Campfire Stories with George Catlin

Learn more

• Learn more about American history, American Indians, art, culture, fine art, indigenous people, and paintings.

Legal

Catlin, who followed the Lewis and Clark trail, painted over 500 works and recorded his experiences by journaling in his sketchbook. His images of the Plains Indians and their culture are presented in Campfire Stories with George Catlin. This site, produced by the Smithsonian American Art Museum, compiles paintings, historical documents, and commentary from contemporary experts so you can explore the intersections of two cultures, both in Catlin’s time and today.

Multimedia presentations, or “Campfire Stories,” include narration illustrated by the paintings of Catlin. Biographical information about the narrator or interviewed expert is linked from each section, establishing the individual’s credentials and providing a frame of reference for his or her interpretation of historical events. The paintings that appear in each story are available not just during the story but also in the gallery, which is linked below each story. The gallery gives students the opportunity to review the images, to learn more about the context of the subjects represented in the paintings, and details about when and where the painting was produced. In addition to the gallery, timelines, maps, and images of relevant pages of Catlin’s sketchbook are linked to each Campfire Story.

Each Campfire Story focuses on a theme and includes events recounted through observations from Catlin’s writing. In addition, the stories include a variety of contemporary interpretations by scholars and Native American leaders. For example, the story entitled Ancestral Lands describes Native American homelands of the 1830s from Catlin’s writings, then provides other land-use perspectives from Cherokee leader Wilma Mankiller, art historian Richard Murray, and professor of world arts and cultures Peter Nabokov.

The remaining three themes in the Campfire collection are Catlin’s Quest, illustrating George Catlin’s life and vision, Chiefs and Leaders describing tribal leadership and historical figures, and Western Landscape covering Great Plains ecology and geography.

Each of the thematic story modules includes classroom activities aligned with middle and high school standardsin American History, Arts Education, Language Arts, Geography, and Life Science. These lesson plans make optimal use of the site’s multimedia content and the primary source materials. Also available are the transcripts of interviews included in the Campfire Stories.