The 1897 book had immediate impact on ethnographic museums, and it became the standard reference for collecting and classifying Kwakwaka’wakw art until the 1970s. It was published shortly after Franz Boas became a curator at the American Museum of Natural History. During the museum’s Jesup North Pacific Expedition (1897–1902), he and George Hunt used the material illustrated in the book as a guide for building the collection in New York. Other museums also relied on it as a catalog for acquiring comparable collections and for mounting derivative displays. Over the next 35 years, until Hunt’s death, both men used the book to direct additional fieldwork and publishing efforts, connecting new material on regalia, songs, narratives, and ceremonies to those discussed in 1897.