BOARDING SCHOOL SEASONS

by Child, Brenda J.

• ISBN13: 9780803214804
• ISBN10: 0803214804
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1998-11-01
• Publisher: Univ of Nebraska Pr

Summary

Boarding School Seasonsoffers a revealing look at the strong emotional history of Indian boarding school experiences in the first half of the twentieth century. At the heart of this book are the hundreds of letters written by parents, children, and school officials at Haskell Institute in Kansas and the Flandreau School in South Dakota. These revealing letters show how profoundly entire families were affected by their experiences.Children, who often attended schools at great distances from their communities, suffered from homesickness, and their parents from loneliness. Parents worried continually about the emotional and physical health and the academic progress of their children. Families clashed repeatedly with school officials over rampant illnesses and deplorable living conditions and devised strategies to circumvent severely limiting visitation rules. Family intimacy was threatened by the school's suppression of traditional languages and Native cultural practices.Although boarding schools were a threat to family life, profound changes occurred in the boarding school experiences as families turned to these institutions for relief during the Depression, when poverty and the loss of traditional seasonal economics proved a greater threat.Boarding School Seasonsprovides a multifaceted look at the aspirations and struggles of real people.

Author Biography

Brenda J. Child is an associate professor of American studies at the University of Minnesota.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	vii	(2)
Acknowledgments	ix	(3)
Introduction: The Legacy of Boarding School Letters	xii
1 Star Quilts and Jim Thorpe	1	(8)
2 From Reservation to Boarding School	9	(17)
3 Train Time	26	(17)
4 Homesickness	43	(12)
5 Illness and Death	55	(14)
6 Working for the School	69	(18)
7 Runaway Boys, Resistant Girls	87	(9)
Conclusion	96	(5)
Appendixes	101	(16)
1 Red Lake Students Who Attended Nonreservation Schools Circa 1929	101	(7)
2 Flandreau Enrollment Figures, 1893-1939	108	(2)
3 Flandreau Enrollment Distributions by Tribe and by State, 1937-38	110	(2)
4 Haskell Institute Cemetery Burials, by Tribal Name on Tombstone	112	(5)
Notes	117	(18)
Bibliography	135	(4)
Index	139