Why did it take Edward S. Curtis until 1930 to complete The North American Indian?

Edward S. Curtis completed The North American Indian in 1930 only after facing significant, long-term difficulties. The project's completion was delayed by several compounding factors:1

• Financial Pressures: The publication was sold on a high-priced subscription basis, which limited its market to the wealthy and major libraries. This business model forced Curtis into a cycle of incessant salesmanship that he had to balance against his extensive field research.2
• Economic Hardship: By the 1920s, Curtis faced severe financial strain, which was exacerbated by the breakdown of his marriage. These pressures compelled him to cede the rights to his own photographs, sell footage from his film work, and take employment as a stills cameraman in Hollywood to sustain himself.1
• Operational Demands: The project was a massive undertaking that required coordinating ethnological research, managing a subsidiary company, and conducting extended field trips to document over 80 distinct peoples.2

These challenges resulted in long intervals between the release of successive volumes, ultimately stretching the production of the series over more than two decades.13