Doorway Toward the Light. The Story of the Special Navajo Education Program
Washington, D.C. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs, 1962. 1st Edition. Quarto, publisher’s photo-illustrated stiff paper wraps.
Official government report from 1962 detailing the development of the Special Navajo Education program. Considered a "hidden part of American history," the post-war initiative sought to prepare students to leave their reservation communities and assimilate as low-status workers in white American society. Focusing largely on the Sherman Institute in Riverside, California (one of a hundred off-reservation boarding schools founded in 1903), the report highlights a central plank of the larger federal effort to solve what was seen as the ongoing "Indian problem." Includes a brief history of the economy and culture of the Navajo people, a draft of the program, a discussion of curriculum changes and additions, information on the establishment of the Intermountain School in Utah, and several appendices. Extensively illustrated with black-and-white photos. Some soiling and light foxing to wraps. Very good. A compelling document of the US's strained relationship with a fundamental part of its history. Item #7991
$35.00