The Science Museum of Minnesota owns thousands of photographs. About 800 of these are part of the Sumner Matteson collection. In 1907, the same year The Science Museum of Minnesota was established, Oaxaca, Mexico was a very rural area. Matteson traveled by burro to photograph this family in Mitla, Oaxaca. The woman and young girl are wearing traditional hand woven shirts and skirts, and the man in the background is using a portable backstrap loom to weave a belt.

Matteson was a Midwesterner who traveled the world, documenting culture. He sought out common scenes—regular people doing regular things. His photographs are an invaluable historical record for curators, helping to contextualize objects in a specific place and time.
- Tilly Laskey, Curator of Ethnology