D’Arcy McNickle Center for American Indian and Indigenous Studies
Founded in 1972, the D'Arcy McNickle Center for American Indian and Indigenous Studies brings together scholars, teachers, students, tribal historians, and Native community members to promote research and improve the representation of Native peoples and histories in education and writing.
Community gathered at the Newberry for the launch of the Indigenous Chicago Project in September 2024.
Upcoming Events
Tribal Outreach and Collaboration
Building reciprocal relationships with Native communities is a cornerstone of the McNickle Center’s work. The Center is committed to supporting tribal nations’ research priorities through digitization, the identification of culturally sensitive materials in the Newberry’s collection, fellowships, trainings, visits, and more.
Consortium
The Newberry Consortium in American Indian and Indigenous Studies (NCAIS) provides essential training for graduate students in Indigenous Studies. Every year, students from member universities are invited to hone their research skills at a spring workshop, delve into the Newberry collection during a summer institute, and present their work at a graduate conference.
Projects
Special projects and initiatives run by the McNickle Center aim to shift how we study, teach, learn, and discuss Native history. For example, as part of "Indigenous Chicago," the center is currently partnering with Native communities to reposition Chicago as an Indigenous place and reframe how Chicagoans view the city's past, present, and future.
About the McNickle Center
YouTube
View past programs and lectures from the McNickle Center on the Newberry's YouTube channel.
Staff
Madison Bastress is the Director of the D’Arcy McNickle Center for American Indian and Indigenous Studies at the Newberry Library. She holds a PhD in History from New York University. A non-Native historian, her research considers seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Native and environmental histories across the Great Lakes. Previously, she was a visiting scholar at the Myaamia Center, an initiative directed by the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma in partnership with Miami University. She is also a member of the Reclaiming Stories Project team, a cultural revitalization project led by the Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma and the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma that has resulted in multiple community-led learning labs and exhibitions.
Haku Blaisdell (Kanaka Maoli) is the Associate Director for Outreach and Strategy of the Newberry Library’s D’Arcy McNickle Center for American Indian and Indigenous Studies. In this role, she serves as the liaison between tribal nations and the Newberry. She’s honored and grateful for the opportunity to be a part of the work that reconnects Native communities with their materials that the Newberry currently stewards. She comes to this role with a B.S. in Education from Northwestern University and a background in Native American and Indigenous Studies. She also brings community engagement experience from her time interning at the Field Museum during the creation of the Native Truths exhibition. Ultimately, she credits her upbringing as a proud Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) for bringing her to this role.
Sarah Jimenez is a tribally enrolled member of the M’Chigeeng First Nation in Ontario, Canada. She has been the Program Coordinator at the McNickle Center since Summer 2019.
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Research Fellowships
We offer short-term fellowship opportunities for scholars who are citizens or documented descendants of federally recognized tribal nations in the United States and Native Hawaiian individuals.
View FellowshipsLand Acknowledgment
The Newberry sits on land that intersects with the aboriginal homelands of several tribal nations.
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