The Life of Elaine Goodale Eastman

Readers of this journal probably know Elaine Goodale Eastman (1863–1953) as an advocate of Indian assimilation in the 1880s who later became a prominent opponent of the Indian New Deal in the 1930s. Some may have read her memoirs, Sister to the Sioux (ed. Kay Graber, 1978), or the works of her husband, Dr. Charles Alexander Eastman (Ohiyesa), a Santee Sioux physician whose autobiographical writings and retellings of native tales were shaped by her collaboration, as noted in Ohiyesa (1983), Raymond Wilson's biography, which described their difficult marriage from Charles Eastman's viewpoint. An entirely different path brought biographer Theodore D. Sargent to his subject. This professor emeritus of biology at Amherst, seeking poetic treatments of New England flora, came across Apple-Blossoms (1878), a book of poems Eastman and her sister had published when they were preteens. Sargent located a former Goodale family home near Amherst, Massachusetts, and for him the historian's favorite fantasy came true: descendants still living there had a trunk full of old letters, journals, and photos that they were willing to share

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• The Indian history of an American institution

  Open Access•Colin G Calloway•The Indian history of an American…•2010

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