La Posada Hotel and Winslow Arts Trust should stop calling this amazing piece of art "The Hubbell-Joe Rug." It took Julia Joe and two of her daughters five years to create this weaving in the 1930s. It was the largest one ever made. Yet for all that work, not to mention all that wool, Hubbell paid them less than $1,900 in trading post credit and redeemed pawn. That works out to $126 per person per year—a pittance even by the standards of the Great Depression.
Why is this important?
Tell the owners of La Posada Hotel it's time to re-center the story of Native arts where it belongs: on Native artists, not white traders.
La Posada Hotel and Winslow Arts Trust should stop calling Julia's Joe's weaving "The Hubbell-Joe Rug," and add a placard to their museum acknowledging why such practices are no longer acceptable.
