David Wetzel

After receiving my B.A. and M.A. degrees in English literature from the University of Utah (1965 and 1967), I enrolled in the doctoral program in American studies at the University of Minnesota and became a candidate for the Ph.D. in 1975 (ABD). In 1980 I joined the Colorado Historical Society and served as its editor-in-chief for 26 years, retiring in 2006. In 1995, after the Society accepted Jean Afton's manuscript for publication, I worked with David Halaas and Andy Masich in reshaping the manuscript and conducting original research into the Dog Soldier Ledger in the Society's collection, including the creation of a database to examine artists, subjects, artistic media, and ethnographic details. For the ensuing publication, Cheyenne Dog Soldiers: A Ledgerbook History of Coups and Combat (1997), I wrote a description and analysis of the artistic styles of the ledger's fourteen warrior-artists and examined patterns of drawing placement within the ledger. In addition to other historical research and writing, I remain interested in the dynamic relationship in ledger book studies between the warrior-artists and the structural medium of the ledgers on which they work. In 2019 Plains Anthropologist published my study on this aspect of ledger art, comparing in particular the Cheyenne Dog Soldier ledger with the "Autobiography of Half Moon" featured in Castle McLaughlin's A Lakota War Book from the Little Bighorn ("Missing Links: Ledger Book Structure and Two War Books of the 1860s," Vol. 64, No. 250).