Heard Museum's American Indian boarding school exhibit gets updates

The Heard Museum will use a $60,445 grant to expand its popular American Indian boarding schools exhibit over the next two years.

The National Endowment for the Humanities grant will go toward updating information in the exhibit and to better using technology with touchscreens and interactive displays.

The Heard will also create a traveling exhibition for museums across the country, a panel exhibit for local use and an updated catalog documenting the experiences of American Indians who attended boarding schools.

“The refresh will be important, I think, to bring attention back to this subject that seems to continue to be lost in history,” Heard Museum interim Director John Bulla said.

The “Remembering Our Indian School Days: The Boarding School Experience” exhibit opened at the Heard Museum in 2000 and was originally expected to last three years.

The overwhelming public interest has kept the exhibit open the past 15 years, according to curator Janet Cantley, who said Native American attendance at the museum nearly doubled after the exhibition opened.

“They all know and have a boarding school story in their background. Non-natives come through here and their jaws just drop,” Cantley said.

The exhibit highlights a side of history for which many people are unaware: a time when the federal government removed children from their homes on tribal reservations and sent them to far-off boarding schools.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs opened the first boarding school in Pennsylvania in 1879 to assimilate Native American children into the larger American culture.

The children were prohibited from speaking their native language as they were taught English and introduced to Christianity. The children were stripped of their American Indian identity as they were forced to wear uniforms and cut their hair.

Siblings were often forced apart and children were not allowed to return home during summers.

The impact on tribes was immeasurable. American Indian Rosemary Christiansen is quoted in the exhibit, calling the schools, "the Hiroshima of Indian education because it basically destroyed the fiber of our family life."

In 1928, the federal government policy changed so that the schools became voluntary.

The boarding schools were eventually reformed and tribal leaders gained greater control of curriculum. The boarding schools eventually became a place of Native American spirit and community, with around 30 different schools run by the Bureau of Indian Affairs during the peak, and many more community schools throughout the country.

The exhibit highlights not only the traumatic history but the tradition that the boarding schools created, recognizing the four Indian schools that remain open across the country.

Valley residents may recognize Indian School Road from their daily commutes; the road was named after the Phoenix Indian School.

The school opened in 1891 with a peak enrollment of 900 students who came from 23 tribes in Arizona, New Mexico, California, Nevada and Oregon. ​

The Phoenix Indian School remained open for 99 years, with its last graduating class in 1990. The location is now Steele Indian School Park, where three original school buildings remain. Among them is the band room, which groups are working to renovate.

A small exhibit featuring selections from the Heard’s collection is on display in the Heritage Gallery at Heritage Square through the end of the year. The exhibit highlights the Phoenix Indian School and features artifacts and panels regarding its history.

Arizona was also the home to another boarding school, Fort Mohave Indian School on the reservation in Fort Mohave. The school was open from 1890 until the 1930s.

“Remembering Our Indian School Days: The Boarding School Experience” can be viewed during museum hours 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday.

5 facts about American Indian boarding schools

The students were usually 12-21 years old. However, some boarding schools, such as the Haskell Institute in Kansas, had children as young as 3. Many of the schools had cemeteries, as many students died during their first few years in the boarding schools due to tuberculosis and other illness. Many boarding schools held Indian Princess pageants, modeled after Miss America competitions. The Native American tradition of powwows is believed to have been popularized in part from boarding schools and the mixing of different tribes' traditions and styles of dance. Jim Thorpe, an Olympic medalist who played professional football, baseball and basketball, attended Carlisle Boarding School in Pennsylvania, where he ran track.

Source: Heard Museum