Hazel Hunkins Hallinan, Billings Suffragist (WHC Traveling Display) – On view at the Western Heritage Center for August of 2020. A 1908 graduate of Billings High School, Hazel Hunkins Hallinan was one of the most influential feminist leaders of the 20th century. This exhibit will travel throughout Montana beginning in May of 2020.
C&A Grant from the Montana Arts Council sponsored: “We are funded in part by coal severance taxes paid based upon coal mined in Montana and deposited in Montana’s cultural and aesthetic projects trust fund.”
Evelyn Cameron left a life of privilege in England to join her ornithologist husband, Ewen, on a ranch near Terry, Montana. A self-taught photographer, she captured images of the landscape, wildlife and people of Eastern Montana from 1890-1928. The 35 framed images represent a cross-section of her interests, including homesteading life, the birds of eastern Montana, and the intriguing badland landscapes near Terry. The Western Heritage Center produced the first traveling exhibit of Cameron’s photographs in 1988. Evelyn Cameron’s original negatives are now housed at the Montana Historical Society in Helena.
(Pictured: Dick Brown, wolfer)
By age sixteen, Denes G. Istvanffy was an award winning photographer in his native country, Hungary. In 1948, he emigrated to the United States and eventually settled in Billings, Montana. He was passionate about Montana ghost towns and mining camps and began photographing them in 1957. He was particularly drawn to nineteenth century mining towns, such as Bannack, Virginia City, Elkhorn, Marysville, and Garnet. Under a license from the Montana Centennial Commission in 1989, Istvanffy choose 30 images from his collection of nearly 1,000 to create this traveling exhibit. For Istvanffy, the photographic possibilities were endless and the images of mining in Montana were fairly recent and close to hand.
During the summers of 1944 and 1945, Olga Ross Hannon and Jessie Wilbur created sixteen silk-screen color reproductions of painted Blackfeet tipis. These prints and associated Blackfeet stories, recorded by Cecile Black Boy in the 1940s, were combined in a traveling exhibit by the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman.
Our museum’s traveling exhibit, Parading Through History: the Apsaalooke Nation, is a chronological journey that leads the visitor through the history and culture of the Crow tribe. This is one of the few exhibits ever researched, organized, and designed from an Apsaalooke perspective. As part of the WHC museum’s American Indian Tribal Histories Project, Crow Indian historians, artists, and tribal members created this exhibit in 2008. The American Indian Tribal Histories Project was directed by Northern Cheyenne tribal member, Francine D. Spang-Willis. The Apsaalooke exhibit was organized by Crow historian, Mardell Plainfeather.
Prominent and historical Crow people represent different time periods. The traveling exhibit explores the impact of outside forces on Crow culture. For example, with the onset of federally mandated Indian reservations, Crow leaders had the insight to merge the knowledge of recently educated young adults with the traditional wisdom and heritage of the elders, thereby successfully retaining their tribal structures and culture. This traveling exhibit allows new audiences to experience the culture and history of the Apsaalooke nation from the perspective of tribal members.
Our Northern Cheyenne traveling exhibit, Coming Home: the Northern Cheyenne Odyssey, is one of the few exhibits researched, organized, and designed from a Northern Cheyenne perspective. As part of the WHC museum’s American Indian Tribal Histories Project, Northern Cheyenne historians, artists, and tribal members created this exhibit in 2008. The project of the WHC was directed by enrolled Northern Cheyenne member, Francine D. Spang-Willis. Pictured are team leaders for the American Indian Tribal Histories Project – Mardell Plainfeather (Crow / Apsaalooke), Francine Spang-Willis (Northern Cheyenne – Executive Director), and Rubie Sooktis (Northern Cheyenne).
The exhibit focuses on the stories of two Northern Cheyenne bands, one led by Chief Dull Knife and the other led by Chief Little Wolf, from 1876 to the present. While there are many tribal leaders and stories within the Northern Cheyenne history, this exhibit focuses on events leading to the Fort Robinson Breakout, its aftermath, the struggle of these bands to return to Montana and the establishment of the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in southeastern Montana in 1884. Events in the traveling exhibit are presented from the Northern Cheyenne perspective, with additional material from other sources. A highlight of the exhibit is the digital reproduction of an historical ledger book filled with artwork by a young Northern Cheyenne man, Little Finger. He illustrated his band’s experiences as they made their way from Oklahoma back to their Montana homeland. While Coming Home is a Northern Cheyenne story, it is a universal story of the triumph of will and the power of the human spirit against impossible odds.
