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)

Kaw-Claa, a Tlingit native woman in full potlatch dancing costume, 1906. (Photo by Case & Draper/Buyenlarge/Getty Images)

The North Side Skull & Bone Gang stand together during the wake up call for Mardi Gras, Tuesday, February 9, 2016, in New Orleans. Their costumes are intended to represent the dead and they bring a serious message, reminding people of their mortality and the need to live a productive and good life. (Photo by Brynn Anderson/AP Photo)

A man holds his umbrella during snowfall on the Areopagitou pedestrian street beneath the Acropolis hill during snowfall in Athens, Greece, January 10, 2017. (Photo by Alkis Konstantinidis/Reuters)

Members of the samba school of the Grupo Especial Independencia Tricolor participate in the carnival celebration at the Anhembi sambodrome in Sao Paulo, Brazil, 09 February 2018. (Photo by Sebastiao Moreira/EPA/EFE)

Frank A. Rinehart, a commercial photographer in Omaha, Nebraska, was commissioned to photograph the 1898 Indian Congress, part of the Trans-Mississippi International Exposition. More than five hundred Native Americans from thirty-five tribes attended the conference, providing the gifted photographer and artist an opportunity to create a stunning visual document of Native American life and culture at the dawn of the 20th century. Photo: Little Bird, Arapahoe, 1899. (Photo by Frank A. Rinehart)

Gus Palmer (Kiowa, at left), side gunner, and Horace Poolaw (Kiowa), aerial photographer, in front of a B-17 Flying Fortress. MacDill Field, Tampa, Florida, ca. 1944. (Photo and caption by 2014 Estate of Horace Poolaw)