ERIC Number: EJ752309
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2005
Pages: 20
Abstractor: Author
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0275-7664
EISSN: N/A
"Vanishing" Indians?: Cultural Persistence on Display at the Omaha World's Fair of 1898
Clough, Josh
Great Plains Quarterly, v25 n2 p67-86 Spr 2005
Nebraska's Indian population exploded in the summer of 1898, but it was not due to natural increase. More than 500 Indians representing twenty-three tribes came to Omaha as part of the United States Indian Bureau's exhibit at the Trans-Mississippi Exposition. During their three-month stay at the world's fair, Indians engaged in dancing, feasting, visiting, and earned money performing sham battles. In doing so they demonstrated not only the vibrancy and resilience of Native American cultures, but also the ineffectiveness of the government's assimilation policy. The Indian Bureau had $40,000 to spend to show the public how education was "civilizing" Native Americans. Instead, the Bureau sponsored an enormous intertribal powwow and Wild West show that directly contradicted its own policies. This essay demonstrates that Indians not only negotiated the terms on which they came to Omaha but also played a major role in determining what activities they would participate in once they arrived.
Descriptors: American Indian Culture, Tribes, American Indians, American Indian Education, Exhibits, American Indian History, United States History, Acculturation, Federal Government
Center for Great Plains Studies. University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 1155 Q Street, Hewit Place, P.O. Box 880214, Lincoln, NE 68588-0214. Tel: 402-472-3082; Fax: 402-472-0463; e-mail: cgps@unl.edu; Web site: http://www.unl.edu/plains
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Nebraska; United States
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A