Archives West Finding Aid

Edwin Willard Deming (1860-1942) was born August 26, 1860 in Ashland, Ohio. At a young age he went to live in Genesco, Illinois, an area which had formerly been a part of the Fox and Sac reservation. As a child Deming knew Indians of the Winnebago tribe and this early exposure shaped his later career. In 1883 Deming went to New York for a year of study at the Art Students League. In 1884, he went to Paris and studied at Julien's Academy under Boulenger and Le Febvre and took a course of lectures at the Beaux Arts.

After returning to America, Deming spent nearly two years painting cycloramas (curved theater backdrops). In 1887 Deming went to the Southwest and studied Yuma Apache and the Pueblos, and to Oregon where he concentrated on the Umatilla. Deming spent the summer of 1889 at Little Big Horn among the Crow. He then spent the autumn of 1889 and part of 1890 among the Sioux. He was present at Standing Rock when Sitting Bull was killed during the "Ghost Dance Outbreak."

Deming married in 1892. He and his wife spent a year of study in the southwest with the Zuni, Hopi, Apache and Navajo. In 1893 Deming went to Mexico and studied the native tribes there.

Deming spent the summer of 1898 among the Piegan and Blackfoot. In 1914, Deming returned to the same area with his family and they were all adopted into the Blackfoot tribe. In 1918 at the age of fifty-eight, Deming was commissioned as a Captain in the Army and served at Camp Benning, Georgia and the Springfield Armory. He was responsible for a major change in the Springfield '03 Army Rifle - adding a pistol grip to the stock. In 1920, Deming was a member of an expedition to Colombia, where he studied with Matolone Indians. Deming died in 1942.