Native American ledger artworks

A collection of Native American art completed by a variety of artists over the course of about a decade in the early 20th Century, almost all signed and dated by the artist.

Ledger art traditionally consists of a drawing done in pen, pencil, crayon, colored pencil, or watercolor, on account book ledger paper that the artists would have obtained through trade. Before the Plains tribes were forced to live on reservations in the 1870s, these works were historically painted on buffalo skin, which became scarce after the United States Government's eradication and reeducation programs began. Plains Indian artists turned to other media such as canvas, muslin, and paper.

These particular drawings were originally assembled by Kenneth Webbster, a doctor who collected Native American memorabilia from about 1930 until his death in 1967, when his family turned his home office into a small gallery to display the artwork.

This collection is composed of art sourced from the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania or St. Mary's Indian Boarding School in Wisconsin. Some drawings also appear to have come from the Colbert Institute in Oklahoma.

American Indian boarding schools, or residential schools, were established with the purpose of "civilizing" or assimilating Native American children and adults into Anglo-American culture by forcing them to give up their culture, languages, and religion.

Indigenous students were apparently encouraged or trained to create these ledger drawings because they were sent as gifts or sold to donors and supporters of the residential schools.

Ledger art was a transitional medium that reflected changes in Plains Indian life, and was one means of documenting and preserving memories of the Native artist, such as tipi and shield designs, dances, regalia, and other cultural information.