Tuesday, April 30, 2019

OGDEN UNION STATION, UTAH by Zina Abbott



In less than two weeks, May 10, 2019 marks the sesquicentennial of the joining of the Union Pacific Railroad and the Central Pacific Railroad at Promontory Summit north of the Great Salt Lake in Utah. It is sometimes known as the Golden Spike, or Last Spike, ceremony. I will be featuring details of the first transcontinental railroad in my next few blog posts. 

Locomotive in from the Ogden, Utah, Union Station
Why Ogden?  Ogden was the closest sizable city to the Golden Spike location at Promontory Summit, Utah, where the First Transcontinental Railroad was joined on May 10, 1869. Since one of my great-grandfathers, Edwin Brown, was hired to work for the Union Pacific Railroad once it reached Utah, I have been interested in this event in history for some time. He was present at the original Golden Spike ceremony. Believe me, each time I find a new photograph taken at that event, I scour the faces standing off to the side hoping to see someone who looks like him.


In 2014, I went on vacation for the better part of three weeks. No writing or blogging, only sight-seeing and picture-taking. I lost 200-400 images from my camera, but between my camera and cell phone I still saved 1,800 plus images to my computer. The ones I have about the joining of the Transcontinental Railroad at Promontory Summit come not from the site itself -- those were among the lost -- but from the museum that is part of the Union Station museum in Ogden, Utah.


The name Union Station was commonly given to train stations where tracks and facilities were shared by two or more railway companies. The station is currently home to the Utah State Railroad Museum.



Ogden Union Station today
Charles Trentelman, a member of the Union Station Foundation Board of Directors said. "The railroads changed Ogden from a sleepy agricultural backwater to a bustling transportation and manufacturing hub, the railroads funneled everything they did through this station," he noted.  "Agriculture, business, manufacturing, and tourism all flowed through the Union Station and it was critical to the locals that the station reflect the aspiration of the community for growth and development".

Mural depicting the building of the Central Pacific Railroad

On March 8, 1869, the Union Pacific came to Ogden on its way to Promontory Summit to meet the Central Pacific, thus completing the transcontinental rail line. Four cities near this location, Corrine, Promontory, Uintah, and Ogden, competed with each other for the opportunity to house the train station that would be the junction for railroad travel in the Intermountain West.

Mural depicting the building of the Union Pacific Railroad
Promontory and Uintah lacked the necessary resources to house the Station. Corinne and Ogden competed for many years for the "Junction City" title, until Brigham Young donated several hundred acres of land to the two railroads on the condition that they build the yards and station in west Ogden. 

Interior of Ogden Union Station lobby
Although Union Station no longer serves as a railway hub, it remains a cultural hub due to the museums located at the Station. A museum since 1978, is actually the third version train depot in town and was dedicated on November 22, 1924.  The stations two predecessors set the stage for today's structure.  

The first train station in Odgen-from the Ogden Union Station display
The first train station in Ogden was a small, two-story wooden frame building on the banks of the Weber River, which opened in 1860. The facility quickly became inadequate so the Union and the Central Pacific combined forces in 1889 to build a much larger Union Station, of brick and a center clock tower. 

Old Rio Grande Caboose in front of Ogden Union Station
This small building was also the facility for the narrow gauge Utah Central Railroad (later Oregon Short Line) and the narrow gauge Rio Grande Western (later Denver & Rio Grande Western). Local newspapers complained about, among other things, the quarter mile of wood boardwalk required to traverse the swampy ground to reach the station. In response to these worries the Union Pacific and Central Pacific organized the jointly-owned Ogden Union Railway & Depot Co. (OUR&D) to oversee the construction and management of a new Union Station. 

1891 Drawing of Ogden Union Railway Station
A new structure, considerably larger than the old and constructed of brick, was built, and dedicated on December 31 in 1889. The dedication attracted around 6,000 people. It served the community for several decades. It was designed in the Romanesque Revival style, with a large clock tower in the center. This building, in addition to serving the needs of the railroad, also contained 33 hotel rooms as well as a restaurant, barbershop, and other conveniences for the enjoyment of the traveler.

This station included 33 hotel rooms, a restaurant and even a barbershop.  This station worked well for over three decades.  In 1920, some $11,000 was spent re-papering, painting, and roofing the building.  An underground walkway to separate the tracks to the west was also built.  On February 13, 1923, one of the hotel rooms caught fire and quickly spread to the rest of the station.  No one was killed, or injured, but the Station had to be gutted, with only fragile walls and the clock left standing.  Since the station walls had not been leveled, the Ogden Union Railway & Depot Company, which owned the building, thought they could just restore what was there before including the clock tower. But soon after a stone fell off the clock tower and instantly killed a railroad clerk.  This accident, as well as pleading from City officials for a new building prompted railroad officials to start over with a new design.





Some of the images and information were first published on my own Trails & Rails blog under Robyn Echols. Zina Abbott is my pen name for writing American historical romance. 

Speaking of which, I, writing as Zina Abbott, recently published a book set in Utah. Although it does not involve the Transcontinental Railroad directly, the nearest rail connection to the locality in the series, The Widows of Wildcat Ridge, is in Evanston, Wyoming. My book, Diantha, is now available on Amazon in ebook format, and will soon be available in print. Please CLICK HERE to access the book description and purchase link.

To learn more about the series, The Widows of Wildcat Ridge, and the coming series by many of the same favorite authors, plus some new favorite authors, please join the reader group. CLICK HERE.

 

Sources:
https://ogdencity.com/1336/History-of-the-Union-Station
Wikipedia



Sunday, April 28, 2019

THE DEVIL'S IN THE DETAILS--PART 3--SETTING by Cheryl Pierson

Are you a reader who loves descriptions and details of settings? Glittering ballrooms, the bone-chilling cold of a winter in the Rockies…or maybe the oppressive, killing heat of the desert? What about something idyllic, like a river or creek babbling through the woods? A beautiful rose garden, or even the ugly side of description—such as barren prison walls, or a Civil War battlefield?
It depends on the story, doesn’t it, and again, how much importance those descriptions have on the impact of the action, and the outcome of the story.

Let’s use a ball as our example.
If you’ve never been to an 1800’s ball—and none of us have—we need to know at least the barest details.

Five basic things we need to know are:
What is a ball?
Why is the ball being given?
Who will be invited?
When will the ball be given?
Where will it be held?

That’s enough for some stories. But the main question is—how important is the ball to the plot?

This is where layering comes in—and this one scene, and the details it contains—can be vital to what comes next, or even many scenes later.
So many things can happen at a ball!

Guests can meet for the first time, uninvited guests can show up, clothing can have significance, music can bring back memories, the food can even be poisoned!

Or, the ball can just be a ball, like the old saying attributed to Sigmund Freud, “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar…” –and if that’s the case, then tedious description and intricate detail is wasted because the ball is just a vehicle to get from one scene in the story to the next, and has no real underlying importance.

Describing the details of the clothing worn is sometimes distracting as it pulls us away from the action. We may be reading about a blue satin gown when we need to be concentrating on the man who lurks in the shadows. Too much description can bog down the reader and deaden the story rather than bring it to life.

Why? Because deep description of the things such as décor, clothing, and meals stop the action of the characters. The plot “takes a break” while our minds process all of the description of the scenery, the meals, the clothing. In this case, again, sometimes, “less is more” and we need to let the reader’s mind fill in much of that kind of detail.

Consider this: We know certain facts—a ball costs a lot of money to host. So we already understand that those who are invited are most likely people who move in the same upper crust social circles. Therefore, we know they, too, have money, so are appropriately dressed, arrive in style, and are schooled in proper societal customs. One excellent way to cut through the “red tape” of description (of things we already know) is to describe something that is out of place, or “not right” as this reminds us of what should be—and those details of descriptions we’re already aware of.

Perhaps an impostor at the ball commits a social faux pas without realizing it, alerting others to the fact she isn’t who she pretends to be. Maybe an unlikely hero comes to her aid quickly, offering an excuse, or correcting the mistake before others notice.
This scenario does several things for the story that simple description can’t achieve.

1. Points out the discrepancy in what should be and what is.
2. Allows our characters interaction, and possibly dialogue and observation, rather than the author filling the page with scenic description.
3. Allows the reader the opportunity to learn more about the characters and their personalities through this interaction, and can be a vehicle to reveal something of importance.
4. Can possibly further the action during such a scene rather than slowing it by miles of scenic description.

This is not to say that there isn’t a time and a place for detailed descriptions of settings! We can’t call ourselves authors and take the “easy” way out by saying, “It was a ball like any other” by way of description, unless—we put it in the right context.

How about this:
Jake looked around at the opulent ballroom –the surroundings were familiar in a tiresome, cloying way. Or…maybe was jaded. It was a ball like any other—except for one thing. Something that made him catch his breath and inwardly let go a streak of curses he’d love to shout to the skies. She was here. The woman he’d thought he’d never see again…

Well, anything can happen now, can’t it? Maybe she’s wearing an inappropriate shade of red amidst a sea of violet and blue. There are so many ways to make setting come alive without endless description that many readers become bored with and skim over.
If you read my last installment of this blog series about main characters, the examples I used from Shane (Jack Schaefer) and St. Agnes’ Stand (Tom Eidson) are also prime examples of description of setting as well as character.

But here’s another good one I really think is wonderful from Conagher, by Louis L’Amour. In this story, Evie from “back East” has come out west to marry a man with two children. Evie tries to make the best of things, but she lives in fear at first. The land is so different, After she’s been there a while, she finds there is a beauty in her surroundings she had to grow to love, in time.

As L’Amour describes the heroine's (Evie) dismal hopelessness at the land her husband (Jacob) has brought her to, we wonder how she will survive. Yet, Jacob has plans, sees the possibilities that Evie cannot, or will not see. The underlying message is, "The land is what we make of it."

As the story continues, she begins to appreciate the beauty of the prairie, while acknowledging the solitary loneliness of her existence. She plants a garden, nurturing the plants, and gradually she sees the farm being shaped into a good home from the ramshackle place she'd first laid eyes on.

The land is beautiful, but unforgiving. Her husband is killed in a freak accident, and for months she doesn't know what has happened to him. She faces the responsibility of raising his two children from a previous marriage alone.

In her loneliness, she begins to write notes describing her feelings and ties them to tumbleweeds. The wind scatters the notes and tumbleweeds across the prairie. Conagher, a loner, begins to wonder who could be writing them, and slowly comes to believe that whomever it is, these notes are meant for him.

At one point, visitors come from back East. One of them says to Evie something to the effect of "I don't know how you can stand it here."
This is Evie's response to her:

"I love it here," she said suddenly. "I think there is something here, something more than all you see and feel…it's in the wind.

"Oh, it is very hard!" she went on. "I miss women to talk to, I miss the things we had back East–the band concerts, the dances. The only time when we see anyone is like now, when the stage comes. But you do not know what music is until you have heard the wind in the cedars, or the far-off wind in the pines. Someday I am going to get on a horse and ride out there"–she pointed toward the wide grass before them–"until I can see the other side…if there is another side."

The land, at first her nemesis, has become not only a friend, but a soulmate. L’Amour gives us this description through Evie’s eyes and feelings, not in writing about it from his perspective as the author.

Think of your own writing projects, and books you've read. What importance do you give setting in description, plot, even characterization? Within 40 pages of 'Conagher', we understand that the land, with all its wild beauty and dangers has become enmeshed in Evie's character. She can't leave it, and it will never leave her.

Endless, detailed description can’t do what L’Amour does through Evie’s eyes in a very few sentences. Do you have a favorite description of a setting you've read about or written about?

Friday, April 26, 2019

GERTRUDE SIMMONS BONNIN, INFLUENTIAL LAKOTA ACTIVIST


Those of you who read the previous post by Doris McCraw (writing as Angela Rains) will understand my next sentence. I started out researching the former Western Cherokee Chief Wilma Mankiller. I stumbled onto another amazing woman and will report on her instead.


Zitkála-Šá (1876–1938), also known as Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, her missionary-given and later married name, was a Yankton Dakota Sioux writer, editor, translator, musician, educator, and political activist. Her Lakota name means Red Bird or Cardinal. One of the most outspoken voices raised on behalf of Native Americans during the early twentieth century, Gertrude Simmons Bonnin was a granddaughter of the famous Sioux chief Sitting Bull. She was born the year of the Battle of Little Bighorn.
She wrote several works chronicling her struggles with cultural identity and the pull between the majority culture she was educated within and her Dakota Sioux culture into which she was born and raised. Her later books were among the first works to bring traditional Native American stories to a widespread white English-speaking readership, and she has been noted as one of the most influential Native American activists of the 20th century.
Working with American musician William F. Hanson, Zitkala-Å a wrote the libretto and songs for The Sun Dance Opera, (1913), the first American Indian opera. It was composed in romantic musical style, and based on Sioux and Ute cultural themes.) This opera incorporated some of the traditional Ute dances that had been banned by the government.
She was co-founder of the National Council of American Indians in 1926, which was established to lobby for Native people’s right to United States citizenship and other civil rights they had long been denied. Zitkala-Å a served as the council’s president until her death in 1938.
Zitkála-Šá was born on February 22, 1876 on the Yankton Indian Reservation in South Dakota. She was raised by her mother, Ellen Simmons, whose Dakota name was Thaté IyóhiwiÅ‹ (Every Wind or Reaches for the Wind). Her father was a German-American man named Felker, who abandoned the family while Zitkala-Å a was very young.
For her first eight years, Zitkála-Šá lived on the reservation. She later described those days as ones of freedom and happiness, safe in the care of her mother's people and tribe. In 1884, when Zitkala-Å a was eight, missionaries came to the Yankton Reservation. They recruited several of the Yankton children, including Zitkala-Šá, taking them for education to the White's Indiana Manual Labor Institute, a missionary Quaker school that taught speaking, reading, and writing English, in Wabash, Indiana. This training school was founded by Josiah White for the education of "poor children, white, colored, and Indian," with the goal of helping them advance in society.
Zitkála-Šá attended the school for three years until 1887. She later wrote about this period in her work, The School Days of an Indian Girl. She described both the deep misery of having her heritage stripped away when she was forced to pray as a Quaker and cut her traditionally long hair. By contrast, she took joy in learning to read and write, and to play the violin.
In 1887 Zitkála-Šá returned to the Yankton Reservation to live with her mother. She spent three years there. She was dismayed to realize that, while she still longed for the native Yankton traditions, she no longer fully belonged to them. In addition, she thought that many on the reservation were conforming to the dominant white culture.
In 1891, wanting more education, Zitkála-Šá decided at age fifteen to return to the White's Indiana Manual Labor Institute. She planned to gain more through her education than becoming a housekeeper, as the school anticipated girls would eventually do. She studied piano and violin and started to teach music at White's after the teacher resigned. In June 1895, when Zitkála-Šá was awarded her diploma, she gave a speech on the inequality of women’s rights, which received high praise from the local newspaper.
Though her mother wanted her to return home after graduation, Zitkála-Šá chose to attend Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana, where she had been offered a scholarship. Higher education for women was quite limited at the time. While initially feeling isolated and uncertain among her predominantly white peers, she soon proved her oratorical talents again with a speech entitled "Side by Side" in 1896. During this time, she began gathering traditional stories from a spectrum of Native tribes, translating them first to Latin and then to English for children to read. Some sources say that In 1897, six weeks before graduation, she was forced to leave Earlham College due to ill health and financial difficulties. Other sources say it was her mother’s ill health that forced her to leave school. Another source says she was awarded her diploma from the college.

With her violin in 1898
I was struck by how peaceful and happy she appears in the photo above. She must have been torn between music and politics on behalf of her tribe. From 1897-1899 Zitkala-Å a studied and played the violin at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston.
In 1899 she took a position at Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania, where she taught music to the children. She also conducted debates on the treatment of Native Americans. At the 1900 Paris Exposition, she played violin with the school's Carlisle Indian Band. In the same year, she began writing articles on Native American life, which were published in such national periodicals as Atlantic Monthly and Harper’s Monthly. Her critical appraisal of the American Indian boarding school system and vivid portrayal of Indian deracination were markedly contrasting to the more idealistic writings of most of her contemporaries.
In 1900, Zitkala-Å a was sent by Carlisle's founder, Colonel Richard Henry Pratt, to the Yankton Reservation to recruit students. It was her first visit in several years, and she was greatly dismayed to find that her mother's house was in disrepair, her brother's family had fallen into poverty, and that white settlers were beginning to occupy lands allotted to the Yankton Dakota under the Dawes Act of 1887. Upon returning to the Carlisle School, she came into conflict with Pratt. She resented his rigid program of assimilation into dominant white culture and the limitations of the curriculum. It prepared Native American children only for low-level manual work, assuming they would return to rural cultures. In 1901 Zitkala-Å a was dismissed. That year she had published an article in Harper’s Monthly describing the profound loss of identity felt by a Native American boy after undergoing the assimilationist education at the school.
In order to care for her ailing mother and gather material for her collection of traditional Sioux stories, she returned to the Yankton Reservation in 1901.
In 1901 Zitkála-Šá began collecting stories to publish in Old Indian Legends, commissioned by the Boston publisher Ginn and Company. She took a job as a clerk at the Bureau of Indian Affairs office at Standing Rock Indian Reservation.
In 1902 she met and married Captain Raymond Talefase Bonnin. Of mixed race, he was culturally Yankton and had one-quarter Yankton Dakota ancestry. Soon after their marriage, Captain Bonnin was assigned to the Uintah-Ouray reservation in Utah. The couple lived and worked there with the Ute people for the next fourteen years. During this period, Zitkala-Å a gave birth to the couple's only son, Raymond Ohiya Bonnin.
Also during this period, Zitkála-Šá met American professor and composer William F. Hanson, who taught music at Brigham Young University in Utah. Together, in 1910, they started their collaboration on the music for The Sun Dance Opera, for which Zitkala-Sa wrote the libretto and songs. She based it on sacred Sioux ritual, which the federal government prohibited the Ute from performing on the reservation. The opera premiered in Utah in 1913, with dancing and some parts performed by the Ute; lead singing roles were filled by non-natives. It was the first opera to be co-authored by a Native American. It debuted to high local praise.

Zitkála-Šá by photographer
Gertrude Kasebier, 1898
Zitkála-Šá had a fruitful writing career, with two major periods. The first period was from 1900 to 1904, when she published legends collected from Native American culture, as well as autobiographical narratives. She continued to write during the following years, but she did not publish. These unpublished writings, along with others including the libretto of the Sun Dance Opera, were collected and published posthumously in 2001 as DREAMS AND THUNDER: STORIES, POEMS, AND THE SUN DANCE OPERA, edited by P. Jane Hafen.
Zitkála-Šá's articles in the Atlantic Monthly were published from 1900 to 1902. They included "An Indian Teacher Among Indians," published in Volume 85 in 1900. Included in the same issue were "Impressions of an Indian Childhood" and "School Days of an Indian Girl". All of these works were autobiographical in nature, describing in great detail her early experiences both on the reservation and her later conflict in struggling with assimilation to the dominant American culture.
Zitkála-Šá's other articles ran in Harper’s Monthly. "Soft-Hearted Sioux" appeared in the March 1901 issue, Volume 102, and "The Trial Path" in the October 1901 issue, Volume 103. She also wrote "A Warrior's Daughter", published in 1902 in Volume 6 of Everybody's Magazine. These works also were largely autobiographical in nature. Some recounted stories of people she knew or taught, in addition to her own personal story.
In 1902 Zitkála-Šá published "Why I Am A Pagan" in Atlantic Monthly, volume 90. It was a treatise on her personal spiritual beliefs. She countered the contemporary trend that suggested Native Americans readily adopted and conformed to the Christianity forced on them in schools and public life.
Much of her work is characterized by its liminal nature: tensions between tradition and assimilation, and between literature and politics. These tensions are expressed particularly in her autobiographical works. In her well-known American Indian Stories, for example, she both expresses a literary account of her life and delivers a political message. The narrative expresses her tension between wanting to follow the traditions of the Yankton Dakota while being excited about learning to read and write, and being tempted by assimilation. This tension has been described as generating much of the dynamism of her work.

Society of American Indians
The second period was from 1916 to 1924 after Zitkala-Å a and her husband had moved to Washington, D.C., where she became politically active. She published some of her most influential writings, including AMERICAN INDIAN STORIES (1921), with the Hayworth Publishing House. She co-authored OKLAHOMA’S POOR RICH INDIANS: AND ORGY OF GRAFT AND EXPLOITATION OF THE FIVE CIVILIZED TRIBES, LEGALIZED ROBBERY (1923), an influential pamphlet, with Charles H. Fabens of the American Indian Defense Association and Matthew K. Sniffen of the Indian Rights Association. She also created the Indian Welfare Committee of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs, working as a researcher for it through much of the 1920s.
AMERICAN INDIAN STORIES is a collection of childhood stories, allegorical fiction, and an essay, including several of Zitkála-Šá's articles that were originally published in Harper's Monthly and Atlantic Monthly. First published in 1921, these stories told of the hardships which she and other Native Americans encountered at the missionary and manual labor schools designed to "civilize" them and assimilate them to majority culture. The autobiographical writings described her early life on the Yankton Reservation, her years as a student at White's Manual Labor Institute and Earlham College, and her period teaching at Carlisle Indian Industrial School.
Her autobiography contrasted the charm of her early life on the reservation with the "iron routine" which she found in the assimilation boarding schools. Zitkala-Å a wrote: "Perhaps my Indian nature is the moaning wind which stirs them [schoolteachers] now for their present record. But, however tempestuous this is within me, it comes out as the low voice of a curiously colored seashell, which is only for those ears that are bent with compassion to hear it."
Commissioned by the Boston publisher Ginn and Company, OLD INDIAN LEGENDS (1901) was a collection of stories which she learned as child and had gathered from various tribes. Directed primarily at children, the collection was an attempt both to preserve Native American traditions and stories in print and to garner respect and recognition for those traditions from the dominant European-American culture.
One of Zitkála-Šá's most influential pieces of political writing, OKLAHOMA'S POOR RICH INDIANS, was published in 1923 by the Indian Rights Association. The article exposed several American corporations that had been working systematically, through such extra-legal means as robbery and even murder, to defraud Native American tribes, particularly the Osage, to their rights to leasing fees from development of their oil-rich land in Oklahoma. The work influenced Congress to pass the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, which encouraged tribes to re-establish self-government, including management of their lands. Under this act, the government returned some lands to them as communal property, which it had previously classified as surplus, so they could put together parcels that could be managed.
Zitkála-Šá was an active member of the Society of American Indians, which published the American Indian Magazine. From 1918 to 1919 she served as editor for the magazine, as well as contributing numerous articles. These were her most explicitly political writings, covering topics such as the contribution of Native American soldiers to World War I, issues of land allotment, and corruption within the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the agency within the Department of Interior that oversaw American Indians. Many of her political writings have since been criticized for favoring assimilation. She called for recognition of Native American culture and traditions, while also advocating US citizenship rights to bring Native Americans into mainstream America. She believed this was how they could gain political power and protect their cultures.
In 1910 Zitkala-Å a began collaborating with American composer William F. Hanson, who taught at Brigham Young University. She wrote the libretto and songs. She also played Sioux melodies on the violin, and Hanson used this as the basis of his music composition.
In February 1913, the premiere performance of The Sun Dance Opera was presented at Orpheus Hall in Vernal, Utah. The production featured members of the Ute Nation, who lived on the nearby Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation. It was significant for adapting the Native American oral musical tradition to a written one. Its debut was met with critical acclaim. Few works of Native American opera since have dealt so exclusively with Native American themes. However, in 1938 the New York Light Opera Guild premiered The Sun Dance Opera at The Broadway Theatre as its opera of the year. Its publicity credited only William F. Hanson as composer.
Bonnin also commented on the quality of education available to young Native Americans in a speech to a meeting of the Indian Rights Association in Atlantic City, New Jersey in December of 1928 : "The Indian race is starving-not only physically, but mentally and morally. It is a dire tragedy. The government Indian schools are not on a par with the American schools of today. The so-called 'Indian Graduates from Government Schools' cannot show any credentials that would be accepted by any business house. They are unable to pass the Civil Service examinations. The proviso in Indian treaties that educated Indians, wherever qualified, be given preference in Indian Service employment is rendered meaningless. Indians are kept ignorant and 'incompetent' to cope with the world's trained workers, because they are not sufficiently educated in the government schools."
Zitkála-Šá was politically active throughout most of her adult life. During her time on the Uintah-Ouray reservation in Utah, she joined the Society of American Indians, a progressive group formed in 1911. It was dedicated to preserving the Native American way of life while lobbying for the right to full American citizenship. The letterhead of the council stationary claimed that the overall goals for the Society of American Indians was to "help Indians help themselves in protecting their rights and properties".
Zitkala-Å a served as the SAI's secretary beginning in 1916. She edited its journal American Indian Magazine from 1918 to 1919. Since the late 20th century, activists have criticized the SAI and Zitkala-Å a as misguided in their strong advocacy of citizenship and employment rights for Native Americans. Such critics believe that Native Americans have lost cultural identity as they have become more part of mainstream American society.
As the secretary for the SAI, Zitkála-Šá corresponded with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. She began to criticize practices of the BIA, such as their attempt at the national boarding schools to prohibit Native American children from using their native languages and cultural practices. She reported incidents of abuse resulting from children's refusal to pray in the Christian manner. Her husband was dismissed from his BIA office at the Ute reservation in 1916. The couple and their son relocated to Washington D. C., where they thought to find allies.
From Washington, Zitkála-Šá began lecturing nationwide on behalf of the SAI to promote the cultural and tribal identity of Native Americans. During the 1920s she promoted a pan-Indian movement to unite all of America's tribes in the cause of lobbying for citizenship rights. In 1924 the Indian Citizenship Act was passed, granting US citizenship rights to most indigenous peoples who did not already have it. (About two-thirds of Native Americans were already citizens by the implementation of land allotment and other measures.)

She lectured wearing
traditional dress

In 1926 she and her husband founded the National Council of American Indians, dedicated to the cause of uniting the tribes throughout the U.S. in the cause of gaining full citizenship rights through suffrage. From 1926 until her death in 1938, Zitkala-Å a would serve as president, major fundraiser, and speaker for the NCAI. She was the major figure in those years. Her early work was largely disregarded after the organization was revived in 1944 under male leadership.
Zitkála-Šá was also active in the 1920s in the movement for women's rights, joining the General Federation of Women’s Clubs in 1921. This grassroots organization was dedicated to diversity in its membership and to maintaining a public voice for women's concerns. Through the GFWC she created the Indian Welfare Committee in 1924. She helped initiate a government investigation into the exploitation of Native Americans in Oklahoma and the attempts being made to defraud them of drilling rights and leasing fees for their oil-rich lands. 
Its influence contributed to Congressional passage of the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 under the President Franklin D. Roosevelt administration. He had high-level aides also working on American Indian issues to improve their lives. Sometimes described as the 'Indian New Deal,' the law encouraged tribes to restore and adopt self-government, along a model of elected representative government. It returned management of their lands to Native Americans.
In her work for the NCAI in 1924, Zitkála-Šá ran a voter-registration drive among Native Americans. She encouraged them to support the Curtis Bill, which she believed would be favorable for Indians. Though the bill granted Native Americans US citizenship, it did not grant those living on reservations the right to vote in local and state elections. Zitkala-Ša continued to work for civil rights, and better access to health care and education for Native Americans until her death in 1938.

Still attractive as
she aged

Zitkála-Šá died on January 26, 1938 in Washington, DC at the age of sixty-one. She is buried under the name of Gertrude Simmons Bonnin in Arlington National Cemetery. Since the late 20th century, the University of Nebraska has reissued many of her writings on Native American culture.
She has been recognized by the naming of a Venusian crater "Bonnin" in her honor. In 1997 she was designated a Women’s History Month Honoree by the National Women’s History Project.
Zitkala-Sa's legacy lives on as one of the most influential Native American activist of the twentieth century. She left with her an influential theory of Indian resistance and a crucial model for reform. Through her activism, Zitkala-Sa was able to make crucial changes to education, health care, legal standing of Native American people and the preservation of Indian culture.

Sources:


Caroline Clemmons writes western romance and mystery. Her latest release is ALEXANDRA'S AWAKENING, at the Universal Amazon link of http://mybook.to/Pearson 

Monday, April 22, 2019

PUT AWAY RESEARCH?

Post by Doris McCraw
writing as Angela Raines

The story's done. All the research you did can be put away. But how many really ever do that? For me research is never ending. Even tonight as I sat at the dinner table with friends, the subject of research and writing came up. I shared some of my favorite sites for finding information. I thought for this post I would share a few with you.

Photo property of the author
How many have used stories found on Ancestry to add to your story? When I was researching the paper on 'Joe Ward', I found he had used different names over time. Of course, in searching the areas he lived in, I found a plethora of information. The state of Missouri has digitized the histories of the counties, written by historians who lived there. For those who would like to see what they have to offer for Vernon County here is a link: Vernon County Missouri

Then of course there is Google Books: Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, Wyoming and Arizona Business Directory 1884
Library of Congress: Dance instruction manuals from 1490-1920
National Archives: Main Research Page

Of course, I also use my local library's special collections section; which include magazines and books which focus on Colorado and the Pikes Peak Region. This includes the various digitized newspapers, from Colorado Historic Newspapers, Pikes Peak Newsfinder, 19th Century Newspapers and Newspaper Archives. There is nothing like finding those little tidbits that add to the authenticity and joy to a story.

Arkansas River, Canon City, Colorado
Photo property of the author
In "The Outlaw's Letter", my heroine is traveling back to Colorado Springs to take in a horse and goat show. Yes, there really was a show that was advertised during the time she would have been in the area. It is those little gems I love including to add color.

"The Outlaw's Letter" has more specific historic information than most of my previous works. Those tidbits made writing the story so much fun.

How do you use research in your stories? I would love to know.

Below is a short excerpt from the above mentioned book:

Grant rode toward Canon City, the town he tried to avoid. He would just deal with whatever happened there. Hetty was more important.
An hour later, he came to a small cabin. "Hello the house?" Even when he called out, Hetty didn't respond. She was dead weight in his arms. If it weren't for the rise and fall of her chest, he'd have sworn she was dead.
A middle aged-looking woman came to the door. "What can I…" She began, then seeing Hetty she hurried forward. "What happened?"
"She fell from her horse and hit her head. She's still breathing, but…" Grant stopped, he didn't want to continue, didn't want to think what might happen. Taking a deep breath, Grant continued, "If I could leave her here while I go for a doctor?"
"Who is she?"
"My wife."
The woman nodded, heading to the door of the cabin. "Come on in. I'll have my boy go for the doctor, it'll be quicker."
Grant tried dismounting while he still held Hetty. He didn't want to let her go.
"Let me help. Know you want to hold on to her, but if you drop her..." the woman insisted.
Grant finally accepted the woman's help, but the minute his feet hit the ground he took Hetty back into his arms.
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Doris Gardner-McCraw -
Author, Speaker, Historian-specializing in
Colorado and Women's History
Angela Raines - author: Where Love & History Meet
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