solidarity with Native causes, but was rather indicative of consumer mass production. Late 1960s “Indian” fashion items were completely divorced from Native design and craftsmanship, meaning they could be cheaply produced. Unlike the early twentieth-century designers working with ethnological collections, the creators of late 1960s “Indian” fashions relied solely on stereotyped notions of “Indianness” and prevalent hippy fashions. For instance, the Times in spring 1970 quoted fashion designer Henry Lish on his “Geronimo” fashion line as being motivated simply by following cutting-edge trends: “Being in the fashion business all my life, I've made it a point to watch what everybody wears.”Footnote ⁶⁰ Dressing up in “Indian”-inspired clothing, then, appeared simply to be the most fashionable thing at the moment.

Indeed, wider audiences of popular “Indian” fashions had little interest in authenticity. Instead, Times reporting demonstrates an aesthetic fascination with the imagined markers of “Indianness”: buckskin, feathers and beads. Such writing surrounding fashion typically unquestioningly embraced the motifs of “playing Indian.” Reports on “Indian” fashion appeared consistently throughout the 1960s, increasing significantly toward the end of the decade. Reporting referred frequently to “buckskin,” “skinny braids,” “tattered leathers” and “fringed vests.”Footnote ⁶¹ An August 1967 celebrity news report in the Times even presented caricatured imagery of both Indians and the British in a report headlined “Twiggy says ’Ow to the U.S.”Footnote ⁶² Coupled with a full-length image of Twiggy in her “Indian” outfit, the article described her ensemble as the “Cockney blonde's version of red Indian … with a yellow and blue beaded hairband … a fringed burgundy antelope mini-outfit, cut in at the arm holes and cut out at the midriff.”Footnote ⁶³ Twiggy's outfit was marked by its generic “Indianness,” its authenticity not questioned. Twiggy was even quoted as declaring in her Cockney twang, “Oi did the fringe myself … Oi think it's fun.”Footnote ⁶⁴ Unlike the trend toward integrating Indian items into modern American households, the authenticity of Native fashion items was rarely interrogated; the Times delighted in Twiggy's self-constructed outfit. Comparing this to 1950s reporting on the art and items collected to decorate New York homes, the shift from Indian items as elite collectibles to accessible, popular fashion items is evident.

During this period, some reports did acknowledge the variety of Indigenous cultures that designs were drawn from. A 1970 article on New York fashion runway shows declared that the “inside words to drop in fashion circles this minute are Aztec, Sioux, Maya, Inca, Carib, Eskimo.”Footnote ⁶⁵ The article added that the Italian designer Giorgio di Sant'Angelo intended his Indian-inspired fashion collection as a “paean of praise ‘to the great American civilizations, from the Arctic to the Antarctic.’”Footnote ⁶⁶ As Sant'Angelo's comment demonstrates, signifiers of Indigenous cultures were perceived of both as exotic and as distinctly American, separating new trends from fashions originating in Europe. Yet in order to achieve such a creation of “American” fashion, European designers erased actual Indigenous populations in order to subsume “Indianness” into these new trends. In other words, this period saw a shift from elite buying of Native-produced products – albeit controlled by IACB authorities – to a widespread appropriation of Indigenous cultures by non-Native designers. The cultural appropriation so widely debated in the twenty-first century is thus far from a new phenomenon. Rather, through the new outlet of social media and other online platforms, Indigenous consumers and creators of fashion are now able to generate increasing awareness of the harm it causes.

Notably, at this time federal Indian policy was also shifting as a result of mounting Indigenous protest – in July 1970 President Richard Nixon denounced the policy of terminating tribal trust status and announced support for the self-determination of tribes. Just months after the above articles on Indian-inspired fashion, the Times ran a prominent front-page story on Nixon's shift in Indian policy, titled “President Urges Wider Indian Role in Aid for Tribes.”Footnote ⁶⁷ The paper also ran lengthy extracts from Nixon's Special Message on Indian Affairs, detailing the failures of termination and outlining a new policy developing tribal self-determination. Multiple factors motivated the Nixon administration's announcement, including the undeniably disastrous outcomes of termination for tribes like the Klamath and Menominee, a desire to appear sympathetic to the civil rights movement, and the strength of Native resistance to the policy, as demonstrated by the continuing occupation of Alcatraz. Of course, discussions surrounding federal Indian affairs did not permeate reporting on fashion trends or consumer spending. However, starting in the late 1960s the Times ran a limited number of articles questioning the “Indian” fashion trend.

Notably, a 1968 Times article, “We're Stealing from the Indians, Again,” balanced lighthearted descriptions of “Indian” fashion with a more serious discussion of authentic indigeneity. The title of the article is significant, with the humorous tone belittling the history of forced removal of Native peoples from their homelands. The jocular tone persists throughout the text, particularly in describing stereotypically “Indian” summer fashions: “fringed suede has invaded fashionable restaurants, and beach parties are awash with people whooping it up in beads, braids and buckskin.”Footnote ⁶⁸ It also included several large photographs of young Americans wearing feathers, headbands, fringed jackets, buckskin and moccasins. While presenting this as a global fashion trend, the article nevertheless identified its popularity as rooted in an American search for a unique identity: “Hong Kong is beading like mad, French ready-to-wear is cranking out fringed buckskin, Rome couture is pushing the Pocahantas [sic] look and American designers are gleefully embroidering on ‘their own’ heritage.”Footnote ⁶⁹ This article described a more widespread and popular movement than the elitist gatherings of Mrs. Dockstader. Nevertheless, elite and mainstream consumers of “Indianness” alike both perceived Native cultures as “exotic” and adopted “Indian” items to present themselves as distinctly American.

“We're Stealing from the Indians, Again” was relatively critical of the “Indian” trend, stating there was “no very obvious relationship between the authentic antique Indian clothes on display and the fringed miniskirts and vests on sale.”Footnote ⁷⁰ The article even sought Native comment on the matter, quoting Onondaga artist Tom Two Arrows. Two Arrows was described via a pun as “pleased – with reservations” about the “Indian” fashion trend:

Two Arrows evidently appreciated public interest in Native cultures, but wished non-Native designers were better informed. Two Arrows's statement represents the beginnings of public discussion surrounding cultural appropriation in the sphere of American consumerism. This report did not draw explicit links to contemporary American Indian activist movements, but such protest may have increased the reporter's awareness of Native concerns. Stereotyped and derogatory representations of Native peoples undoubtedly persisted in the late 1960s, but this period also saw the development of discussions surrounding the issue of cultural appropriation.

Unfortunately, this article did not prioritize Two Arrows's criticisms, including them only at the very end of the text. This reflects the overall press trend of marginalizing minority voices, even in discussions of their own cultures. Furthermore, it was incredibly rare for Times journalists to seek out Native commentary on such fashion trends. While Deloria has claimed that the 1960s hobbyist movement allowed some limited space for the empowerment of Native individuals as authority figures, Times reporting on popular fashion shows that designers did not generally bother to consult the communities they emulated.Footnote ⁷² This problem is equally prevalent today, as the Navajo Nation court case against Urban Outfitters demonstrates.Footnote ⁷³

Today, Native writers and activists who critique cultural appropriation and the proliferation of “Indian” fashions face aggressive public criticism and even hate speech. Cherokee scholar Adrienne Keene has written extensively about the responses she gets from readers of her blog on Indian stereotypes and cultural appropriation, Native Appropriations. According to Keene, a common response is that Native Americans have “bigger problems” and should be focussing on “poverty, suicide rates, lack of resources, disease, etc.”Footnote ⁷⁴ Such responses imply that Native scholars and activists are making trouble for no good reason, or simply to advance their own public profile. Yet the few Indigenous voices which did appear in the New York Times in the late 1960s show that discussions of the appropriate use of Indian items and authenticity in fashion are consistent with the sorts of debate that “new Native intellectuals” are currently engaging in.

Native criticisms of “Indian” fashion trends were most clear in a September 1968 Times “Lifestyle” section report titled “The American Indian: Part of City, and Yet ….”Footnote ⁷⁵ The focus of this piece was on four Native women who founded the American Indian Women's League (AIWL), one of the first Indigenous organizations based in New York City. From the outset, the article foregrounded the women's opinion on “Indian” fashion trends: “The American Indian woman in New York is in a quandary. She is aware that it is ‘in’ to be Indian this year; yet she can't help gritting her teeth whenever she sees non-Indian women wearing beads and buckskin in the name of ‘fashion’.” The article presents a rare and important instance of Native women communicating their thoughts on consuming “Indianness” to the general public – in this case the readership of the Times.

Like Two Arrows's comments in the paper a few months before, these Native women evidently had conflicting feelings about the fashion for “Indian” items, both pleased with the increased interest of urban Natives in their own cultures and frustrated with the popularity of fake items. The article quoted Robin Deer – a Kiowa–Creek woman consistently referred to as “Mrs. Donald Smith” – in detailing Native objections to inauthentic “Indian” items: “Most of the beading is easily recognizable as Hong Kong work … Any Indian can spot it. People who wear these things claim to love the Indians, but they aren't concerned with the Indians as a people. They think of us only as romantic objects of the past.”Footnote ⁷⁶ While the term “cultural appropriation” was not widely used at this stage, Deer and the other women's statements indicate a concern with what effect such supposedly “Indian” items had on Indigenous lives. In addition to the lack of public awareness about real, living Native groups and individuals, the article cited the issues of “fake” Indians getting modelling roles, Native artists and designers losing out on profits, and a lack of respect for urban Indigenous communities. According to Iola Hill (Mowhawk) – called Mrs. Joseph Boyle here – some Indian hobbyists even questioned urban Native knowledge of their own cultures, stating “They try to tell us how to be Indians.”Footnote ⁷⁷ The imposition of European patriarchy on Native women is also evident in the article's insistence on referring to them by their husbands’ names, a practice not common in North American Indigenous cultures. For the founders of the AIWL, the “Indian” fashion trend had tangible impacts on their daily lives in New York and interactions with surrounding non-Native society.

While Native Americans – including painter Oscar Howe – highlighted the harm caused by stereotyped representations of Indians before the late 1960s, at this point such voices finally gained limited public attention. As increasing American Indian protest in this period attests, Native people were organizing in unprecedented numbers and refusing to be ignored. In 1962 the Institute of American Indian Art was established. Though founded by the BIA, Indigenous faculty shaped the IAIA's approach and refused Euro-American control of teaching.Footnote ⁷⁸ The late 1960s and the 1970s also saw the emergence of ethnic studies as a multidisciplinary field, with the first departments in American Indian studies being established across the country.Footnote ⁷⁹ Though few, the Native responses to Indian art and commodities that appeared in the Times reflect these developments and the early stages of discourse surrounding cultural appropriation, as Native individuals and groups made an effort to make their voices heard. Public interest in “Indianness” has persisted throughout the twentieth century, meaning that the 1960s Indian fashion trend reflected a shift from elite to mainstream interest in Native art and commodities, rather than representing a new phenomenon. While it would be misleading to claim that the increased interest in “Indian” items slowed the progress of the termination policy, it did have some impact on public discussions surrounding Indian affairs. Namely it caused frustration among Native Americans like Tom Two Arrows and AIWL members, compelling them to publicly critique representations of Indigenous peoples and cultures.

Critically, the consumption of Indian art and commodities in fact contributed to and supported the assimilationist aims of the termination era. Deloria presents these mainstream adoptions of elements of “Indianness” as part of a pursuit of an American national identity, particularly at times of uncertainty such as the Vietnam War and the enduring Cold War and civil rights struggles.Footnote ⁸⁰ However, while these insecurities may have cultivated an increased interest in “Indianness,” as the 1960s articles here examined reveal, the products marketed to the mainstream were those strictly seen as appropriate to an American lifestyle. Neither American youths nor socialites like Mrs. Dockstader bought “Indian” items to oppose federal policy – in all likelihood Times readers had little idea of what termination was.

In this respect, the interest in Native commodities actually served terminationist aims, both drawing attention to Native affairs and promoting a similar selective retention of elements of a “past heritage.” Considering these two trends together, that the Native population was considered to be outside the American mainstream, and that “Indian” products became popular among American consumers, reveals a concerning element of American perceptions of Native people – that some perceived aspects of Native cultures, when adopted by Euro-Americans, could be considered authentically American, but that living Native peoples themselves could play no part in shaping this national identity. Euro-Americans could adopt “Indian” fashions, household items and art into their own lives to affirm their identity as distinctly modern Americans, but Native individuals expressing their own tribal cultures were consistently categorized as exotic relics of the past. In the termination era, Native Americans were instead expected to give up their legal rights as American Indians and adopt mainstream American lifestyles, relegating their Indigenous identities to a secondary heritage status.

While Indian imagery and stereotyped representations of Indigenous peoples have been a core component of American culture since the revolutionary era, reporting on Native American art and commodities in the New York Times shows that an important shift in the role of “Indian” items in mainstream society occurred in the mid-twentieth century. From the late nineteenth century until the mid-1950s, concerns with the authenticity of Indian art and artefacts supported a collectors’ market in Native-produced items. Indian-made pottery, rugs and decorative figurines largely remained the domain of socialites and art aficionados, with the value of Indian items determined by their adherence to Indian Arts and Crafts Board authenticity criteria. Rather than supporting the development of Native artists and artisans into respected figures, this elitist pattern of consumption downplayed the role of Native people and their creativity. While this highbrow collection of Indian items was dependent upon the exoticization and “othering” of Native Americans, it thus concurrently supported the assimilationist aims of 1950s federal termination policy. Indian art and craft items were used to mark a real, authentically American identity, marking socialite commitment to and knowledge of an American past without respect for the living, breathing Native people who created these items.

As postwar middle-class consumer consumption blossomed across the country, the public preoccupation with Indian imagery shifted from a marker of social status to a marker of a distinctively American, mainstream identity from the late 1950s onwards. The exponential increase in reporting on “Indian” fashions in the Times reflects this shift, demonstrating that while elite collecting undoubtedly continued – and continues to this day – this was drowned out by a shifting focus in Indian imagery toward commodities accessible to the average consumer. Fringes, buckskin, beads and feathers became a symbol of fun and youthfulness. Actual Native cultures were made irrelevant as “Indian” fashion served to distinguish American from European clothing design. As such, this new trend also supported assimilation, by integrating supposedly Native clothing into American homes and lives. As such it did not matter whether actual Native artists or designers were involved in creating such items, as they were subsumed into a wider American style.

Whether elite or mainstream, marking Manhattan social status or a unified sense of American identity, Times reporting on Indian art and commodities in the termination era demonstrates how the consumption of items deemed “Indian” supports the assimilationist drive inherent in American society. The increasing fascination with and popularity of “Indianness” did not spark a shift in federal policy away from terminating the federal trust status of American Indians, because real Native peoples played no part in creating the “Indian” trend. In fact, the consumption of these products demonstrates the continued lack of interest in American Indian affairs and experiences in favour of the historic role Native peoples play in an imagined American identity, as marking a distinction from Europe. While both federal policy aims and the ways in which “Indian” products are consumed may shift and change, this assimilative drive persists within the inherently settler colonial structures of United States society.

As supposedly “Indian” or “tribal” imagery is again fashionable today, a similar shift is occurring in federal policy towards removing the federal trust status of tribes. The Trump administration has repeatedly expressed its intention to ease back regulations on tribal reservation lands to allow for increased resource development.Footnote ⁸¹ In effect this would mean removing or at the very least significantly altering the federal trust relationship, as occurred under termination. Termination of legal status, acculturation and the consumption of “Indianness” work together to erode the sovereignty of Indigenous nations in the United States. Already in the late 1960s, Native activists and thinkers were expressing their ideas to the public, as the few reports including Indigenous perspectives of the late 1960s show. While in the 1960s the avenues for Native Americans to express their opinions to the general public were limited, today Indigenous scholars and intellectuals have new tools to make themselves heard. Though Native criticisms of cultural appropriation and misrepresentation are rarely welcomed, the work of Indigenous scholars and writers like Keene and Baldy Risling is making a tangible difference. Indigenous voices in the mid-twentieth century and today play a critical role by both challenging the persistent appropriation of Native cultures and in themselves embodying the survival of Native nations.