The work of Frank Rinehart, while not as well known as that of Edward Curtis, is widely recognized as some of the most important pieces of Native American portraiture of the late 19th and early 20th century. These photographs, Rinehart and Muhr's 1900 work at Crow Agency , Montana, in particular, is of great value to researchers, historians, and tribal people alike due to their candid nature and their representation of Native Americans of the time as diverse people encompassing hundreds of unique cultures spanning the continent.

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Of particular importance in the Rinehart images is the clothing and items with which these individuals were photographed. Many photographers in working with Native Americans during this period would often curate the regalia their subjects wore and were photographed with in order to achieve an image that suited their goal of documenting what was then believed to be a "backward" or "dying race." The individuals in Rinehart's photographs were depicted as they were, in their own regalia, and while some of the settings were posed as studio photographs, the subjects themselves present a degree of authenticity that is not common in the work of other photographers of the time.

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This collection of rare photographic images includes images produced at the 1898 Indian Congress and Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition, the 1899 Greater American Exposition, studio portraits from 1900, and photographs by Rinehart and Muhr taken at the Crow Agency in Montana also in 1900. Haskell owns 790 of the glass plate negatives that were the result of this documentation.

While there are other collections of these plates in existence, the Frank A. Rinehart Collection at the Haskell Cultural Center and Museum is the largest, and most complete.