Class Description
This course will read and discuss the book The Girl in the Middle: A Recovered History of the American West, following along as author and historian Martha A. Sandweiss unravels a single enigmatic photograph captured during the treaty negotiations at Fort Laramie in 1868. In an open field, Gardner posed six federal peace commissioners in a line with a young Native girl wrapped in a blanket standing in the center, looking directly at the camera. While the peace commissioners were always named on Gardner’s prints, the girl was never identified—other than mistakenly labeling her as Arapaho. The book unspools the most obvious question—who is she?—but reveals the surprising entanglements between the photographer and the people in front of his camera during that brief moment in Dakota Territory. Through vivid storytelling, Sandweiss identifies Sophie Mousseau, the daughter of a Lakota woman and a French-Canadian man, and follows the trail of her life in the decades following her presence in front of Gardner’s camera.
Our book discussion will be supplemented by extensive visual analysis of the photographs made by Alexander Gardner central to the narrative of the book, underscoring his status as one of the most prominent photographers of nineteenth-century America. Through guided discussion of The Girl in the Middle and close reading of historical photographs of Native Americans, participants will gain deeper appreciation for the significant role that photographers played as authors of history and contributors to an emerging visual culture, in addition to understanding the lasting implications of the Treaty of Fort Laramie.
This course will also include a collection presentation of objects from the Newberry’s Edward E. Ayer Collection—including a selection of the large format photographs and stereographs which Alexander Gardner made at Fort Laramie in 1868.
Kristie Kahns works in the photographic field as a writer, image-maker, photography editor, and independent researcher. She is a 2025 Research Fellow at The Image Centre at Toronto Metropolitan University, and currently works in Publishing at the Art Institute of Chicago.
What to Expect
Format: In Person
Class Capacity: 15
Class Style: Mix of lecture and discussion; participation encouraged
Materials List
Required
- Martha A. Sandweiss, The Girl in the Middle: A Recovered History of the American West. Princeton University Press, 2025. ISBN: 9780691238418
- Other Instructor-Distributed Materials
First Reading
- Before the first class, please read: Martha A. Sandweiss, The Girl in the Middle: A Recovered History of the American West, pp. 1-83.
A Brief Syllabus
- Reading Photographs by Alexander Gardner
- Reading Photographs from the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie
- Reading Photographs of Native Americans of the Northern Plains
- Newberry Collection Presentation
Cost and Registration
4 Sessions, $220 ($198 for Newberry members, seniors, and students). Learn about becoming a member.
We offer our classes at three different price options: Regular ($220), Community Supported ($205), and Sponsor ($235). Following the models of other institutions, we want to ensure that our classes are accessible to a wider audience while continuing to support our instructors. You may choose the price that best fits your situation when registering through Learning Stream.
To register multiple people for this class, please go through the course calendar in Learning Stream, our registration platform. When you select the course and register, you’ll be prompted to add another registrant.
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