Brady was a celebrated American photographer remembered for his work in the years before and during the American Civil War. He took his studio onto the battlefields and created over 10,000 glass-plate negatives using many photographers. His heritage is a remarkable collection, one of the first to show the grim horrors of war realistically.

In 1906 J.P. Morgan offered Edward Curtis $75,000 to produce a series of books on the North American Indian. It would end up to be a big series - twenty volumes with 1,500 photographs. This book starts with the story of the chance meeting on Mount Rainer that led to Curtis' involvement on the Harriman Alaskan expedition, and ultimately, to the North American Indian.