New Exhibit at Cumberland County Historical Society shows Carlisle Indian School Through Student Lens
-
Asia Tabb
Aired; May 7th, 2025.
Listen to the podcast for the full conversation.
This spring, the Cumberland County Historical Society (CCHS) unveiled Contrasting Photos: Behind and in Front of the Camera at the Carlisle Indian School, a groundbreaking exhibition featuring over 300 rarely seen images that reveal how students reclaimed their own representation at the controversial boarding school. Many of these photographs are on public display for the first time, offering visitors a richer, more nuanced understanding of life at Carlisle between 1879 and 1918.
CCHS Executive Director Dr. Lindsay Varner explains that the exhibit was driven by guest curator Kate Theimer’s years-long photographic research:
“This was her idea,” Varner recalls, “and she approached us wanting to share the research that she has spent years doing. When she explained her vision, we were all on board because it’s such a wonderful idea.”
Theimer agrees that CCHS’s extensive photographic holdings made it the perfect venue:
“CCHS has one of the largest collections of images of Carlisle Indian School students,” she notes. “It’s a great place to do an exhibit because you have so much to choose from.”
While the contrast photos—stark “before and after” images used as propaganda to promote assimilation—remain powerful, Theimer’s vision was to highlight the “thousands of other pictures” that capture student agency:
“What I wanted to do here is get beyond the images that people are really familiar with,” she says. “Most people know the contrast images, but over the School’s 39-year history, students explored the freedom they had to create their own visual representations.”
