American lithograph publishers. Most well-known for "History of the Indian Tribes of North America," a collection of 125 images that included biographical sketches and anecdotes of principal chiefs. Thomas Loraine McKenney (1785-1859) served as Commissioner of Indian Affairs from 1824 to 1830. In that capacity he commissioned and collected portraits of Native Americans for his Gallery in the War Department. McKenney's goal was to publish a record of vanishing peoples: portraits, biographical sketches and a history of North American Indians. He accomplished this in the first issue of the History of the Indian Tribes of North America, published in three volumes between 1838 and 1844. James Hall (1793-1868) provided the text.