Hawgon-Silverhorn drawings
Ayer Collection, Newberry Library
The D'Arcy McNickle Center for American Indian History was founded in 1972. Its goals are to encourage the use of the Newberry collections in American Indian and Indigenous studies (see the American Indian History Collection); improve the quality of what is written about American Indians and Indigenous peoples; educate teachers about American Indian and Indigenous cultures, histories, and literatures; assist American Indian tribal and Indigenous historians in their research; and provide a meeting ground where scholars, teachers, tribal historians, and others interested in American Indian and Indigenous studies can discuss their work with each other.
The McNickle Center's staff, affiliated research projects, and fellows have played a major role in shaping modern scholarship on American Indian and Indigenous studies. In its first two decades the Center hosted nearly one hundred pre- and post-doctoral scholars on long-term fellowships, generally of six to eleven months duration. During the same period nearly two hundred short-term fellows spent between two weeks and two months conducting research at the Newberry. These long and short-term fellows have produced nearly forty books and dozens of scholarly articles.
These initiatives broaden the McNickle Center's mission and compliment our other activities. The Center sponsors conferences, seminars, and workshops for scholars and teachers; administers several fellowship programs; and publishes Meeting Ground, a national newsletter. It is also home to the Newberry Consortium in American Indian Studies (NCAIS).
Links
Contact Us
D'Arcy McNickle Center for
American Indian History
The Newberry Library
60 West Walton Street
Chicago, IL 60610-3380
Phone: (312)255 3564
mcnickle@newberry.org
Phone (312) 255-3564
Scott Stevens, Director
Phone (312) 255 3563
stevenss@newberry.org
Loretta Fowler, Editor
Indians of the Midwest project
fowlerl@newberry.org
Brian Mornar, Research Assistant
mornarb@newberry.org
Jade Cabagnot, Program Assistant
Phone (312) 255-3564
cabagnotj@newberry.org
Mailing List
To be added to our mailing list, send an email request to mcnickle@newberry.org.
Seminars and Programs
December 19, 10:30am - 12:30pm
Exhibition Lecture - Lincoln and Native America from the Black Hawk War to the Presidency
Panelists: Scott Stevens, The Newberry Library (chair); Gary C. Anderson, University of Oklahoma; Jennifer Denetdale, Northern Arizona University, John W. Hall, University of Wisconsin-Madison
A few days before Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, the United States government executed 38 Dakota prisoners of war in Mankato, Minnesota after Lincoln himself had reviewed their cases. Just over a year later, in 1864, Lincoln’s administration supported the forced removal of the Navajo from their homeland to a reservation in New Mexico. As a young man Lincoln served in the Black Hawk War, a conflict that he used later to great political effect, but which had immediate, grave consequences for the Sac and Fox peoples in Illinois. How does an understanding of Lincoln’s treatment of and policy toward Native peoples help us reconsider Lincoln’s legacy? The panelists will engage in a discussion with the audience after their presentations.
Admission is free. No reservations are required.
Visit two exhibitions on display at the Newberry: With Malice Toward None: The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Exhibition, a Library of Congress exhibition, and Honest Abe of the West, an exhibition of the Newberry Library's collections.
This program is supported in part by the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission and by a grant from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services.
American Indian Studies Seminar Series
D'Arcy McNickle Center launched the Seminar Series in American Indian Studies in the fall 2008. The seminars feature scholarly discussion of papers based on work-in-progress. Faculty, graduate students, and independent scholars are urged to attend and to circulate news of this forum to colleagues. The seminar meets at the Newberry Library on Thursdays, 4-5:30. We will pre-circulate papers to those planning to attend. E-mail mcnickle@newberry.org, or call (312) 255-3564 to receive a copy of the paper. Papers are available for request two weeks prior to the seminar date.
NEH Summer Institute for College & University Teachers
June 14-July 9, 2010
From Metacom to Tecumseh: Alliances, Conflicts, and Resistance in Native North America
This 4-week institute will examine the complex and shifting alliances between various Indian nations of North America and European colonists competing for land and political ascendancy in regions east of the Mississippi between the years 1675 and 1815. The institute will feature four guest lecturers in American Indian studies, American history, art history, and literature, as well as Newberry staff experts in cartography and American Indian materials in the Ayer Collection. 25 participants will be drawn from across academic disciplines and institutions and encouraged to share their expertise and approaches to pedagogy.
Faculty in order of their visits are:
June 14-18, 2010 Prof. Jenny Hale Pulsipher, Brigham Young University.
June 21-25, 2010 Prof. Stephanie Pratt (Dakota), University of Plymouth.
June 28-July 2, 2010 Prof. Jon Parmenter, Cornell University.
July 5-9, 2010 Prof. Greg Dowd, University of Michigan.