Wanamaker Collection and Joseph Dixon

W7350. Joseph K. Dixon standing with car. 1921, France or Belgium. Photographer unknown.

The Wanamaker Collection consists of 8,000 photographic images and 7,750 documents created or compiled by Joseph K. Dixon while he served as education director at the Wanamaker department store in Philadelphia (1904-1925). Most of the photographs and many of the documents pertain to Dixon’s best-known work, three expeditions meant to document what he first thought was “the vanishing race,” Native Americans.

The First World War materials are less well-known. These include 300 photographs and 4,300 documents, and reflect Dixon’s role in lobbying for better treatment by the federal government of the (non-)vanishing Indians.