The Pennsylvania State University

The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School The College of Education THE CURRICULUM OF THE CARLISLE INDIAN INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL: AN AMERICAN EDUCATION A Dissertation in Curriculum and Instruction by Joy Meness Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy August 2017 i The dissertation of Joy Meness was reviewed and approved* by the following: Daniel Hade Associate Professor of Education (Language & Literacy Education) Dissertation Advisor Co-Chair of Committee Jacqueline Reid-Walsh Associate Professor of Education (Language & Literacy Education) and Women's Studies Co-Chair of Committee Jamie M. Myers Professor of Education (Language & Literacy Education) Christine Marmé Thompson Professor of Art Education William Carlsen Director of Graduate Studies, Curriculum and Instruction *Signatures are on file in the Graduate School. ii Abstract During the latter half of the 18th century, as aggressive and violent militarization continued, the United States legislated against Indian interests while promoting social advancement through industrial education. While boarding schools had been presented to European society as elite institutions for centuries, their transition to19th century North America signified a radical shift in form and function. Under orders carried out by the U.S. military, Native children were forcibly removed from their families to be educated at residential schools, undergoing training similar to that of military and prison inductees. Therefore the pedagogical roots of American Indian education during the 19th century were steeped in practices meant to assimilate Indigenous children into American society psychologically, spiritually, and physically. Founded in 1879, the Carlisle Indian Industrial School was established by United States Army General Richard H. Pratt, and the school ushered in a new era, one that promoted a militarized model for North American Indian education through English only instruction. Through historical analysis and contemporary Indigenous writings, this thesis examines the cultural context of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School curriculum using a framework that supports a collective body of boarding school research embedded within the overall context of American education. iii Table of Contents List of Figures – p. v List of Initialisms – p. vi Acknowledgements - p. vii Chapter 1 – The Statement of the Question p. 1 Chapter 2 – The Historical Underpinnings of American Education p. 24 Chapter 3 – The Methodological Aspects of Historical Research in Education p. 44 Chapter 4 - The Structure of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School p. 74 Chapter 5 – The Academic Department of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School p. 105 Chapter 6 - The Thirteen Books of the Carlisle Indian School p. 127 Chapter 7 – The Carlisle Indian School Library p. 177 Chapter 8 – Where Do We Go From Here? p. 190 References - p. 212 Appendix A – National Archive Holdings – p. 225 Appendix B – An Explanation & Use of Terms p. 237 Appendix C – Indian School Publication List - p. 241 iv List of Figures Figure 1 Carlisle Indian Press logo circa 1900. p. 50 Figure 2 Carlisle school photograph, 1885. p. 67 Figure 3 Carlisle students, 1892, p. 68 Figure 4 Classroom photo, 1900. Frances Benjamin Johnson, p. 68 Figure 5 First grade, Adult Class, Carlisle Indian School 1902. p. 78 Figure 6 1885 photograph of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School students. p. 80 Figure 7 Carlisle Indian School dining hall, circa 1902. p. 90 Figure 8 An illustration of Ada, a fictional character from Milne’s book. p. 137 Figure 9 Chiricahua Apache children upon arrival at CIIS in1886. p. 138 Figure 10 Chiricahua Apache children after arrival, November 1886. p. 139 Figure 11 Before. Pueblo Girls. 1884. p. 155 Figure 12 After. Pueblo Girls. p. 155 Figure 13 Susie Martinez, a member of the Delaware Nation, who entered the school on August 21, 1882, and departed on January 3, 1884. p. 157 Figure 14 The Carlisle Indian School library, circa 1902. p. 178 Figure 15 Carlisle Indian School library circa 1915. p. 180 Figure 16 Postcard image of the Carlisle School Library, circa 1915. p. 182 v List of Initialisms CIIS- Carlisle Indian Industrial School CCHS- Cumberland County Historical Society USAHEC – United State Army Heritage Education Center USAWC – United States Army War College vi Acknowledgements First, I would like to thank the United States Government, for without their co- operation this work could not have been written. Specifically, I appreciate the efforts of the United States Army, the United States Army Heritage Education Center (USAHEC), the Carlisle War College, and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) for their invaluable assistance and for allowing me access to the materials they are the caretakers of. ~Penn State University, who fully supported and funded this project, making the writing of this thesis possible. ~My doctoral committee, Dr. Daniel Hade, Chair, Dr. Jacqueline Reid-Walsh, Co-Chair, Dr. James Myers, and Dr. Christine Marmé Thompson. Only with their valuable insights, expertise, guidance, and belief in this project was this research possible. ~My children, Nicholas and Nicole, who sacrificed countless hours and spent their childhoods going to university with their mother as I pursued a dream of education for us all. ~Dr. Annette Gregerson and Dr. Christen Clemson who were my best friends, editors, cheerleaders, and academic support when I needed them most during this project. ~Just as I was finishing my program one of my dearest friends from Penn State went home. She died as she lived, with dignity. Forever you will be thought of and missed Cyndi Corn, onkya:táron ~ niwiijiwaaganag. vii ~ Everyone from home who was with me each step of the way. There were times when it seemed as if I was doing this work alone but we know better, you were all on this journey with me. Niawen:kówa sewakwá:kon~ táh:non akwátsi:re. ~ Mrs. Walker, my third grade teacher who rather insisted that I learn to write in cursive, (script) handwriting despite my best eight year old intentions not to. Thank you Mrs. Walker, for without this skill I would never have been able to read the Carlisle Indian School ledgers from the National Archives. You may be gone, but you will never be forgotten, and you were right, I did indeed need to learn cursive handwriting. ~And finally, to the survivors of all the residential schools and the families of those students, myself included. I wrote this in the hopes that the materials that I found would provide a way to understand our educational experiences, linking both past and present through literature. For me the books of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School became a touchstone by which we could connect with our history and our loved ones, as we heal from all that has been inflicted upon us in the name of education. viii REMEMBER US -- those of us whose classrooms were the fields, the forests, the mountains, the rivers, the sky, the visible heavens (sun, moon, stars), We did not have your formal training to become teachers, but we, too, were and are, teachers of ~ way of life -- to live in unity and harmony with and among those elements in our universe which give us sustenance from the ground up to the sky and beyond. Dr. Hazel Virginia Dean-John Dedication This is for all those who were once residential school students. You are the people whose survival meant our Onkwehón:we existence today. May you find yourself in these pages and know your sacrifices are remembered. ix Chapter 1 - The Statement of the Question The Constitution of Education American education began long before the arrival of Europeans on the North American continent. Prior to the 15th century, the Indigenous people of Turtle Island educated themselves much in the same way they do now, by adapting to the physical world and the times in which they live.1 Urban and Waggoner (2004) detailed the educational practices of the Seneca and Hopi, dating them back thousands of years, and detailing the skilled complexities of those communities in terms of food production and intricate communal construction. Bailyn, in Urban and Waggoner, noted that education across the centuries has been, “the entire process by which a culture transmits itself across the generations” (p. 14). Applied globally, education has been developed as an extension of local practices meant to continuously transmit a language, religion, or specific set of customs whenever people migrated, even if it was far from their collective place of origination. These elements, inexorably intertwined, were bound together as a key component for the survival of new settlements. By the 17th century, several colonizing nations from Europe were seeking to establish permanent territories in what has today become the United States. Not surprisingly there are not many scholars who have examined the origins of American education without correlating them to the anthropological and historical foundations of European society. Therefore the history of American education has followed an established historical narrative by framing the origination of education as beginning in New England after the arrival of the Europeans (Urban and Waggoner, 2004). This would be the start 1 Turtle Island is the commonly used name of North America used by many of the Indigenous peoples. 1 then of formal American education, which can be defined as the distinction of children learning apart from their home communities, and which may include being taught by a cultural group different than their own. After the initial founding of outposts and villages by Settlers and colonists, schools of all sizes were established in North America, primarily by the English and French. During the 17th century colonizing nations, and the religious groups that accompanied them, had begun to advocate formal training as an effective way of re-educating the Indigenous peoples of North America. These were both day and boarding schools; each one established as a way to integrate a particular set of Settler interests into Indigenous culture(s) through academic and religious means.

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