F. Peter Weil (German-American) was born in Germany in 1913 and came to the United States in 1938. Having started in photography as a hobby, he studied under Aaron Siskind and Art Sinsabaugh at the Institute of Design in Chicago on a part time basis (1952-1954). After working for photographers in Chicago and free-lancing for the Hyde Park Herald, Weil came to the Newberry Library in 1969 as the supervisor of the Photoduplication Department. While at the Newberry, he recorded all of the events involving Indian people at the Library beginning in 1972. In addition, Weil had an extensive collection of photographs from earlier community events, the most important of these being the 1961 Chicago Conference that brought hundreds of Indians to the University of Chicago and led to the founding of the National Indian Youth Congress. A former longtime resident of Hyde Park, Weil died in 1997 at the age of 83 in Missoula, Montana.