Harmon Percy Marble

Harmon Percival Marble (November 5, 1870 – February 3, 1945) was an American journalist and politician. He was the mayor of Las Vegas from 1938 to 1939 and was a photographer of Native Americans. He was a member of the Democratic Party.

Harmon Percy Marble
13th Mayor of Las Vegas
In office
1938–1939
Preceded byLeonard L. Arnett
Succeeded byJohn L. Russell
Personal details
Born
Harmon Percival Marble

(1870-11-05)November 5, 1870
Table Rock, Nebraska, U.S.
DiedFebruary 3, 1945(1945-02-03) (aged 74)
Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S.
Political partyDemocratic
ProfessionJournalist and politician

As a young adult, he worked for a number of years in the newspaper business, founding his own paper, the Humboldt Leader (probably Humboldt, Nebraska), in 1897. In 1911, he sold the paper in order to join the government Indian Service. He was first assigned to the Navajo Reservation in Arizona, then in 1913 to the Menominee Reservation in Wisconsin, followed by work with the Sioux tribes at Fort Thompson, South Dakota. Later he was in charge of the Southern Pueblos in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and finally returned to Arizona. In 1926, he retired from the Indian Service [1] and moved to Long Beach, California where he owned a cigar store. Later he joined family in Las Vegas, Nevada and lived out his remaining years there. He was a prominent civic leader and mayor of Las Vegas,[2] and was instrumental in establishing the first low-income family housing development there, which was renamed Marble Manor in his honor after his death in 1945.

Photographer

Marble photograph taken on the Menominee Reservation between 1913 and 1918

Marble is known as a prolific photographer of Native Americans. During his government career, he took advantage of opportunities afforded by his positions to take hundreds of photographs of the Navajo, Menominee and Sioux tribes. His photographs were inconsistently exposed, often poorly composed and poorly printed. However, this lack of artistic sense rendered photos which offer an unvarnished portraiture of the indigenous population more so than better known images captured by contemporaries the likes of Edward Curtis and Rodman Wanamaker.

References

  1. "Harmon Percy Marble". Native American Images. nativeamericanlinks.com. Archived from the original on January 21, 2013. Retrieved December 7, 2012.
  2. "Lot 43331, H.P. Marble Image of Menomonee Reservation Indians, circa 1915..." Heritage Auctions. Retrieved December 7, 2012.

Some of the information above was taken from hand-written family biographical documents acquired with the accompanying photograph.

Political offices
Preceded by
Leonard L. Arnett
Mayor of Las Vegas
1938–1939
Succeeded by
John L. Russell
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