In a report on the Indian Congress published in the American Anthropologist in 1899, its chief ethnological consultant, James Mooney credited the realization of the project to "the grit and determination of the exposition managers, foremost among whom was Edward Rosewater, proprietor of the Omaha Bee. The successful outcome was due chiefly to his tireless activity and unfaltering courage. The ethnologic project was the child of his brain, and in spite of serious imperfections, the general result was such—particularly from the practical standpoint of the ticket seller—that we may expect to see ethnology a principal feature at future expositions so long as our aboriginal material holds out." After steady lobbying by Rosewater, an extremely influential Republican and a friend of President William McKinley, and other members of the organizing committee of the Trans-Mississippi International Exposition, in December 1897 a bill was introduced in the United States Congress that provided an appropriation of $100,000 to carry out an Indian Congress at the same time as the Expo. After it passed in the Senate, preparations for the Spanish–American War monopolized the United States House of Representatives, preventing a vote on the bill. In July 1898, $40,000 was made available for the event in the Indian Appropriations Act by the President. That was a month after the rest of the Expo opened. Funding was also made available by the Bureau of American Ethnology, a part of the Smithsonian Institution. In 1898 W. A. Jones, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, sent a letter to each Indian Agency to appeal for attendees. The purpose of the Indian Congress, as he stated, was:
About
The entire Indian Congress was managed by ethnologist James Mooney and Army Captain William Mercer of the 8th U. S. Infantry, under the direction of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs acting on behalf ofCornelius Newton Bliss, the United States Secretary of the Interior. The original intention of the organizing committee was to illustrate the daily life, industry and traits of as many tribes as possible. However, once the congress was open authorities realized that the average person attending the Exposition wanted to see dances, games, races, ceremonials and sham battles. Soon the main activities of the Indian Congress were re-enactments and the Ghost Dance.
Weather
According to Captain Mercer's report, the weather "has been trying in the extreme... Most of the time we have had extreme heat accompanied by dry, hot winds, which rendered camp life anything but pleasant, the conditions being rendered somewhat worse by our location. Following close upon the heated period we have just had a week of cold, heavy rains which made the camp and life in it more disagreeable even than it was during the hot spell."
Criticism
Ethnologist Mooney sought for the Congress to display customs of the various tribes. Instead, promoters erected a 5,000 seat grandstand, and arranged the tribes in re-enactments of battles. There were also concerns regarding the Indian Congress hosting a Ghost Dance, particularly after the U.S. Army attacked dancers during the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890. However, the Ghost Dance was encouraged by the managers of the Exposition. A local newspaper reported the Ghost Dance became a popular attraction. The Ghost Dance shirt of Big Foot was displayed in another part of the Expo.
Frank A. Rinehart
Mooney contracted with Frank A. Rinehart and Adolph Muhr to take photographs of the attendees. Rinehart made several hundred pictures, regarded as one of the most complete, non-exotifying collections of Native American portraits in existence. Rinehart and Muhr took their photographs in a studio on Expo grounds. Speaking of his photos of the Indian Congress, Merry Foresta, director of the Smithsonian Photography Initiative at the Smithsonian Institution said, "Rinehart's portraits are really quite extraordinary and put him above the average workaday photographer who might have also made photographs for similar reasons. There were other people working, but he seems to have really, because of the quality of his work, stood apart."
