Talking Back To Civilization Indian Voices from the Progressive Era

As progressive reformers took on America's ills at the start of the twentieth century, a new generation of Native American reformers took on America, "talking back" to the civilization that had overrun but not crushed their own. This volume offers a collection of 21 primary sources, including journal articles, testimony, and political cartoons by Native Americans of the Progressive Era, who worked in a variety of fields to defend their communities and culture. Their voices are organized into 7 topical chapters on subjects such as native religion, education, and Indian service in World War I. Spanning the period from the 1893 Columbian Expedition to the 1920s' congressional land hearings, this rich array of voices fills an important gap in the chronology of Native American studies. An engaging introduction focusing on the intellectual leaders of the protest efforts includes background on the Progressive Era, while headnotes for each document, striking illustrations, a chronology of major events, and a bibliography support the firsthand accounts.

Frederick E. Hoxie is Swanlund Professor of History at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Educated at Amherst College and Brandeis University, Dr. Hoxie has taught at Antioch College and Northwestern University. In addition he has been Director of the D'Arcy McNickle Center for American Indian History and Vice President for Research and Education at the Newberry Library. He is the author of A Final Promise: The Campaign to Assimilate the Indians, 1880–1920 (1984), The Crow (1989), and Parading through History: The Making of the Crow Nation in America (1995). He has edited 7 books, including The Encyclopedia of North American Indians (1996). Dr. Hoxie has consulted for Indian tribes and government agencies; he is the former president of the American Society for Ethnohistory and served as a founding trustee of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the American Indian.