The ONWARD Project- Rainbow Bridge-Monument Valley Expedition
The ONWARD Project Archive comprises material born out of the historic Rainbow Bridge-Monument Valley Expedition (RBMVE) and compiled during the 501(c)(3) organization’s research efforts. The RBMVE, c. 1933-1938, was a cooperative, depression-era, multi-institutional undertaking that provided foundational scientific, social, and environmental studies of the land and peoples within a three thousand square mile area of Northern Arizona and Southern Utah. The collection documents the work of a number of scientists, staff members, students, photographers, filmmakers, and artists resulting from or related to the Expedition. Material has been located in over fifty repositories, personal research collections, and descendant family collections. Additionally, a small amount of material was acquired by The ONWARD Project for the organization.
Types of materials include original diaries, correspondence, organizational records, recruitment and advertising ephemera, photographs, photograph albums, an illustrated master’s thesis, moving images, paintings, field notes and data, unpublished reports, and more. Topics cover a range of historically important issues including developing methods in field work of various disciplines, scientific and academic advancements during the Great Depression, relations between Native and settler/trader communities, and among others, the story of a potential National Park that never came to fruition.
The dynamic archive also includes The ONWARD Project's work in compensating for missing Native perspectives and sharing these stories with the public. This material includes reproductions of historical images used in Native community outreach events at Navajo Nation for crowdsourcing information initiatives, information about Navajo RBMVE staff members contributed by descendant family researchers, and film interview footage with descendants of Navajo RBMVE members, as well with at-large community members.
LanguageEnglishPermissions and ReuseThe items in this collection are either in copyright, or the copyright status is unknown. Please contact The ONWARD Project for permission to re-use items in this collection.