Savage Preservation

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, writers and anthropologists believed that the world{u2019}s primitive races were on the brink of extinction. They also believed that films, photographs, and phonographic recordings{u2014}modern media in their technological infancy{u2014}could capture lasting relics of primitive life before it vanished into obscurity. For many Americans, the promise of media and the problem of race were inextricably linked. While professional ethnologists tried out early recording machines to preserve the sounds of authentic indigenous cultures,…