Chief War Cloud. Signed Photograph.
Sepia Apeda Studios of New York photograph of the Native American vaudevillian, signed "Sincerely Chief War Cloud" in purple ink to the lower margin. Small pin prick and crease to upper edge, else fine, with photographer stamp to the verso. 5.75 x 8.25 inches.
"In 1913, the vaudevillian Chief War Cloud, who identified as Sioux, became proprietor of a “moving picture show” in Jamaica, Queens. War Cloud had worked with an all-Indian troupe on vaudeville stages for some years, and he seems to have used his moving picture house to give them live stage work alongside his filmic offerings. On one occasion, the gathering was covered by the press as “Jamaica’s Indian Pow-Wow”: the performance included Princess Prairie Flower, who identified as Mohawk and “claims to be 95 years old, but who . . . is as spry as any woman forty years her junior”; Chief White Moon/Louis White Moon, who was Iroquois of St. Regis, “Lecturer and Demonstrator”; and Yellow Bird, “an Oneida brave, from the Green Bar Reservations, Michigan.” As noted in chapter 1, Louis White Moon’s correspondence reveals that he had been through hard times; in a direct way, War Cloud’s picture house served as sustenance for the vaudeville Indian community. Presumably his moving picture house also drew together some of the same Indigenous community that Princess Chinquilla wanted to attract with her Indian Museum; the two buildings were in the same neighborhood. Both are now buried by structures that oddly replicate while erasing their original owners’ vision. War Cloud’s picture house seems to have been close by the site now occupied by Jamaica Multiplex Cinemas; Chinquilla’s home and museum, the base from which she traveled the world and to which she aspired to welcome Indigenous Nations, was torn down to build first Idlewild then John F. Kennedy airport." (Christine Bold, "'Vaudeville Indians' on Global Circuits, 1880s-1930s" p.278)
Chief War Cloud. Signed Photograph.
Sepia Apeda Studios of New York photograph of the Native American vaudevillian, signed "Sincerely Chief War Cloud" in purple ink to the lower margin. Small pin prick and crease to upper edge, else fine, with photographer stamp to the verso. 5.75 x 8.25 inches.
"In 1913, the vaudevillian Chief War Cloud, who identified as Sioux, became proprietor of a “moving picture show” in Jamaica, Queens. War Cloud had worked with an all-Indian troupe on vaudeville stages for some years, and he seems to have used his moving picture house to give them live stage work alongside his filmic offerings. On one occasion, the gathering was covered by the press as “Jamaica’s Indian Pow-Wow”: the performance included Princess Prairie Flower, who identified as Mohawk and “claims to be 95 years old, but who . . . is as spry as any woman forty years her junior”; Chief White Moon/Louis White Moon, who was Iroquois of St. Regis, “Lecturer and Demonstrator”; and Yellow Bird, “an Oneida brave, from the Green Bar Reservations, Michigan.” As noted in chapter 1, Louis White Moon’s correspondence reveals that he had been through hard times; in a direct way, War Cloud’s picture house served as sustenance for the vaudeville Indian community. Presumably his moving picture house also drew together some of the same Indigenous community that Princess Chinquilla wanted to attract with her Indian Museum; the two buildings were in the same neighborhood. Both are now buried by structures that oddly replicate while erasing their original owners’ vision. War Cloud’s picture house seems to have been close by the site now occupied by Jamaica Multiplex Cinemas; Chinquilla’s home and museum, the base from which she traveled the world and to which she aspired to welcome Indigenous Nations, was torn down to build first Idlewild then John F. Kennedy airport." (Christine Bold, "'Vaudeville Indians' on Global Circuits, 1880s-1930s" p.278)