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Dissertation Information for Deborah Sue Welch

NAME:
- Deborah Sue Welch

DEGREE:
- Ph.D.

DISCIPLINE:
- History

SCHOOL:
- University of Wyoming (USA) (1985)

ADVISORS:
- Peter Iverson

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
- None

MPACT Status: Incomplete - Not_Inspected

Title: ZITKALA-SA: AN AMERICAN INDIAN LEADER, 1876-1938

Abstract: While increasing attention has been paid over the past decade to the history of American Indian women, few biographies focusing on twentieth-century figures have been forthcoming. Historians now recognize the importance of the early 1900s as a time of critical transition for American Indian peoples. Studies of developing pan-Indian organizations and tribal identities, including biographies of prominent male leaders from these years, have now appeared. Yet, Indian women, too, played an important and often key role in shaping the evolution of Indian self-determination.

This thesis focuses on the life of one of the most articulate and active Indian women of her generation, Zitkala-Sa or Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, a Yankton Sioux. Over the course of her life, Zitkala-Sa worked for the welfare of Indian peoples as a writer, public speaker, Congressional lobbyist, and pan-Indian leader. She stood apart from the acculturationist Anglo and Indian reformers of her day, insisting instead upon a recognition of the equality and on-going viability of Indian cultures.

Refusing to bend to any constraints imposed upon her because of race or gender, Zitkala-Sa sought and achieved leadership in the evolving pan-Indian movements of the early twentieth century, first the Society of American Indians and later the National Council of American Indians. At the same time, she worked to establish a modern sense of tribalism which would provide a proud identity and common heritage for all Indian peoples, those who remained on the reservation and those, who, like Zitkala-Sa, lived their lives in the Anglo world. In both national pan-Indian and Yankton tribal organization, Zitkala-Sa spent her life in defense of the rights of Indian peoples as well as her own right as a woman to be recognized as an American Indian leader.

MPACT Scores for Deborah Sue Welch

A = 0
C = 0
A+C = 0
T = 0
G = 0
W = 0
TD = 0
TA = 0
calculated 2010-06-22 13:01:37

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