Listening to Our Grandmothers' Stories: The Bloomfield Academy for Chickasaw Females, 1852-1949 (North American Indian Prose Award)
A history of Bloomfield Academy, the Chickasaw girls' school, traced through oral testimony and archival records. The book shows how education could function as a means of cultural survival rather than simple assimilation, following the school from its founding through major shifts in control.
Work Information
It reframes education as a force of survival rather than surrender.
Founded in 1852 through cooperation between the Chickasaw Nation and missionaries, Bloomfield Academy served Chickasaw girls for nearly a century. Drawing on letters, reports, interviews, and school programs, Amanda J. Cobb shows how the school sustained Chickasaw values under intense pressures to assimilate and gradually became a means of self-preservation. The original English edition appeared in 2000, and University of Nebraska Press later issued a Bison Books paperback in 2007.
Review Summaries
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The book is praised for its personal commitment and for the care with which it uses oral testimony. At the same time, some readers would have welcomed a broader comparison with other schools of the period.
Book Information
- Publisher
- Univ of Nebraska Pr
- Published
- 2000-12-01
- Pages
- 162 pages
- Language
- 英語
- Size
- 15.24 x 1.91 x 22.86 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9780803215092
- ISBN-10
- 0803215096
- Price
- 17740 JPY
- Category
- 洋書/Politics & Social Sciences/Social Sciences/Specific Demographics/Native American Studies
Bloomfield Academy was founded in 1852 by the Chickasaw Nation in conjunction with missionaries. It remained open for nearly a century, offering Chickasaw girls one of the finest educations in the West. After being forcibly relocated to Indian Territory, the Chickasaws viewed education as instrumental to their survival in a rapidly changing world. Bloomfield became their way to prepare emerging generations of Chickasaw girls for new challenges and opportunities. Amanda J. Cobb became interested in Bloomfield Academy because of her grandmother, Ida Mae Pratt Cobb, an alumna from the 1920s. Drawing on letters, reports, interviews with students, and school programs, Cobb recounts the academy’s success story. In stark contrast to the federally run off-reservation boarding schools in operation at the time, Bloomfield represents a rare instance of tribal control in education. For the Chickasaw Nation, Bloomfield―a tool of assimilation―became an important method of self-preservation.
Amanda J. Cobb is an associate professor of American studies at the University of New Mexico and is the editor of American Indian Quarterly . She is a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma.
Reviews
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Wonderful!, Wonderful!, I loved it. I ordered one for my Mom and one for my Sister. My Mom went nuts over it. She knew so many names and my Great, Great, Great, Aunt Estelle Chisholm was a professor who taught at the Academy. My Mom told us a story about her. The book has inspired me to do more research on my family. I was amazed at learning the resilience of the Chickasaw people and their will to survive. I am also proud to know that they did not only survive but they made a point that will stick with me for all my life. The will to learn is the only way to survive in this world.
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My grandmother attended this school and then transferred to Oklahoma Presbyterian College. Reading this book was; for me, like asking her things I have wanted to ask her as an adult. There was her childhood that she never talked about. I will treasure this book!
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Beautifully told stories of a bygone era! Thank you for helping to keep this treasured past alive! Chikasha saya!