Commuters hang off a local passenger train in the morning in Colombo, Sri Lanka September 8, 2016. (Photo by Dinuka Liyanawatte/Reuters)

A person stands near the “Untitled” installation of miniature elevators by Maurizio Cattelan at a preview of the Postwar and Contemporary Art Evening Sale at Christie's auction house on November 4, 2011 in New York City. The 33-inch functioning elevator installation is expected to realize $400,000-$600,000 at the November 8 auction. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

A boy carries empty sacks after bringing different types of plastic materials to a recycling station in Khartoum North April 16, 2015. People bring bottles and other plastic materials to the station for recycling, and get paid in return. (Photo by Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah/Reuters)

Model Juliana Paesthe (C) of Viradouro samba school participates in the annual carnival parade in Rio de Janeiro's Sambadrome, February 15, 2015. (Photo by Ricardo Moraes/Reuters)

Sisters dressed as the Grady twins from the movie "The Shining" pose for a photo inside their house as they take part in the second edition of "Noche del Terror" (Horror night) during Halloween celebrations in the neighborhood of Churriana, near Malaga, southern Spain, October 31, 2015. (Photo by Jon Nazca/Reuters)

A Palestinian boy holds an umbrella as he runs near houses that witnesses said were destroyed or damaged by Israeli shelling during the most recent conflict between Israel and Hamas, on a rainy day in the east of Gaza City November 16, 2014. (Photo by Suhaib Salem/Reuters)

A pedestrian carries a shopping bag and looks at his phone while walking past a mural decorating a construction site in central Sydney on November 6, 2023. (Photo by David Gray/AFP Photo)

At the beginning of the 20th century, Edward S. Curtis set out to document what he saw as a disappearing race: the Native American. From 1907 to 1930, Curtis took more than 2,000 photos of 80 tribes stretching from the Great Plains to the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. He then published and sold these photos, along with narrative text, in 20 volumes of work known as “The North American Indian”. It is one of the most significant collections of its kind, “probably the most important photographic document of its age and its topic,” said Jeffrey Garrett, associate university librarian for Special Libraries at Northwestern University. (Photo by Edward S. Curtis)