• Bureau of Indian affairs read it effort to assimilate Indians into American society
  • they wanted to convert Native American women into middle-class housewives
  • reservation days schools and reservation Orting schools and off reservation industrial schools
  • the federal government wanted to take away the cultural heritage of Indians
  • they wanted to transform them into a government version of the ideal American housewife
  • they wanted to have women trained as good housewives so they would help their future husbands assimilate into white society
  • they believe that Indian women were like slaves and needed to be saved
  • in reality Native Americans shared the domestic housework with their wives
  • they wanted to train women for industry or homemaking
  • 1870s tribes are in reservations the government tried to provide education for Indians of both sexes
  • at first they brought Indian girls to a black school in Hampton
  • girls were taught strict obedience
  • in Carlisle they learned to so, laundry, cooking and the routine of a household
  • they placed girls with white families to learn by association it was called the outing system
  • by 1880 the programs grew
  • the girls were 8 to 24 years old they made their own close washed and ironed and did housework
  • student labor were keeping the schools afloat they were unpaid slaves
  • the government expected American citizens to be produced out of these schools
  • the school started to have a military feel
  • some of the girls learned useless things like how to serve raw oysters and shrimp cocktails and how to cook on a gas stove even though there were no stoves on the reservations
  • there are only good reports out of the schools all the bad reviews were counted
  • the Indian schools started to operate as employment agencies finding jobs for former students with local families
  • the Indian Bureau was the largest employer a former stews
  • some of the tribes didn’t appreciate the girls education and girls became outcasts on the reservation
  • despite criticism the woman’s educational program at nonreservation boarding schools operated without much change until after 1920
  • the girls did most of the domestic labor at the schools and return to the reservation to assume traditional roles or except some small government job
  • by 1928 the Meriam report reformers wanted a complete change in the it Indian educational system

 

Rules for Indian schools 1890

  1. Sabbath must be observed
  2. all instruction in English
  3. must have instruction in music with singing
  4. in case of emergency only students can be removed otherwise they cannot be moved or transferred
  5. school building should be furnished with plain inexpensive furniture and dorms need homes pair shoe nail toothbrushes and brooms to form exact habits and personal neatness
  6. food with the regular bill of fare for each day of the week should be prepared and follow served regularly and neatly the table attractive and there needs to be an employee to watch table manners
  7. the uniform style of clothing
  8. a flag at every school
  9. they need to be taught sports of white people baseball hopscotch croquet marbles beanbags at dominoes checkers and the girls knitting netting crocheting embroidery
  10. Cpl. punishment grave violation of rules
  11. no bad language

Industrial Training

  1. industrial training part of each workday
  2. a farm and garden and orchard connected to the school
  3. horses cattle farm animals available
  4. girls that housekeeping and dairy work mending garments to nursing care for the sick cooking and laundry washing ironing
  5. a few boys can become blacksmiths
  6. use and care of that walls and implements in keep them in order