A New Deal for Native Art

A New Deal for Native Art PDF

Author: Jennifer McLerran

Publisher: University of Arizona Press

Published: 2022-08-16

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13: 0816550379

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As the Great Depression touched every corner of America, the New Deal promoted indigenous arts and crafts as a means of bootstrapping Native American peoples. But New Deal administrators' romanticization of indigenous artists predisposed them to favor pre-industrial forms rather than art that responded to contemporary markets. In A New Deal for Native Art, Jennifer McLerran reveals how positioning the native artist as a pre-modern Other served the goals of New Deal programs—and how this sometimes worked at cross-purposes with promoting native self-sufficiency. She describes federal policies of the 1930s and early 1940s that sought to generate an upscale market for Native American arts and crafts. And by unraveling the complex ways in which commodification was negotiated and the roles that producers, consumers, and New Deal administrators played in that process, she sheds new light on native art’s commodity status and the artist’s position as colonial subject. In this first book to address the ways in which New Deal Indian policy specifically advanced commodification and colonization, McLerran reviews its multi-pronged effort to improve the market for Indian art through the Indian Arts and Crafts Board, arts and crafts cooperatives, murals, museum exhibits, and Civilian Conservation Corps projects. Presenting nationwide case studies that demonstrate transcultural dynamics of production and reception, she argues for viewing Indian art as a commodity, as part of the national economy, and as part of national political trends and reform efforts. McLerran marks the contributions of key individuals, from John Collier and Rene d’Harnoncourt to Navajo artist Gerald Nailor, whose mural in the Navajo Nation Council House conveyed distinctly different messages to outsiders and tribal members. Featuring dozens of illustrations, A New Deal for Native Art offers a new look at the complexities of folk art “revivals” as it opens a new window on the Indian New Deal.

The Iroquois and the New Deal

The Iroquois and the New Deal PDF

Author: Laurence M. Hauptman

Publisher: Syracuse University Press

Published: 1988-03-01

Total Pages: 284

ISBN-13: 9780815624394

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The New Deal era changed Iroquois Indian existence. The time between the world wars proved a watershed in the history of Indian white relations, during which some of the most far-reaching legislation in Indian history was passed, including the Indian Reorganizat1on Act. Until recently, scholars have acclaimed the 1930s as a model of Indian administration, praising the work of John Collier, then comm1ss1oner of Indian affairs. Among the Indians, however, a less-than-beneficial heritage remains from th1s era. To many of today's Native Americans these were years of increased discord and factionalism marked by non-Indian tampering with existing tribal political systems. Whenever the government directly intervened in Iroquois tribal affairs—or arbitrarily imposed uniform legislation from distant Washington—the Indians' New Deal suffered. It succeeded only when the government worked slowly to cultivate the backing of prominent leaders and achieved community-based support. Nonetheless, government programs stimulated a flowering of Iroquois culture, both in art and in language, and new Indian leadership emerged as a result of, or in reaction to, government policies. Laurence Hauptman argues that overall the work of the New Deal in Iroquoia should be seen as having done more good than harm.

The Return of the Native

The Return of the Native PDF

Author: Stephen Cornell

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 1990-07-19

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 0190281707

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An incisive look at American Indian and Euro-American relations from the 16th century to the present, this book focuses on how such relations have shaped the Native American political identity and tactics in the ongoing struggle for power. Cornell shows how, in the early days of colonization, Indians were able to maintain their nationhood by playing off the competing European powers; and how the American Revolution and westward expansion eventually caused Native Americans to lose their land, social cohesion, and economic independence. The final part of the book recounts the slow, steady reemergence of American Indian political power and identity, evidenced by militant political activism in the 1960s and early 1970s. By paying particular attention to the evolution of Indian groups as collective actors and to changes over time in Indian political opportunities and their capacities to act on those opportunities, Cornell traces the Indian path from power to powerlessness and back to power again.

The Tribal Moment in American Politics

The Tribal Moment in American Politics PDF

Author: Christine K. Gray

Publisher: AltaMira Press

Published: 2013-05-23

Total Pages: 231

ISBN-13: 0759123810

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In the “tribal moment in American politics,” which occurred from the 1950s to the mid- to late-1970s, American Indians waged civil disobedience for tribal self-determination and fought from within the U.S. legal and political systems. The U.S. government responded characteristically, overall wielding its authority in incremental, frequently double-edged ways that simultaneously opened and restricted tribal options. The actions of Native Americans and public officials brought about a new era of tribal-American relations in which tribal sovereignty has become a central issue, underpinning self-determination, and involving the tribes, states, and federal government in intergovernmental cooperative activities as well as jurisdictional skirmishes. American Indian tribes struggle still with the impacts of a capitalist economy on their traditional ways of life. Most rely heavily on federal support. Yet they have also called on tribal sovereignty to protect themselves. Asking how and why the United States is willing to accept tribal sovereignty, this book examines the development of the “order” of Indian affairs. Beginning with the nation’s founding, it brings to light the hidden assumptions in that order. It examines the underlying deep contradictions that have existed in the relationship between the United States and the tribes as the order has evolved, up to and into the “tribal moment.”

Native American Tribalism

Native American Tribalism PDF

Author: D'Arcy McNickle

Publisher: New York : Published for the Institute of Race Relations, London by Oxford University Press

Published: 1993

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13: 0195084225

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Contrary to the white man's early expectations, the Indian tribes of North America neither vanished nor assimilated. Despite almost 400 years of contact with the dominant--and usually domineering--Western civilization, Native Americans have maintained their cultural identity, the size, social organization, and frequently the location of their population, and their unique position before the law. Now brought up to date with a new introduction by Peter Iverson, this classic book reviews the history of contact between whites and Indians, explaining how the aboriginal inhabitants of North America have managed to remain an ethnic and cultural enclave within American and Canadian society from colonial times to the present day. The late D'Arcy McNickle--renowned anthropologist and member of the Flathead Tribe of Montana--shows that while Native Americans have always been eager to adopt the knowledge and technology of white society, they carefully adapt these changes to fit into their own culture. Iverson's introduction discusses McNickle's singular contribution to Native American Studies, and provides an overview of recent events and scholarship in the field. With its comprehensive coverage and unique perspective, the new edition of "Native American Tribalism" is essential reading for those who want to understand the past and present of our first Americans.

Tribal Worlds

Tribal Worlds PDF

Author: Brian Hosmer

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 2013-03-04

Total Pages: 326

ISBN-13: 1438446314

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Tribal Worlds considers the emergence and general project of indigenous nationhood in several geographical and historical settings in Native North America. Ethnographers and historians address issues of belonging, peoplehood, sovereignty, conflict, economy, identity, and colonialism among the Northern Cheyenne and Kiowa on the Plains, several groups of the Ojibwe, the Makah of the Northwest, and two groups of Iroquois. Featuring a new essay by the eminent senior scholar Anthony F. C. Wallace on recent ethnographic work he has done in the Tuscarora community, as well as provocative essays by junior scholars, Tribal Worlds explores how indigenous nationhood has emerged and been maintained in the face of aggressive efforts to assimilate Native peoples.

Oklahoma's Indian New Deal

Oklahoma's Indian New Deal PDF

Author: Jon S. Blackman

Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press

Published: 2013-06-14

Total Pages: 238

ISBN-13: 0806189223

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Among the New Deal programs that transformed American life in the 1930s was legislation known as the Indian New Deal, whose centerpiece was the Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) of 1934. Oddly, much of that law did not apply to Native residents of Oklahoma, even though a large percentage of the country’s Native American population resided there in the 1930s and no other state was home to so many different tribes. The Oklahoma Indian Welfare Act (OIWA), passed by Congress in 1936, brought Oklahoma Indians under all of the IRA’s provisions, but included other measures that applied only to Oklahoma’s tribal population. This first book-length history of the OIWA explains the law’s origins, enactment, implementation, and impact, and shows how the act played a unique role in the Indian New Deal. In the early decades of the twentieth century, white farmers, entrepreneurs, and lawyers used allotment policies and other legal means to gain control of thousands of acres of Indian land in Oklahoma. To counter the accumulated effects of this history, the OIWA specified how tribes could strengthen government by adopting new constitutions, and it enabled both tribes and individual Indians to obtain financial credit and land. Virulent opposition to the bill came from oil, timber, mining, farming, and ranching interests. Jon S. Blackman’s narrative of the legislative battle reveals the roles of bureaucrats, politicians, and tribal members in drafting and enacting the law. Although the OIWA encouraged tribes to organize for political and economic purposes, it yielded mixed results. It did not produce a significant increase in Indian land ownership in Oklahoma, and only a small percentage of Indian households applied for OIWA loans. Yet the act increased member participation in tribal affairs, enhanced Indian relations with non-Indian businesses and government, promoted greater Indian influence in government programs—and, as Blackman shows, became a springboard to the self-determination movements of the 1950s and 1960s.

Why the New Deal Matters

Why the New Deal Matters PDF

Author: Eric Rauchway

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2021-04-06

Total Pages: 231

ISBN-13: 0300252005

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A look at how the New Deal fundamentally changed American life, and why it remains relevant today" The New Deal was America's response to the gravest economic and social crisis of the twentieth century. It now serves as a source of inspiration for how we should respond to the gravest crisis of the twenty-first. There's no more fluent and informative a guide to that history than Eric Rauchway, and no one better to describe the capacity of government to transform America for the better."--Barry Eichengreen, University of California, Berkeley The greatest peaceable expression of common purpose in U.S. history, the New Deal altered Americans' relationship with politics, economics, and one another in ways that continue to resonate today. No matter where you look in America, there is likely a building or bridge built through New Deal initiatives. If you have taken out a small business loan from the federal government or drawn unemployment, you can thank the New Deal. While certainly flawed in many aspects--the New Deal was implemented by a Democratic Party still beholden to the segregationist South for its majorities in Congress and the Electoral College--the New Deal was instated at a time of mass unemployment and the rise of fascistic government models and functioned as a bulwark of American democracy in hard times. This book looks at how this legacy, both for good and ill, informs the current debates around governmental responses to crises.