Joseph K. Dixon

Joseph Kossuth Dixon (1856–1926) was an American clergyman, lecturer and photographer who led the Wanamaker expeditions visiting indigenous peoples of the United States.

Biography

Dixon was born in Hemlock Lake, New York, in 1856, to Irish immigrants Adam Dixon (later a captain for the Union army and ultimately a brigadier general), and Ann Lightfoot Dixon. He attended the Leavenworth Normal School in Kansas and graduated from Rochester Theological Seminary in 1883 with a Bachelor of Divinity. From 1883 to 1889 he was pastor of the First Baptist church in Auburn, New York. He moved to Epiphany Baptist Church in Philadelphia, leaving that post in 1895. That year Dixon was an interim pastor of Sioux Falls, South Dakota's First Baptist church. He ceased ministry later that year and worked for some religious publications before finding work giving lectures for Eastman Kodak from 1904 to 1906. Dixon received a degree from William Jewell College in 1897, and honorary Doctor of Divinity and Doctor of Law degrees from Bucknell University and Temple University, respectively.

After 1906 he was employed by Wanamaker's, giving educational lectures. Dixon fashioned himself as an expert on Native Americans, and convinced Rodman Wanamaker to fund the Wanamaker expeditions, three trips from 1908 to 1913 that visited Native American tribes, including a 1913 "Expedition of Citizenship". In 1909 Dixon attended a dinner where he talked to prominent Americans such as Buffalo Bill, Nelson A. Miles, and Leonard Wood and they discussed constructing a National American Indian Memorial. Dixon worked to create such a monument.