One of the short comings of the silver screen is it snapshots history. Movies ‘pretend’ what they portray is history ‘the way it really was’ when, in fact, ‘it’ never was the way Hollywood portrays it. As you can see from the writing at the bottom of the photography, this was taken in 1907. Gold was discovered in Juneau in 1880 so, three decades after gold was discovered, some Tlingits have ‘grown with the times.’ They are well dressed by ‘white’ standards, have learned to play instruments not part of their culture and, most important, they are a ‘cultural unit.’ Cultural units are important because they lead to political power. It just takes a while. Two generations after this photograph was taken, Alaska’s Native corporations are worth billions and represent more than 140,000 shareholders.
For a railroad adventure!!
www.authormasterminds.com/steve-levi
(I autograph all my books from this site.)