Colonized through art : American Indian schools and art education, 1889-1915 / Marinella Lentis.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Colonized through Art explores how the federal government used art education for American Indian children as an instrument for the "colonization of consciousness," hoping to instill the values and ideals of Western society while simultaneously maintaining a political, social, economic, and racial hierarchy.



Focusing on the Albuquerque Indian School in New Mexico, the Sherman Institute in Riverside, California, and the world's fairs and local community exhibitions, Marinella Lentis examines how the U.S. government's solution to the "Indian problem" at the end of the nineteenth century emphasized education and assimilation. Educational theories at the time viewed art as the foundation of morality and as a way to promote virtues and personal improvement. These theories made the subject of art a natural tool for policy makers and educators to use in achieving their assimilationist goals of turning student "savages" into civilized men and women. Despite such educational regimes for students, however, indigenous ideas about art oftentimes emerged "from below," particularly from well-known art teachers such as Arizona Swayney and Angel DeCora.



Colonized through Art explores how American Indian schools taught children to abandon their cultural heritage and produce artificially "native" crafts that were exhibited at local and international fairs. The purchase of these crafts by the general public turned students' work into commodities and schools into factories.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Independent researcher Lentis's well-researched study of teaching art in US government-operated boarding schools for American Indian students over a century ago focuses on Albuquerque Indian School in New Mexico and Sherman Institute in California, and on Indian student art exhibited at world fairs and conferences. She describes how art was taught in the US generally at the time and compares it to how art was taught to Indians. Her overall theme is that art was used in "colonizing students' consciousness," with schools delivering "education for class subservience." In contrast to Hopi historian Matthew Sakiestewa Gilbert's study of the Sherman Institute, Education beyond the Mesas (2010) and John R. Gram's study of Albuquerque Indian School, Education at the Edge of Empire (CH, Oct'15, 53-0883), covering some of the same time period, Lentis portrays a bleaker picture of oppression and less Indian agency in these schools. However, she also describes favorably the work of Angel DeCora, an Indian artist who taught at Carlisle Indian Industrial School, and the more culturally sensitive work of William Hailmann as the US government's superintendent of Indian schools from 1894 to 1898. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students/faculty. --Jon Allan Reyhner, Northern Arizona University