GWEN'S JOURNAL
Red cloud letter, South Dakota
Mt. Rushmore has always perplexed me, I admit. It’s certainly grand in scale and concept, yet the monument seems an intrusion into the magnificent natural landscape of the Black Hills of South Dakota.
I've discovered while researching this story that this land is sacred to the Lakota Sioux. Their creation myth says they followed the buffalo out of those hills into the world, and even today it is the site for all their ceremonies, both public and private. I’ve also learnt that their claims on this land go far beyond the integrity of their cultural beliefs; there was a treaty...
I went out to the sacred land to meet Alfred Red Cloud, chief of the Lakota and great-great-grandson of Red Cloud, one of the most respected Native American leaders of the late-19th century. He lives in Pine Ridge Reservation, several hours away from Mt. Rushmore, with 60,000 Lakota on a small territory that is the poorest county in the United States.
Alfred Red Cloud is truly inspirational, and meeting him was the highlight of this story. He and the tribal elders are undertaking extraordinary projects to help break the cycle of poverty, malnutrition, and dependency on the reservation. Native American engineers have helped them set up wind-generators for power and solar panels for their houses. Straw-bale houses have become popular, in a return to the tradition of renewable resources. People here have started growing more of their food, healthy food, unlike what’s available in stores (I’ve seen stories like these on other reservations – most, if not all, owned by whites and more expensive than any conventional grocery store). And the tribe now has a herd of 23 young buffalo. They are looking forward to the day when these animals can again provide not just meat but many other basic needs for the Lakota.
Alfred Red Cloud told me that two white buffalo calves were born this spring, an auspicious sign of positive events in the near future. Check out my web interview with the chief of the Lakota. I hope you, our History Detectives viewers, can join me in supporting these wonderful efforts.
More about this story
Posted on 20 August 2007 By Gwen Wright
Avery Clayton is a remarkable figure. I'm not sure what I'll learn about Nora Douglas Holt, whose autograph book I'll be investigating, but meeting Avery is an inspiration. He's about to launch the Mayme Clayton Collection and Museum in Los Angeles. It will be the world's largest collection of African-American history and memorabilia. Avery's mother, Mayme Clayton, was a professional librarian at USC and UCLA who spent over 40 years assembling these works, which now total over 3.5 million objects.
The range is astounding. It includes both master works and what we historians call 'ephemera', the ordinary everyday things that tell us so much about how people live. Just to take a few categories: this is the largest collection of films by African-American directors and actors, as well as films about African-American life. It is also the largest collection of recordings and sheet-music in all genres, from jazz and pop to classical. It includes every book ever published by an African-American, including several that don't exist in any other collection, as well as the full run of every magazine with African-American editors and every one that aimed for that market. Mayme Clayton also collected memorabilia about African-American cowboys (who were actually one in three cowboys for most of the late-19th Century). The collection comprises articles that evoke slave life and urban poverty as well as astonishing feats of creativity in every field of the arts, sciences, politics, business, and social reform.
A week later. Nora Douglas Holt! I'd never heard of her, nor has anyone else I've talked to. Turns out that she was a woman of prodigious creative talent who traveled the world. Even historians sometimes think we know most of what's important about the past, but there is still so much to take in. And, indeed, to marvel about. And Nora Holt is certainly in that category.
More about this story
Posted on 23 July 2007 By Gwen Wright
I'm intrigued by this powerful image for women's suffrage. Brilliant vivid colors. It depicts beautiful women, impressively modern yet also 'traditional', given the medieval pageant in this picture. The central figure is a magnificent 'page' on horseback, with a short, modern page-boy haircut. She's giving, quite literally, a clarion call for women's right to vote on her trumpet. This image must certainly have attracted considerable attention in 1913, the date that's noted here. That year marks the American suffrage movement's shift from the state constitutions (where it had not been particularly successful) to a nation-wide campaign for an amendment to the constitution. But what was the event being promoted here? Who organized it? Who took part? And who saw the event when it took place? In other words, I wonder if the ad worked. It would still be seven years until American women won the right to vote. This may have marked a turning point.
A week later: We've come up to the Schleisinger Library at Harvard, the best place in the world to study the history of American women. It's part of the Radcliffe Institute, what was formerly Radcliffe College before Harvard became co-ed. The archive here extends from documents to all sorts of visual material, not just photographs but lots of other objects. The suffrage movement spurred souvenirs and pennants and other promotional items. I've interviewed my friend Nancy Cott, who teaches history at Harvard and heads the library. We find a surprising number of sources for and references to our picture, and many ways to interpret its imagery. This could be a major find!
Two weeks later: After interviewing Nancy Cott, I stopped by to see another friend, Drew Gilpin Faust, another brilliant American historian and director of the Radcliffe Institute. Only a week later there's an official announcement that Drew has become the first woman president of Harvard. American women have seen many advances in the course of the past century, many of them the product of the suffrage movement this poster was promoting!
More about this story
Posted on 25 june 2007 By Gwen Wright
