Scott W. Raether enjoys collecting family albums containing cabinet cards, cartes de visite or cdvs, and tintypes. An amateur researcher or genealogist always hoping to run into ancestors and discovering new photographers from 1800’s to early 1900’s. He has enjoyed filling the void in the history of photography in Wisconsin and would greatly appreciate more information on photographers and the family albums contained in this book.

Edward Curtis was charismatic, handsome, a passionate mountaineer, and a famous photographer, the Annie Leibovitz of his time. He moved in rarefied circles, a friend to presidents, vaudevill stars, leading thinkers. And he was thirty-two years old in 1900 when he gave it all up to pursue his Great Idea: to capture on film the continent's original inhabitants before the old ways disappeared.