Couse and the Tourist Trade
More than 30 years after E. I. Couse’s death, his work continued to circulate through Fred Harvey dining-car menus, like this one from 1967, and other promotional materials. These reproductions gave Couse’s images an extended commercial afterlife, keeping his vision of Taos and Pueblo life before travelers well into the mid-twentieth century.
E. I. Couse’s work reached hundreds of thousands of homes, offices, and schools through Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway promotional calendars, such as the one on this page from 1934. Couse’s work appears in 22 calendars between the years 1914 and 1938, and were reproduced again for decades, introducing new generations to his idealized depictions of Southwestern life.
E. I. Couse, The Smoke Ceremony, reproduced for the 1934 AT&SF calendar; model, Ben Lujan (Taos Pueblo). Calendar in the collection of Couse-Sharp Historic Site.