Boarding School Seasons: American Indian Families, 1900-1940

Boarding School Seasons offers 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, & school officials at Haskell Institute in Kansas & 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, & their parents from loneliness. Parents worried continually about the emotional & physical health & the academic process of their children. Families clashed repeatedly with school officials over rampant illnesses & deplorable living conditions & devised strategies to circumvent severely limiting visitation rules. Family intimacy was threatened by the schools' suppression of traditional languages & Native cultural practices. Although boarding schools were a threat to family life, profound changes occurred in the boarding school experience as families turned to these institutions for relief during the Depression, when poverty & the loss of traditional seasonal economies proved a greater threat. Boarding School Seasons provides a multifaceted look at the aspirations & struggles of real people.

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