"Between the 1870s and the 1950s collectors vigorously pursued the artifacts of Native American groups.". "In Collecting Native America contributors examine the motivations, intentions, and actions of eleven collectors who devoted substantial parts of their lives and fortunes to acquiring American Indian objects and founding museums. The contributors chart the collectors' diverse attitudes toward Native peoples, showing how their limited contact with American Indian groups resulted in museums that revealed more about assumptions of the wider society than about the cultures being described."--BOOK JACKET.