pair of beaded moccasins, unrecorded Cheyenne artist

Separated by art and anthropology for about half a century, this pair of beaded moccasins speaks to the history of collecting and categorizing, primarily by European Americans. Among numerous Native American works purchased by Sallie Casey Thayer during a trip to California in the spring of 1915, and possibly from her visit to the Panama Pacific International Exposition, this pair of beaded moccasins entered the collections of the University of Kansas as part of Thayer’s 1917 gift to form an art museum. According to inventory records, the moccasins—along with a number of other Native American objects including others donated by Thayer—were transferred from the art museum to the division of anthropology at the University’s Natural History Museum in 1958, and then again to the new KU Museum of Anthropology after its founding in 1979. However, one of the moccasins remained in the art museum where it was featured in special exhibitions. When the Museum of Anthropology closed, a portion of the collections were transferred to the Spencer Museum of Art in 2007, a return for the Native American art donated by Thayer and a reunion for this pair of moccasins.