US History

The Emergence of Modern America (1890-1930)

The Great Depression and World War II (1929-1945)

Native Americans

Law and Government

This collection uses primary sources to explore American Indian life between 1900 and 1940 and the Indian Reorganization Act.

Teaching Guide: Exploring American Indian Life between 1900 and 1940

A letter from the Commissioner of Indian Affairs (the “long hair” letter) about the way in which Indian people should dress and act, 1902.

A response to the “long hair” letter from the Hoopa Valley Indian Agency, 1902.

A photograph of a Crow Indian family eating together in their kitchen, 1910.

A photograph of a Crow Indian camp, taken between 1901 and 1911.

An excerpt from a daily schedule of programming for the Fort Bidwell boarding school in 1923.

A photograph of girls setting the lunch table at St. Francis Mission School in South Dakota, ca. 1915.

A photograph of boys planting while girls watch at St. Bernard’s Mission, Standing Rock Reservation, 1934.

An excerpt from *The Problem of Indian Administration*, a study of conditions on reservations conducted by the Brookings Institution, 1928.

A Bureau of Indian Affairs poster about the dangers of the eye disease trachoma, 1937.

A map showing the location of Indian reservations in 1900 and 1930.

An excerpt from *The New Day for the Indians*, an analysis of the successes of the Indian Reorganization Act, published in 1938.

An excerpt from *Rebuilding Indian Country*, a film created by the US Department of the Interior, 1933.

A photograph of Superintendent A. G. Hutton explaining the Indian Reorganization Act to Navajo men, 1934.

A photograph of a Navajo boy and a goat, ca. 1940.

An excerpt from a Department of the Interior report that explains Indian citizenship, 1952.

Resources

1. “[The CCC Indian Division](https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2016/summer/ccc-id.html),” *Prologue Magazine*, Summer 2016. 
2. [Student Files](http://carlisleindian.dickinson.edu/student-files), Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center. 
3. “[Good or Bad? Indian Reorganization Act Turns 75](https://www.huffingtonpost.com/tim-giago/good-or-bad-indian-reorga_b_284940.html),” *Huffington Post*, September 14, 2009.  

Overview

In 1900, the federal census recorded just over 200,000 American Indian people living in the United States. Most lived on reservations—parcels of land that Indian people had retained in treaty negotiations—over which the federal government claimed jurisdiction. By 1900, the policy of the federal government was that American Indian people needed to assimilate into white society, giving up their traditional ways to become like Euro-Americans in their living arrangements, dress, pastimes, religious expression, and work.
 
The government tried to achieve assimilation in many ways. One was to divide certain reservations into individual parcels of land for male-headed families to own and farm. A federal policy since 1887, this process drastically reduced the size of the affected reservations and saw the transfer of land from Indian hands to those of whites. A second government policy required Indian children to attend [boarding schools](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/sets/american-indian-boarding-schools/) a great distance from their homes, where school staff tried to make them look, speak, and pray like white children.
 
These policies largely came to an end in 1934 with the passage of the Indian Reorganization Act (IRA), which replaced assimilation programs with initiatives that attempted to strengthen the tribes. Part of the “Indian New Deal,” this legislation was spurred by a 1928 Brookings Institution report that found terrible poverty on reservations across the United States. Each American Indian nation had to vote on whether to accept the IRA. When voting was finished, 172 tribes had accepted the act, and 73 had rejected it. The Navajo nation—the largest Indian nation in the country—rejected the plan. They distrusted the Bureau of Indian Affairs because it had ordered them to kill many of their sheep and goats in 1934 in a misguided attempt to stop soil erosion on the reservation. The Navajo were left without the livestock on which they depended, especially during the harsh winter of 1934. 

English

Reservations, Resistance, and the Indian Reorganization Act, 1900-1940

reservations-resistance_07_8e8f4124310bab5f86b336cb30ec87d5.jpg

Courtesy of Marquette University Archives, Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions Records. ID# 00260 via Recollection Wisconsin.

Seraphine, Sister M., “Children planting at Mission, 1934,” Digital Public Library of America, https://dp.la/item/8e8f4124310bab5f86b336cb30ec87d5.


The effort to teach Indian children how to be more like white children included teaching them Euro-American gender roles. Here, young boys are being taught the principles of agriculture, with young girls looking on but not participating in the activity. The St. Bernard’s Mission school was opened by the Catholic Church at Fort Yates in North Dakota in 1877.

A photograph of boys planting while girls watch at St. Bernard’s Mission, Standing Rock Reservation, 1934.

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Tips for Students

Item 7 of 15 in the Primary Source Set Reservations, Resistance, and the Indian Reorganization Act, 1900-1940